August 2014

The beginning of August was spent in Warner Robins, GA for the Little League Southeast Regional Tournament.

This was waiting on the boys in the Team Hotel...

At the stadium...

We lost our first game to Georgia.  We should not have lost.  We should not have changed pitchers, but in little league, the restrictions on pitch counts are unbelievably crazy low.  For our pitcher to be able to pitch again in just 2 days, he could only throw 35 pitches.

This proved to be our downfall because at Regionals, Little League still had the format of taking the top 2 teams from each of the 2 4-team divisions...ideally the top two teams would have the most wins out of the four.  We ended up in a 3 way tie, and by some bizarre luck, we were eliminated even though we beat West Virginia in our last game 17-1.  Georgia ended up throwing their game against Florida (by not attempting to score any runs, that put Georgia's run differential and Florida's run differential ahead of ours by 0.004).  Try explaining that to 12 year olds. 

After the Georgia game...our first and only loss this All-Star season:

Here is our coach breaking the news that we had been eliminated.  I had told Brendan that in all the world there would be only one Little League team that had not lost their last game.  I was wrong.

Our team was devastated.  You only get one chance in Little League to go the Little League World Series, and it is your 12 year old season.

One last team huddle...

In our last game during a pitching change, they played YMCA and the umps had a little fun in the outfield...

Brendan hit a home run in the game against Florida to score our first run.  I was so proud of him and so happy that he was able to get one more home run before moving up to the 60' x 90' field.

When we returned from Georgia (and it felt like someone had died), Brendan's grandmother had left this for him...these are balloons in colors of his travel ball team.

To help ease the pain a little, we went down to Oak Island for a long weekend.

The weekend before school started back, Jackson played in his first Twins tournament.  The boys played very well and came in 2nd place!

The kid's first day of school was August 25th...

Emma started 1st grade this year.

Brendan started 8th grade, and Jackson started 6th grade (both in middle school)!

Mermaid Crown

"The modern mermaid resides in all of us.  We just have to awaken her!"

~ Susan Rockefeller

"Laying low with our toes in the sea, I'll be your mermaid, I'll be your sea queen."

~ Unknown

"You got your own style, now let it come through.  And remember no matter what, you got to be you!"

~ Sebastian "The Little Mermaid"

Summer Update

Every summer my blogging seems to fall away.  We just stay so busy with baseball and work and travel.  Here are some photos from summer vacation so far...

We have had a couple of weekend trips to OKI...

Brendan has been playing baseball seven days a week for 3 weeks now with his 11U All Stars team.  So far the boys have won 2 games and lost one.  Brendan hit two home runs in the second game.  Here is his second home run.









Jackson got to go to the Carolina soccer camp with 4 of his buddies the last week of June.  They were all in the same suite and on the same team.  He had a fantastic time and cannot wait to go back again!







And we celebrated a quiet 4th of July with a baseball cook out...pool time and some fireworks:





Our weather has been so dreary and rainy.  I am hoping for some sunny skies the rest of summer break!

Quick Weekend Trip to OKI

Friday we loaded Emma up and headed to Oak Island for a short weekend trip.  The boys stayed at home with JC's parents for soccer and a mission trip.

These are a few of the pictures that I took this weekend.

The first two photos I snapped Friday afternoon from our deck.  The sun was so beautiful!  It looked very warm, but it was only 60!

And these were taken Saturday afternoon about 4:30.  We walked down to the beach for a few minutes.  It was pretty chilly so we didn't stay long.

As the sun was setting Saturday night, I decided to take a similar photo to one of the one's from Friday...only at sunset.



It was a great weekend, but we worked very hard getting our condo ready to rent in the off season since we are finding it harder and harder to make it down to OKI.

IRENE

We are praying that Hurricane Irene continues to turn to the east.

We went down to Oak Island and moved everything inside our condo. We have not had a hurricane threat since we bought our place two years ago this coming weekend ironically. We didn't put up boards over the windows or anything. We are just really hopeful that Irene will head out to sea and spare our coast!

Here is the most recent projected track from NOAA as of 2pm Wednesday...

Oak Island is under the line shown for 8am Saturday - on the section that actually faces south instead of east.

Right now I am just praying that the Bahama Islands don't sustain too much damage or death/injuries.

Hurricane season is just no fun for beach lovers.