Baseballs and report cards

Will had a great day today. First he brought his report card home and did very well. He even got an A+ in science after he did his make-up report on the Moon.







And the he got the game ball for his first time pitching. He struck two kids out and did very well.

Now it's off to get Mom at the airport.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Golf, game ball and O Carnival...

Pen Air's 11th Annual Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society golf tournament was Friday and Rodney and his group of Marines played in it. Rodney's team had the highest score, which, of course, is not what you should have in golf. His team earned the Bag of Shags for their trouble. Shags are second-hand golf balls used by those golfers who lose balls often.

Will earned the game ball for getting hit twice while at bat and making the final out of the game. His team won the game 19-5.

Liberty Church had a Spring Fling carnival this week, and we went Saturday night. The kids and I had a great time. I got them both to go on The Scrambler ride with me (guess what Illini family: It was made in Jacksonville!) and they had such a great time, we went twice. Rodney did not want to ride anything, so we made him hold the prizes while we had fun.

Baseball and peanut butter...

Friday night Marble got the remnants of a jar of peanut butter. One of her favorite treats! BTW, I forgot to mention before, Marble went with us on our road trip to Huntsville. We thought it might stress her out less to be with us, but she didn't eat at all while we were gone. We'll have to rethink any more unnecessary road trips for her...

Both Will and Xan has baseball games Saturday, Rodney had duty all day so I was at the ball field texting him the results, getting a wonderful sunburn. Will's team lost, but he played first base very well, making a couple of important plays.

Xan was finally able to score a run for his team and he was more than thrilled. Before, timing was just bad and he was always on base when the inning ended. But, he batted early this time, so he was good to go!

They were up and completely dressed by 8 a.m., even though we did not have to leave the house until 9 a.m. Talk about excited!

Scrapping again...

... I let the creative juices flow this week during my (for the most part) staycation. If you're interested, you can look at my old Tenaciously Yours blog to see what I was up to.

Xan gets a triple

This hit earned Xan a triple. He is also happy because he finally scored a point for his team. Every other game the inning has finished before he could make it around to score.





Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Huntsville Space Center

Since Will is struggling in science, especially the sections on space and the moon, Rodney and I had hoped to bring it to life for him by taking him to the home of NASA's famous space camp, the U.S. Rocket and Space museum in Huntsville, Alabama. It's about 6 hours north of our house and surprised the boys with the trip. Xan was beside himself with joy with the idea of staying in a hotel. ("Will it have a bed," "Does it have a bath tub?" "Where will we live?") Will just kept trying to guess where we were going. He had hoped it would be an amusement park.

Unfortunately, the whole thing did not work out as well as we had hoped. Will really has no interest in outer space and Xan was a bit too young to appreciate everything but the "Star Tours"-like simulator ride that shook us around "Mars." But, we tried... Will still has a report he must do on the planet moon to make up for a poor grades on his science tests. We'll see how much of the museum he absorbed. But Rodney and I found it all very interesting.

Will's first game of the season....

Will's first game of the season was late Saturday afternoon. He is on the Braves and this is the first year of kid-pitch baseball for him. He played first base, but may also be a pitcher, since he is able to throw strikes. This means he got his first athletic cup. That was not a conversation I was privy to, but Rodney may have details... Will did a wonderful job, walking twice and striking out once. He also scored the first run of the season for his team.

Xan's first baseball game

Xan was so excited about his first game that he had been talking abut it non-stop for two days. He's on the Reds (hence the shirt... please note, sponsored by Pen Air...) and he loved it. The game got through 2 innings because everyone gets to hit, but no one can make an out. Well, actually, that's not true. The Reds did make one play at first for an out. In the first inning, Xan played the target position (pitcher), caught a rolling ball and threw it to first for the out. He then played third base in the second inning. Even though he is one of the youngest kids on the team, he is one of the tallest and most aware. The rest of the outs were because kids were running to the wrong base, running to one base in tandem, etc. Xan did score for his team and the game ended in a tie: 14-14.

The latest Brandon and Cheyenne news...

... is on their family blog. Be sure to click on "My niece and nephews blog" to the right.

Claymation and golf

On Wednesday, Rodney and I headed off to Will's school for a special performance. His PATs class was going to debut their clay animation public service announcement videos they had created over the past 9 weeks. They wrote the stories, created the clay characters, took the photos and edited them in to a movie. The third graders all did an excellent job. Will's group did "Don't Smoke." I've also added a link to all of the 30-second videos so you can see them. They were very creative.

Today I was officially on "staycation" for a week, so Rodney and I, along with his friend Mark and the kids, went to play golf on base. Xan took a liking to the sport - any activity where you can hit a ball with a stick makes him happy. Will worked on his driving - and not the kind that required a stick and a ball. He had a great time driving himself and Xan around the course and did an excellent job of keeping up and not running in to anything.

Xan lost his ball in one of the sand traps on one hole and I told him to go get it. After he was gone a little longer than necessary, I went over to see what he was up to. 'What are you doing?" I asked. "Making a smiley face. See? (points) Smiley face." I doubt there have been too many golfers who have made a smiley face after hitting their ball in to the sand trap.