17 posts tagged “baseball”

My Collin Earned the Game Ball!

Oct 19, 2009
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Collin finally earned a game ball in tonight's game. He struck out twice, and on his third at bat, he hit a grounder to the infield. Fortunately, whoever threw it to first base overthrew, and the first baseman missed the ball, so Collin ran to second. He hit a double and got 2 RBIs!! The next batter got a hit and Collin listened to Coach Jeff perfectly and ran all the way home. He slid into home because he knew the throw was coming. It was close, but he was safe! We really needed the run. All of the coaches congratulated him and Coach Josh even picked him up and carried him into the dugout. It was a big night for Collin, and I'm so glad his coaches recognized that. We are really blessed that he is on the Blue Jays this season.

And just as an aside, the reason this is such a big deal is because Collin is not a fast runner. He told me yesterday he wanted a game ball, and I told him he had to hustle. So he did! Yay, Collin!

Here he is proudly holding his game ball...

Collin and His Game Ball

Since UT is No Longer Trying To Lose

Oct 10, 2009
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The Texas/Colorado game is in the 4th quarter, and I'm so happy (and relieved) that Texas has decided they want to win. I thought I'd take a minute while I'm sitting in front of the tv and do some blogging.

Things have been moving fast around here, just like always. I will resort to my old crutch, the bullet point, to bring you up to speed on the happenings at our house.

-I just finished my first long term sub job at the kids' elementary school. It was a 4 week job teaching the gifted and talented class and it was the perfect job to get me back into the swing of elementary education. I enjoyed myself, got reacquainted with the elementary way of doing things, and had some great learning experiences. I think I still was in a preschool mindset as it took me much longer to explain things than it should have, and I realized within the last week that I was explaining things too much, and not leaving much for the kids to figure out on their own. Mental note taken.

-I was offered my second long term sub job, which made me very happy and was a great little ego boost as the principal wouldn't have offered it to me if I had not been doing a good job with the GT class. This one starts in early November and is a 2nd grade class. My biggest behavior problem in the GT classes is in this homeroom, and it's going to be a challenge, but I will surely grow from it.

-My second round of measurements for the Total Transformation contest was yesterday. All numbers went down, including weight. Yay! At my September measurement, my weight had not changed, even though inches and body fat percentage all went down, and Mandi (the trainer) told me to step up my cardio and only do weights twice a week. Evidently this was my magic bullet and I have made myself run on the treadmill and make sure that my heartrate is in the correct range while doing cardio and it has made all the difference. Now that things are in motion, I look forward to seeing how I do over the next 4 weeks.

-Brendan and Collin are playing baseball and enjoying themselves. Collin has a fantastic coach and we are so grateful that Coach Jeff got Collin on his team. He has improved greatly since the beginning of the season, and it has required a lot of patience from Coach Jeff and the assistant coaches. Cole is coaching Brendan's team again, and they are having a mediocre season. They, too, have improved, but for some reason they just can't get their stuff together completely.

-Kaelin is taking jazz and ballet and she really loves her jazz class. She is bored with ballet, but was told by the owner of her dance studio that she needs to take ballet in addition to whatever other class she wants to take. She doesn't complain about it, but she doesn't really like it. She is loving 3rd grade and is still quite the social butterfly.

There are 6 minutes left in the football game, and it appears that Texas has a victory wrapped up. It shouldn't have taken them the whole first half to get this far ahead, but I'm just glad they got here. Hook 'em, Horns!!

Go Marlins!

Mar 8, 2009
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Collin's t-ball team is the Marlins this season. So far he has gotten some good hits and he's made a couple of outs while playing third base. One of which was the final out of the game last night, and the Marlins won! He has a new coach this season, but he likes Coach Jerry and is having a lot of fun. I'm excited to see him develop his baseball skills over the rest of the season. This is his last time to play t-ball - next season we move to coach pitch.

Baseball DVD

Nov 22, 2008
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I made Brendan's baseball team a keepsake DVD of their season. If I may say so myself, it was pretty darn good for an amateur!! ; ) One of the dads asked for me to send it to him in an MPEG format, which diminished the quality, but it allows for it to be online. The real DVD has a really cool iDVD beginning, and it, too, was lost in the changing of formats. But anyway, here's the link if you want to watch it.

Their team name was the Bears and they had an incredible season. They won the end of season tournament, which made them the champions. It was awesome! I gave up a Mercy Me concert ticket to be there at the championship game and it was worth it. I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

The video footage is from the whole season, and the pictures are all from the end of season tournament. Enjoy!

Another All-Star in the Family

Oct 7, 2008
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Collin hit a triple in his t-ball game earlier tonight. The ball made it into left field, and almost to the fence. He ran to second base and there was no stopping him - he was going to third! After the game he asked me if I saw him run to third base. Of course I did.

Music Builds, Baseball Tournament, and 2 Years Ago

Oct 5, 2008
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Last Thursday I headed to Dallas to pick up Bari, Sunnie, and Wendy at DFW. I was looking forward to seeing them

Jason and Me

as well as other friends at the Music Builds show. As much as I like Switchfoot, I was very hesitant to attend the concert because I'm still not used to the idea of Third Day without Brad Avery. So I figured I would watch Switchfoot and then go entertain myself for the duration of Third Day's set, and then hang with my friends some more. Little did I know that while standing in line for the Switchfoot Meet and Greet (yes, I finally got to meet them) I would get an incredible surprise. I heard Bari call my name and I looked over at her and she was standing with somebody that I hadn't seen in 2 years! This person is somebody that I had prayed for numerous times and hoped that I would see again someday, but didn't really see it happening. And then there he was. It was amazing. I ended up chatting with him during Third Day's entire set, which was perfect because I wasn't sure that I really wanted to watch it anyway. It was a good night.

I had blogged last February about what a fantastic show Switchfoot plays. It is a loud, rocking show, and they get the crowd going! I love watching them live and I loved meeting them at the Meet and Greet. They were very friendly and were happy to take pictures.

And onto baseball...Brendan's team is playing in the midseason tournament this year. He has a game at 2, which means I need to wrap this up and get to the field. Right now they are undefeated. If they win at 2, they play in the championship tonight. They have played so hard this season. I hope they arrive at the field ready to play at 2!! It would be awesome to see them get to the championship, and even better to see them win it!

Pictures to follow - I've got to get to the field and cheer for the Bears!!

Edit: The Bears lost by 1 point so I'm home. Here are some pics...

It's Baseball Season Again

Sep 3, 2008
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Collin's first baseball game was last night. He is playing t-ball for the third season. The name of his team is Blue Thunder. Collin has finally realized that while he is on the field there is a baseball game going on around him. He watches the ball and tries to get it when it's been hit. Last night he was playing catcher, and he's got a long way to go in that position, but he's doing very well with the other ones.

I have been bad about taking pictures of him, so I made sure I took the camera last night. I got pictures of him yawning in the outfield, waving to a baserunner for the other team, and several pictures from his first at bat. As always the highlight of the game is the post-game snack. He lives for that.

Vacation Video, Toronto

Aug 24, 2008
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O Canada

Aug 24, 2008
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DSC08765

We visited Canada for the first time while on vacation. We stayed on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls for a couple of days, and then drove to Toronto. I was anxious to experience life outside of the U.S. for a few days. It was a neat experience, but not all that different from here. I enjoyed Toronto very much. It's a great city with some beautiful buildings and what used to be the highest tower in the world. Our hotel room was very modern - reminded me of the Ikea catalog - and I liked it very much. We had a beautiful view of the city from our 15th floor window.

While we were planning this trip, it occurred to me that there is a MLB team in Toronto, so I hopped on over to their website to see if the Blue Jays would be playing while we were there. Sure enough, they had a home game on the schedule, and it was against the Yankees, so it was perfect! Our seats were good and it was a lot of fun, except the Yankees lost. Brendan was kind of bummed about that.

My favorite thing that we did in Toronto was a boat ride to an island just across the harbor. On this island there is an amusement park, a petting zoo, fountains, bridges, a beach on Lake Ontario, and some more things that we didn't even get to. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. I can finally say I have seen one of the Great Lakes, and I think this is very cool.

The last pictures from our trip are in this post. I have to put together the last video - I will post it as soon as I get it done.

Baseball Season is Officially Over

Jun 29, 2008
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The month of June at our house was consumed by baseball. Brendan made the All-Star team and Cole was the head coach, so we lived and breathed baseball. This morning our season ended with a loss to a team that we had beaten before, and should have beaten again. You won't believe this story.

LCP has 3 All-Star teams for 9 -10 year old American league. I don't agree with the way we form our All-Star teams, but that's a different blogpost. Team 1 is the best with teams 2 and 3 following. We were Team 2. We never had to play Team 1, but we played and beat Team 3 easily. Playing other LCP teams is kind of tricky...we're all from the same league, and we know most of the players and their parents, so it's kind of hard to root against them. This morning our game was at 9:00, and if we had won, we would have played in the championship at 11:00. So on with the story...

What happened this morning was the stupidest thing I have ever seen occur on a baseball field. The other team batted first...except they didn't actually bat. They were told by their coaches to stand and take pitches and walk around the bases. This strategy shouldn't have worked, but we had the worst umpire in history, and he wouldn't call a pitch a strike unless it hit the catcher's mitt perfectly. As Brendan said, "his strike zone was 1 square inch." Brendan was not exaggerating. We went through 4 pitchers in 3 innings. Three of our pitchers broke down in tears (mind you these are 9 and 10 year old boys who have pitched for a few seasons already...they are good pitchers) because they were throwing great pitches, and it didn't matter because that umpire wouldn't call strikes.

In addition to the mess that was happening on the field, the opposing team's parents' behavior was atrocious. I always hear how badly parents behave at kids' sporting events, but we've never really observed it for ourselves. I've witnessed very loud parents who were cheering for their team, and even though it gets annoying after a while, that's what parents do and as long as the cheering is positive, I have no problem with it. But these parents were completely without tact or class. They cheered and made comments when Cole pulled Brendan from pitcher, they were saying things about our guys when they were batting like, "This kid can't hit," or "he's not gonna swing." And they had 3 parents who were standing behind the catcher who were yelling on every close pitch to try and startle our batters and make them swing. This is bad enough, but it gets better.

Any of you who know us, and know Cole, know that he is one of the calmest, most laid back people you could ever meet. He gets mad and/or frustrated just like we all do, but you'd never know it. After the game was over, he said something to the umpire about how he had the smallest strike zone he had ever seen, and the umpire got in his face and yelled something at him. I missed the beginning of this altercation, and even when I saw what was happening, I couldn't hear what they were saying to each other. Cole said the guy cussed at him and he really thought he was going to take a swing at him. Great example for the kids, huh?

Now you are probably thinking that I am a sore loser at this point, and, the truth is, I *am* a sore loser...if it's me playing the game. If it's one of my kids all I care about is that they play their hardest and they display good sportsmanship. And as disappointing as it is to lose the game before the championship, it would have been a lot easier to take if the other team had just played. And if the parents had behaved like adults should. But that isn't what happened and our guys walked away from that game feeling about as low as they could possibly feel. It was sad.

Brendan played some great baseball for his All-Star team. He pitched, he hit, he was an excellent third baseman, and he was a team player. I'm very proud of him. I took some pictures of him this morning before the game got so bad. I love the faces he makes while he's pitching...he concentrates so hard and you can see that he's focusing everything he has on that next pitch.