Crush goes 10U!

Emily started her 3rd year with her Crush softball team this year.  With many of the girls aging out of 8U, they needed to upgrade to a 10U team.

10U is very different than 8U.  The big change has been the team has gone from their coach pitching to them, to kid pitch.  Kids from the teams actually do the pitching. The pitching can be difficult to master.  Some of the kids pitch well, but many of them pitch fast.  Some of them pitch some crazy ones in there.  Emily has been hit with a crazy pitch before.

Emly had a tough time starting out in kid pitch, but after this weekend, she seems to have finally found her groove.  This picture is actually from last weekend.  Crush came in 2nd in their tournament.  They had another tournament yesterday and today, but as a whole did not do as well.  Emily did much better this weekend as she was able to get in some good hits.  Wish the whole team could have done better.  She sure loves this game!!

Vacation to Lake Anna

We typically take our vacation at the beach each summer.  The beach is one of my favorite places as I have indicated in many posts on here over the years.  Our plan was to camp at the beach this year in our camper.  We decided that as much as we enjoy camping, it is difficult for us to find time to camp.  You must have several days available to camp, but finding something that we could take somewhere for the day would be something we could get more opportunities to use.  After much thinking and tossing around, we decided to get another boat.  We had a boat several years ago.  As much as we liked being on the water, that was not a good boat for us.  It was designed more for speed and would "beat you up" if the water was choppy or if there were lots of boats on the lake.

We wanted to get another boat, but not one like we had.  Pontoon boats were the way we wanted to go, but they are expensive.  We found an older model one and got a pretty good deal on it.  We took it with us to Lake Anna this past week after we sold our camper and cancelled our camping trip to the beach.

We took the boat out each day.  We were able to pull up at "beach areas" and spend some time swimming and touching.  We packed lunches one afternoon and even parked our boat at a pizza/ice cream place and got ice cream two different evenings.  These things were really fun and different!!

While I miss the beach, we had a REALLY great time!!  And, I have to admit, the setting sun is just as beautiful over the lake as it is over the ocean.  :)

When we first arrived, the boat was still hooked up and the kids were so excited that they sat on the boat waiting for us to put the boat in the water.  Loved that they wanted to ride so badly!

 Our boat parked while we are getting ice cream.  So fun!!  It is an older model one and a little bit ghetto, but it is ours and we love it!

 Packed our lunch and eating on our own private beach

 At the place we were staying, there was a swimming area with a dock.  We spent some time there too.

 Wish I had, had a camera better than my phone when this happened.  Ryan and Mike went out for a short ride and to jump into the water.  On their way out, a group of people flagged them down.  Their boat had run out of gas.  They asked for a tow back in and they happened to be staying at the same place we were staying.  Mike had to secure the boat because of the location of the cleats on our boat.  Therefore, Ryan had to drive the boat.  All three kids drove at some point, but this was pretty exciting for Ryan as he drove them back on his own.

Ryan "surfing."

We have a tradition in our family.  Well, a ritual more than a tradition at this point.  We spend Thursday evenings (or whatever evenings we can get the time) eating in front of the TV and watching Master Chef and Master Chef Junior.  Our favorite part is the mystery box challenge.  In honor of the mystery box challenge, we had a mystery bag challenge while at Lake Anna.  Each kid had a part of the that evenings dinner to make.  It turned out great!!  They had a blast!

Was a great week!!

Our little drama queen

For the 2nd year in a row, Lydia has participated in a summer drama camp at the high school where I went to school.  The drama students and their amazing teacher host a week long camp to raise money for a trip the drama club/group takes each year.  The students are the camp counselors and are so great with the kids!!

This year, Lydia attended this camp the third week of June.  She was a little nervous.  As they have gotten older, Lydia and Emily have developed different interests and activities.

While it makes it harder, taking the kids three different directions instead of two, it is really good for the girls to do things without the other to depend on.  She was a little worried because she knew she would not know anyone in drama camp.  I assured her that she would know the kids that were there last year, but since this high school is so far away from where we live and where she goes to school, there are no kids from her school who go.  Upon sitting next to a little girl named Camryn (who was also in the Sushi group), they were talking together and became fast friends.

At the end of the camp, the kids put on the play that they worked all week on learning their lines and show their acting ability.  All families are able to come and watch.  Prior to the show, they show pictures that were taken throughout the week.  The top two pictures are ones I took from the slide show.  She and Camryn are with their counselor in the top one and the bottom is a picture of her with her group--Sushi.

Lydia learned all of her lines without help at home.  She did a great job acting and her character of the Red Chief was flawless!  Such a cute play!

 Next year she will move up to the middle school group.  I am anxious to see how well she does with that.  The middle school group write the plays as opposed to the elementary groups that help their counselors decide what to write about and characters while the counselors write the plays.  All the kids work on their own props and pick their costumes.

It is such a great program and I hope that she is able to participate in it for the next few years.  Until she can be part of the drama club at her high school.

Penny and Adella were spending the week with my mom and dad and were able to come see Lydia's performance that night.  Each of us gave Lydia a flower.  She LOVED that!!  :)

Lydia and Camryn

Catcher in the first try

For the Little League portion of our softball lives, Emily played catcher for the first time.  (She is the catcher in this picture and as you can see from the dust coming off her glove--just caught the ball the pitcher pitched).  She rocked it!  There was one game where her coach put her in as catcher last year during a Crush game.  In 8U softball, the catcher is not all that important.  You are not able to steal in 8U.  In 10U the catcher is much more important.  They must be able to stop the ball when the pitcher throws a wild pitch as a runner on third can steal.  She typically plays 3rd base, but her Little League coach put her at catcher a good bit this season.  We were a little bit worried since she had never done it, but she seemed to take to it like she had been catching all along.  We are not sure if this will continue with her travel ball team, Crush or not, but think she did great for the spring season!!

Stay tuned for a Crush post.  Have not done one since she branched into 10U from 8U.  Anxious to see how their season goes.

Track this boy!

In Middle School you are limited in the sports you can participate in until you are in the 8th grade.  As a 6th grader, Ryan was able to participate in wrestling or track.  He decided he did not want to wrestle and really was not really interested in track, but several of his buddies were going to run track.  He realized that while there was A LOT of running involved, there were also other events that he could participate.  The events he chose were the 100 meter and the long jump.  I tried to talk him into the shot put, but again--his buddies were doing the long jump and the 100 meter.

I took lots of pictures during his track meets, but this is my favorite picture.  He said that his coach told him that when he starts to run, he should put his head down.  It took him a while to get that and he would often start with his head up.  This would cost him valuable time.  In this picture, he is the kid with the bright blue shoes on.  The closest to the camera.  As you can see, his head is down.  Love that he got it!  While he did not LOVE running track, he is already talking about doing it next year and has said that he will be attempting the shot put.  With his short, stocky build, I think he will be great!!  

Spring Concert

Ryan participated in band in school this year.  He played percussion and really enjoyed playing the drums.  His teacher, Mr. Todd, held a concert in the fall and another one just before school let out in the spring.  The improvement in their performance was crazy.  While I don't have pictures from the first concert, I did get some from the spring one.  My camera lens was not that great in the fall.

We are so very proud of what he has accomplished as a first year middle schooler in the 6th grade.  to finish out his year, he was one of four rising 7th graders who was asked to be a member of the East Rock (High School where the kids will go) marching band.  Stay tuned for pictures of Ryan on the football field this fall!!  :)

Getting my ears "perst" for Easter!

On her list for what she wanted for Easter, Lydia put "get my ears perst" at the top of her list.  Emily was a bit undecided since she was concerned that it would hurt too much and thought she would tag along to see how Lydia reacted to the "pain."

My original plan was to let them get their ears pierced when they turned 12.  12 is a good age, they can easily take care of their ears and keep them from getting infected.  Let's face it, I have a tough time getting them to brush their teeth each day so cleaning their ears can't be real high on their list of priorities.  For the past few weeks they have really stepped up and have shown me that they are responsible.  After talking to them and talking to Mike, we decided that since they are now "in the know" with the bunny and santa rumors, that we could take them to get their ears pierced for Easter.

My favorite part of the day was the look on Lydia's face (after having to go to the bathroom due to nervousness) when she realized the pain was nothing after having worried about it for a while.  As bad as she wanted it, she was quite nervous.  After getting the first earring pushed into her ear--realizing the pain was nothing like she had imagined--a look of relief washed over her face.  It was too funny.

Emily spent the next hour walking through the mall deciding if she wanted to have them done too.  We had some other stores we wanted to visit so she debated and debated.  We told her that it was completely up to her if she wanted to do this or not.  It was not something we cared if she did or not, but that if she was going to do it, she needed to do it now or she was going to have to wait until her birthday.  Easier for both of them to go through the ear cleaning together than to have one get a couple weeks under her belt and then the next one start.  Even after seeing Lydia live through the experience, she was still very scared.  I am happy to announce that she lived to tell about it too.

They each purchased some earrings with their own money and a coupon they received with their piercing.  Worst thing about it . . . it makes them both look about 4 years older.  :)