memorial day weekend tournament

the small (st marys american little league) red sox asked christian to play in their memorial day weekend tournament this year and he decided he'd like to. the yankees weren't signed up, that's why he was able to play with another team. so after our run on saturday, frankie and i packed up and headed to waldorf to cheer christian on.

i-pad = √, pen = √, and pad of paper = √.

i let her play at the park for a few minutes, but mostly we are there to watch the game, and that's what we do. she's a fearless rock wall climber!

we got beat pretty bad that first game. that's okay, with 3 games left, there was plenty of time to bring it around. after the game we had an hour and a half break, and since we were so close, we went to bed, bath, and beyond. i love that place!

angry mary poppins?

he's silly. we had fun looking at all their cool gadgets and i took lots of pictures of things i want to buy. please tell me i'm not the only one that does that... i just don't want to forget what i want need, if i ever remember to bring my coupons and/or have money to spend.

before heading back, i picked up a delicious cafe rio salad. (i finally used a gift certificate i won at alecia's christmas party, yay!)

 on our 10 minute drive back to the field, the franks crashed.

which meant that i got to sit in the quiet car and eat my salad in peace. we had to go back to the field early so chris could practice. frankie woke up with about 15 minutes till the game started, so she got to play at the park again.

big c at bat! he only struck out once the whole tournament. pretty good!

his famous bunt... 

he's really pretty good at them. on this particular bunt, he got a runner in and got himself to third. he's gotten a home run on one before, thanks to a lot of errors on the other teams part, and some fancy footwork on his.

see all that fine, loose dirt on that field? well, let me tell you about yesterday. it was unseasonably cold, i don't even think we hit 65°. and it was.so.windy. i felt like i was back in west texas in a dust storm all day long! blech! we were all covered in layers upon layers of dust and dirt. i confiscated christian's sweatshirt (i could pass for an outer banks lifeguard, right?) because he wasn't using it and kept covered in a blanket.

little miss didn't like the wind either. when it would gust, she would run to me, no matter where she was.

we spent the weekend at robert dean stethem park. he was killed on a hijacked airplane while trying to save others. pretty fitting for memorial day.

during the game frankie either played in the dirt in front of the bleachers or ran around on the grass behind them. she complained a lot, but i know she had a really fun day and it was nice to spend some one-on-one'ish time with her.

and the boys killed it the second game, so yay! after the game, he went with our neighbor (who's son plays on the red sox) and the team out to eat. chris was so pooped! his shoulder was sore from throwing and he was so tired. off to bed early!

the next day, addie got to come with me. i just love how kids can make anything a toy. old foil, bottle caps, rocks, whatever.

she requested that i take this picture and send it to daddy. so i did.

my view. for 12 hours.

they ended up losing both their second day games, so needless to say, they won't be advancing in the tourney. but they played hard and chris had fun. he made a lot of great plays, some notso-hotso, but mostly pretty good. he played outfield all day and caught some awesome pop flies. one time, no one thought he'd get to it and he totally did. one of the boys in the dugout said to the coach "dang, i wouldn't have been able to catch that one!" he's really fast. he also got to see a very different coaching style and team dynamic, so we talked a lot about the pro's and con's of each. i think there is both a too laid-back (his current coach) and a too intense (his tournament coach) style of coaching, but thankfully most usually fall somewhere in the middle. 

red sock for a weekend!

and a silly shot!