The End is Near! And Baseball.

Oh, FRIENDS! The past four months have been some of the busiest of my LIFE. I started working as a travel agent in January and began working each night on that after the kids went to bed. It has taken OFF and I have been tremendously blessed by it, but SHEESH...it's busy! January-March is Eddie's busy season at work and he was also working each night from 8-12. FABULOUS. Many days I told him I felt like I hadn't seen him in months. The boys began baseball in mid-February and we are eating, sleeping, and breathing baseball right now. We practice or have games anywhere from 3-5 times per week AND we are travel balling on the weekends. AND April and May are my BUSY busiest months at work and I've been burning the midnight oil trying to stay caught up there! WHEW! My school year ends in 19 days and I am not trying to wish my life away, but COME ON, SUMMER! We usually come up with our Summer Goals around this time each year so I will have those for y'all soon.

OK! Onward! Since all we are doing is baseball-ing, I have plenty of pictures to show you!

Will's game last night was GREAT, but they wound up losing at the end. Everyone was hitting! He has become a great little baseball player this year. Eddie and I have said for YEARS that he would be our athletic child if he WANTED to be. He hasn't wanted to be until this season. He is fired up about playing and learning! It's been fun to watch him! We've started letting him practice with James' travel ball team recently. My theory is that if he plays with the big kids, he will improve and get better by leaps and bounds. We shall see!

James has surprised me (because he's more like me!) and turned into a great athlete as well. He LOVES baseball. LOVES it. He knows the strategy behind plays, can remember details from games, and is getting to be a pretty good little player! Last night was his first night to PITCH and he did a great job! I was nervous for him, but he has so much confidence that he didn't seem to be worried at all! He walked two batters and struck  four or five out. He was SO excited after the game. He and a friend pitched the whole game - James' first time, Austin's second, but it had been several months! We were impressed! This kid has been playing since he was just a tiny little 3-year old. I was trying to think earlier today how many times he has played baseball. I am almost 100% sure that this is his 8th season of baseball?! Crazy? Maybe 7th. I'll have to try to look at pictures...We played fall ball this year for the first time and he's actually playing on two teams right now. It's all baseball, all. the. time. (And when we aren't playing we're watching the Braves, playing it on our iPads, looking at baseball cards, etc.!)

Maybe after this school year is over I'll get back to doing this whole writing thing! I've missed it!

Chop On!

Back on June 1st we hit the road to Atlanta to see a Braves vs. Nationals game with Grandmama, Granddaddy, Kelly, and some friends from church. I was CRANKY about it because we had planned to leave for the beach that day (we decided to go the next day) and I needed to be packing for the beach trip AND then we were in the middle of Rain All the Time in Georgia and it just didn't look like any fun. I also have a control problem and the idea of riding a bus (we chartered so we could all ride together) and not having an escape plan (I like to have a way to leave if I need to) was just throwing me for a loop. Thankfully, I got on the bus and went because we had a FANTASTIC time. 

James was HILARIOUS to watch all day long. He is currently the Braves BIGGEST fan. He knows all the players, where they're from, their stats, how old they are, etc., etc., etc. He is one of those people that can tell you the score of a game from years ago (or months in his short lifetime) and knows exactly what happened in that game. It's funny. We've sort of jumped on the bandwagon with him. We've gone from RARELY watching baseball (Eddie likes it, just isn't a die hard fan) to watching EVERY SINGLE Braves game and if we miss it looking up the scores later. We did this during football season, too. James is just ALL into ALL the sports right now.

We had GREAT seats this time. We sat one or two sections closer last time and on the back row of the lower level. It was easy to get up (just climb over the seat!), but this time the section above us didn't keep us from seeing ANYTHING. We look like we're way in the outfield in this section, but they were great seats. And covered in case the rain had continued!

Will isn't quite as into sports, but he enjoyed (most of) the experience. He is ALL into talking to everyone right now. He will walk up to any stranger and ask that person what's on his mind. The highlight of his day was listening to some guys play buckets (I have no idea if it's what they call it, but it's what they were doing) before the game. After they were done drumming, he walked up to one to let them know he enjoyed it and that they did an awesome job! Lol! He also danced (while he wasn't whining that JAMES was sitting next to his friend Gage and why couldn't HE!?!) and ate all the snacks. He has talked a LOT about it since.

(Someone commented that the man next to Will looks annoyed at his dancing...it's Eddie's daddy. HA! He may be annoyed, but he's so used to Will that I feel certain he isn't!)

The highlight of James' night was getting Charlie Culberson's autograph. We read before the game that you could go down to the dugout for "high fives" from players before the game. We made our way down to where the crowd was and waited for a while. We wondered if they might not do it because it was rainy. A few players started to trickle out and Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson came out. Ozzie and Dansby are two of James' FAVORITES players (along with Ender Inciarte and Freddie Freeman) and James knew exactly who they were. They stood around in the dugout away from us for a bit and James proceeded to YELL their names over and over. They never acknowledged him or the other kids standing by the dugout, but we saw them. Then Charlie Culberson walked out and came over to sign autographs. It dawned on me that we had NOTHING to sign. I finally handed James a ticket and a pen I had in my wallet and got him to sign that. James was THRILLED and Charlie soared to the top of the list for James as well. (For the record, Will was there for a while and then got bored and went to his seat. James persevered so he has an autograph to show for it. Just didn't want anyone thinking that poor Will didn't get one, too. He didn't...but he could have.)

I think this is A.J. Minter

Culberson signing autographs. James is in the Freeman jersey reaching. (If you go and want to do this, the BEST spot is the corner right at the dugout and the wall in front. We were too far back even though we could see into the dugout.)

Ozzie!

We didn't get back home until almost 3AM, but it was well worth it. Great friends, great seats, great time!

(This is a Bryce Harper strike out for the win, which is apparently a BIG deal. He's supposed to be pretty good, but I think he struck out TWICE that night!)