WE ARE THE city league CHAMPIONS, MY FRIENDS

So I mentioned in my last post that I didn't get the chance or maybe I just forgot to ask Blaine his favorite and least favorite parts of the first day of school. I had very good reason for the omittance. His championship game for the City League was the same day as his first day of 3rd grade. I didn't even see him after school until I got to the game. It was a mad rush for everybody to get there by six.

We drew (or flipped) and got home team, so we bat last. The first inning was awful. The boys just could not get it together, and the other team was hitting well. They scored 8 on us in the first inning before we got three outs. When we were up to bat, they got three outs before we got any runs. It was scary.

Uncle Henry (Wick) and Aunt Steph showed up for the championship game.

They had never seen one of our games, only heard about them. I was a little upset this is what they came for, but we turned it around.

Going into the bottom of the fourth, it was 5-9. The boys had really rallied in the third inning to score. We only let them have one run in the third. The boys scored four more in the fourth to tie the game.

In coach pitch, we only play five innings, so going into our last inning, it was a tie ball game. My nerves were shot, and I may or may not have been about to puke. We only let them have one run in the last inning, making it 10-11. We needed one to tie, which would have put us in another inning since it was the playoffs, and two to win.

We had one run, one out, and two on base. Chris hit a hard ball to out in center field. The boys took off running. As Alex rounded third, the third baseman tried to trip him. I was livid. Livid. The umpire kind of waved it off, and I tried really hard and failed miserably not to go psycho mom! All three runners came home for the win. And WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, MY FRIEND!!

I later learned that the ump saw what had happened, but let it go, for our benefit. If he had called the foul, if you will, it would have stopped the play and not allowed our other runners to come in for the win, ending the game. I like him now.

I'm so excited for our boys!

So we are the 2012 Summer City League Champions.

I'm not sure what comes next for us in baseball. The SportsPlex, our baseball home, is closed for renovations, which is why we played the summer city league. I know we will play in the fall; I'm just not sure where.

What I do know is how proud I am of this team and their coaches!

First Day of School, 8th and 3rd (Updated)

Sadly, there's not much to report this morning. Kylee rolled her eyes when I asked her if she wanted to walk her in the building for her first day of 8th grade, and Blaine asked after I walked him in if I was really going to stay.

For now, I will leave you with pictures. Tonight, I will be back with their first day collages and an update.

Kylee is an 8th grader.

And Blaine is a third grader.

Blaine with his teacher, Mrs. Valdez.

Until later when I have an update...

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Update

Kylee's first day was a bit dramatic, but typical 13-year-old "good". They are dealing with two much too young. A classmate of hers committed suicide the day before school started, and nobody is sure why. Kylee knew who he was, but didn't know him well. We had a talk about it, and she's dealing with it well.

Her favorite part of her day was "when it was over", and her least favorite part was math.

Here she is on all of her first days of school.

Blaine also had a "good" first day back to school. He says he can tell his teacher is going to be super nice and treat them like grown-ups. He also gets to line up with the 4th and 5th graders now, and that is so great. This morning when I dropped him off, he said, "Oh, what is Derek doing over there with those 2nd graders?!" (You know, because he was a second grader a whole two months ago, and the line up for 2nd graders and 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders is a whole 20 yards apart. I can't remember if I asked him what his favorite and least favorite part was. You'll understand why in my next post.

Here he is on all of his first days of school.

Bye to Summer at the Butte

I've been waiting all day to write this post. I've been waiting for the pictures from my waterproof camera. Once again Walgreens disappoints. They ruined my film. There are no pictures on that camera because they ruined it. I always chide myself when I take other pictures, just in case. This time the just in case paid off. I have some pictures from my iPhone when I felt like it was safe to use it.

Yesterday we went to Elephant Butte Lake with Kyle, Myra, Kellie, McKenzie and Papa. Kyle and Myra's usual lake at Red Bluff is too low for them to go, so they came here. At one point yesterday, I even told McKenzie I was glad their lake was too low so they would come to this lake!

After we were sunscreened up, ice chest packed, and life jackets on,

we hit the water.

After we took a little 'weltie', as Joey calls it, since Kyle had never been there, we found a nice little cove to get wet and have some sandwiches,

blew up the tubes, and gave rides. Most of my tube ride pictures were on the camera that Walgreens murdered...(what is going on with me and people murdering my pictures??)...but I did get one of all four of them on the last tube ride of the day.

Between tubing and tubing and tubing again, we swam (pictures on...or not on...camera), chillaxed

and ate some more.

Joey wanted to show Kyle and Myra the little houseboat community, and I'm pretty sure Papa wanted to see if Bobby Watson, his bff, was in his houseboat. He was in luck,

and Blaine was in heaven showing the kids around.

Since he had been there before with his Daddy and Papa and even got to spend the night, he thought he was the king of the castle. And the girls let him.

Bobby told us about a hamburger stand on the lake where you could just pull your boat up to, dock, and eat. Since we were all hungry again and ready for some hot food, we decided to check it out. It was really cool! It was a floating hamburger joint!

Our first hitch of the day came at the very end of our day. Just as we finished eating, we saw the clouds start rolling in. We trashed our food, jumped in the boats, and headed out. Right into the storm. Thankfully, though, it went as quickly as it came, and the misery was short-lived.

It was already 8 o'clock, though, and we still had to drive back to El Paso, so we docked the boats and said goodbye to the Butte.

It was a great way to say goodbye to summer and start school tomorrow. I'm so glad these two sillies

brought their boat and their girls to come to the lake with us. I'm also glad Papa decided to join us.

So tonight I say good-bye to summer, and tomorrow I will say hello to school days, and 8th grader, and a 3rd grader.

Ready, Freddy

We are ready! The kids have played baseball, danced, visited cousins, had cousins visit them, been to Port Aransas with the grandparents, and been to Hawaii. You would think there summer was so fun-filled and busy, but they are bored. They are ready to go back to school!

The day after we got back from Hawaii, we had to go register Kylee for school. When she got her schedule, she quickly teared up. They had her in band again, when we had gone up before school was out to tell them she did not want in it again, and they did not have her in theater arts. She also had aerobics on her schedule. She can be so dramatic, but this time I really did feel sorry for her. I told her I was going to address it with the counselor right then and get it fixed. I told him it was not fair for her to have to suck it up for the third year in a row and be in band, an elective, when she didn't want to. He said he knew she needed to be in theater arts and would fix it immediately. Then he asked her if she had put aerobics on her elective list, and she had. She actually said she was fine with aerobics, just not band, and not not having theater arts. He fixed it. She was happy.

We also learned they have to carry mesh or clear backpacks this year. She immediately got on the internet to find the one she wanted. (See pic below) Ever since that backpack came in, she has been so ready to hit the stores to fill it.

Last Friday, I took half a day off to do school shopping. Uniforms are so easy, and I'm going to miss them next year when Kylee goes to high school (I just threw up in my mouth) and no longer wears them. It is one-stop shopping! Because I can shop without Blaine, who is so not interested in uniforms, but would never, ever, ever shop without Kylee, even for uniforms, I picked her up before picking Blaine up from Terry's, and went to the uniform store. We got her shirts.

Of course, she hated the shorts at the uniform store. I told her to decide where she wanted to shop for them, Justice, Kohl's, PS, Target, wherever. Those were all of her favorite places to look, so I thought I was doing good. But maybe I shouldn't have mentioned anywhere because she never likes my ideas. She could not decide where to go. I said, "Kylee, you need to start making some decisions. You are 13. I can't make your decisions for you anymore. What are you going to do when you go to college and I'm not there?" She said, "Gah, Mom, I won't wear uniforms then!" Mothers are so dumb!

After we did the uniform shopping, I called Terry's to tell Blaine we were on our way to pick him up to buy school supplies. Kylee was chomping at the bit to get to Target. He said, "I don't want to go. Y'all just get my stuff. That will be fine." Ah, the differences in boys and girls.

Sunday we got their new shoes for school, and today I made their teachers little treats for the first day. Blaine got to go to the school today to meet his teacher, Mrs. Valdez. Now he knows his 'schedule', too. When we walked into the school, the coaches were sitting at a table in the entryway. He walked right over to the three of them, gave them the slap/fist bump, and said, "Well, well, boys. Long time now see." He is SUCH a Taylor! I guess the whole going to the school got him pumped to go back to school, too. He came home and wanted to put his name on all his stuff Kylee and I had gotten him, and get it in his new New York Yankee backpack.

So now everybody is packed, and we are all ready to go back to school. Summer is over for us.

On a completely unrelated note, my new camera is here! I'm so excited and am going to play with it this weekend to be ready for those first day of school shots!

I'm gonna end with a little Blaine-ism, because there was segway to it in this blog. Last night I was bathing Blaine, and a little soap splashed in his eye. He screamed like a girl. I said, "Blaine, it's tear-free!" He said, "I know, but it's still a little spicy!"

The Young Man with My Old Man

The Young Man

The Friday before we left for Hawaii, July 6, the kids spent the kids spent the day with Dad Dad and Mom Mom. Kylee text me at work and said, Just wait 'til you see Dad Dad's new hair cut! I figured he had done a slicked back look or something. It didn't surprise me. But when I got home and saw his new 'haircut', I was totally surprised.

When I dropped the kids off at their house Friday morning, this is what Dad Dad looked like.

But when I got home that afternoon, he was a whole new man...

...a young man!

He told us that he had never been to Hawaii as a young man. He had seen a man on a cruise four or five years ago who had done the same thing, and Dad Dad decided right then and there he was going to do it. He just hadn't gotten around to it. But now he was a young man. The kids were so tickled by it. They were calling him "Young Man" every time they addressed him, and they couldn't wait for the cousins to see him. Everybody was surprised and tickled.

While we were in Hawaii, I would be looking around and not even realize it was him, or I would be looking for him and couldn't find him. When I took this picture, at first I couldn't figure out who Mom Mom was talking to.

And when I posted the luau picture of all of us on Facebook, Cookie commented, "How did y'all manage to get Tom Selleck to pose with the group?"

When we ran to see if we could find him a surfing shirt, we decided he had to pose for this picture!

And when we were at WalMart, the young man and I decided to get hats.

Even though I loved and supported his new hair style, he hated my new hat. Oh well. I rocked it all week!

I'm not sure who had more fun with his new 'haircut', us or Dad Dad. All week he was "The Young Man", and it was so fun!

And now he has been to Hawaii as a young man!

Hawaii Mahalos

Lots of thanks go out for this once-in-a-lifetime vacation.

Thanks, Dad Dad and Mom Mom for loving us enough to want to take us to enjoy these vacations and time with our family. Thanks for working hard enough to make it possible. Thanks for teaching us the importance of family and time together. Thanks to Kyle for navigating and being the leader in our trecks around many places we had no idea where we where. Thanks to Myra for picking up after us all, washing our towels, and loving our kids as much as she loves her own. Thanks to Michael for being a big brother, not only to my nieces but to my own kids and loving them the way you do, and for the relationship you share with both me and Joey. Thanks to Kellie for loving both of my kiddos and figuring out a way to split your time and interests with them, and for loving me and Joey as much as we love you. Thanks to McKenzie Jean for being our constant source of entertainment and joy.

Thanks to Doak for our amazing Hawaii shirts and for posing for pictures I know you didn't want to. Thanks to Andrea for bringing Gavin, Faith, and Brodie into our lives and adding even more cousins to enjoy. Thanks to Gavin making us laugh and being our flying squirrel surfer. Thanks to Faith for being our sweet little one and being probably the only soft spoken of the cousins. And thanks to Brodie for sometimes letting us hug you and get your kisses.

And last, but certainly not least, thanks to the people who live with me every day. Thanks to Joey for navigating me when it was my turn to lead the pack, for taking the kids alone on your surfing adventure, and for giving the kids the thrill of boogie boarding with at least one parent. Thanks to Kylee for being my sweet motherer of all the kids and for always worrying about whether her mom was having a good time. Thanks to Blaine, my baby boy who is not such a baby anymore, for allowing me to watch through your eyes just how to enjoy every bit of an experience there is to get out of it and for making sure I know you love me the most! Until next time, Hawaii...and there will be a next time...thank you, too!

Hawaii - Aloha and Goodbye Day 8

Saturday morning we woke up for the last time in the perfect vacation home Mom Mom, once again, found us. We cleaned it up, packed our stuff, and said goodbye.

Now seems like a good time for a home tour.

Amazing, right?! It was such a gorgeous place!

But we had to leave, so we loaded our bags in our three minivans, and headed back to the flea market. We didn't get through the whole thing because of our Pearl Harbor schedule. Everybody was feeling better, so we just chilled and shopped.

We had to kill time between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m., so after the flea market, we went to the mall. The mall, Wal-Mart, and other stores are like in skyscrapers with parking garages. By the time we got to the mall, we were all starving. The entire 4th (yes, 4th) story of the mall was restaurants, like full size restaurants, not a food court. When Blaine saw Bubba Gumps, he begged to go there. Everybody agreed, so that's where we had lunch.

After lunch, we explored the mall a while, and then it was time for Doak's family to head to the airport, as their flight was earlier than ours. Parting is such sweet sorrow, especially for these two.

The rest of us just hung out at the mall for a couple of hours before heading to the airport for our flight. Kylee and Dad Dad had been talking all week about eating sushi, but since we cooked most of our meals at the house, they hadn't done it yet. Now was their time. Kellie decided to join them.

The girls were not impressed! Seaweed is disgusting, and the ginger wasn't any better! They ditched their sushi for the cupcakes.

Then it was time to say good-bye, aloha, thank you, and mahalo to Dad Dad and Mom Mom because they were staying another week in paradise, and head to the airport for the rest of us.

When we got to the airport, Doak's family was still there. Their seven o'clock flight time had changed to a 10:50 departure time. We went to the airport two hours after them and left the airport two hours before them. Ouch.

Blaine had been worried all day about the pilot flying asleep during our red-eye flight. When we boarded the plane, there was a man standing there in a suit, greeting us. Blaine said, "Are you sure you're going to be able to stay awake while you fly us home all night?" The man said, "I don't know. Did you bring me coffee?" Blaine said, "No, but there is coffee on the plane; maybe the flight attendant could bring you some." The man in the suit informed him he was the flight attendant that would be serving us drinks, and not the pilot. Blaine said, "Oh, well have you seen the pilot? Does he look awake? Did he have a nap today?" Our sweet flight attendant said, "You know what, leave your bags right here. Mom, bring your camera. (stab to my aching heart, but I had the trusty iPhone) I'm taking you up to the pilot so you can talk to him about this yourself." And he did.

Blaine asked him if he was sure he could stay awake to fly us home. The pilot assured him that he could, and even said it actually wasn't the longest flight he'd ever made. Blaine asked him, more than once, if he had had a nap that day. When we left the cockpit, Blaine was reassured we would make it to LA with our pilot awake. Thanks, United Airlines and the sweet, sweet flight attendant who looked like a pilot. He went his seat and may have been asleep before take-off.

We, indeed, made it to LA in one piece for our three-hour layover and then to El Paso, home safely.

Until next time, we'll be dreaming and planning for Destin 2014