Memories

Its funny what you do and don't remember from your childhood.

I grew up around a lot of baseball. My brother played it and my dad was involved with the league as well as a coach.

I'm around baseball a lot now!

One thing I was recently reminded of was Little League pins. When players play in a Little League tournament, they get a pin. I can now distinctly remember my dad having a hat full of pins from various tournaments.

Recently, my husband was the tournament director for the local district Little League tournament. I kept score for a few of the games. As such, I was given an all-star hat for our league (since we hosted).

And I earned my first Little League pin! Hope there are more to come!

Eagles Baseball!

Michael is wrapping up his second season on the 8U Loudoun South Eagles travel baseball team. This has been a really positive experience for him and we're thrilled with his team, his coach, and the overall league. Michael is shaping up to be a pretty strong pitcher, especially for his age. His percentage of strikes to balls was close to, if not exceeding, 60% - which is really unbelievable for his age. Because he's a lefty, he also has a natural curve to his pitches, which make him even more valuable as a pitcher because kids his age just can't hit a curve ball yet.

Michael's team had a great regular season - 10-3. He pitched a lot in the last half of the season, including pitching 4 complete innings in the last regular season game, which the team won! He also pitched a "complete game" of 4 innings in the first round of the playoffs, as the Eagles won 12-0 with the "mercy rule".

But alas, the team didn't do so well in the playoffs - not even making it to the semi-finals. It was a disappointing way to end such a great season.

We have one last tournament in Pennsylvania next weekend - the "World Series" for the league our team is affiliated with - a tournament we qualified for when coming in 2nd in the playoffs in the fall. The boys have been practicing and I think they're ready to go. We hope they do well, but whether or not they win, this has been a great season and we look forward to moving forward onto the 9U Loudoun South Eagles in the fall!

Emma Talk

I could sit her all day with my computer open to write everything down, and still wouldn't be able to capture all the funny things that Emma says in the course of a day.

In the past five minutes, she has said two pretty cute and funny things I wanted to share, just to show you how funny she is:

- I wish I had lipstick, so you could see my kisses. When I'm a Mommy, I have to wear lipstick to church.

Then, she asked me what color daisies are, and I said they are white. She was sitting there for a minute, and I asked her what she was doing, and she said, "I'm trying to figure out how to draw the daisy, because my paper is white!"

She's too funny!

Maternity Ward!

It must be. That's what our rose bushes are. Because for the third time this season, long after what I thought bird baby season was, we have blue robin's eggs in the nest in the back. That nest has been there for three years now, and we don't want to touch it. Well, after no visitors for weeks and weeks, a robin starting visiting, and yesterday there was one blue egg - and today there are two.

We will never be able to prune our rose bushes - but we're looking forward to some new babies in a couple of weeks.

Red Belt!

Michael recently had his graduation test for his Tae Kwon Do Red Belt. The Red Belt is a pretty big milestone because its the last belt before Black. Once they earn their Red Belt, the requirements and testing needed to get to Black Belt are a bit different that previous belt progressions.

In addition to learning the new skills and form for the Red Belt level, in order to earn a Black Belt, Michael needs to "re-learn" all the skills and forms from all of his previous belt levels, demonstrate each of these in several belt tests, and ultimately write an essay answering questions about things he has learned in Tae Kwon Do.






















We're all pretty proud of his earning his Red Belt - this is a major accomplishment and we look forward to the next step - Black Belt

Dance Recital!

We've been busy since the piano recital. The irony is that we have been busy enough to have lots to share, but so busy that I didn't have a lot of time to sit down and share.















Samantha had her dance recital the weekend of June 19th and 20th. This was her first recital at her new dance studio - Encore Performers. I have really enjoyed her dance classes this year and was looking forward to the recital - and it didn't disappoint. I am actually looking forward to getting the DVD so I can see it again and share it with family.



Samantha was in 3 dances - tap, ballet, and jazz. Her tap and jazz used the same costume and just changed the skirt.




They hire a professional photographer to take photos during the recital that we can purchase - and I look forward to seeing them in a week or so - in the meantime, these were mine taken without a flash during the Saturday night recital.