Woodland Baseball - Update 1

Carter played his first JV Woodland Middle School baseball game on Monday.  They played Thompson Station at home. Carter caught the first 5 of 7 innings.  He got only one at bat and hit a grounder to third (unfortunately he was out at first). The team lost the game 9-2, but they had some great plays in the field. Carter caught awesome with a bunch of great blocks. He only had one passed ball all night.

The JV team played again last night (Tuesday) at home against Freedom Middle School. They lost 8-2 but had kept it close for a while with a score of 1-1 through the third. They struggled with pitching and hitting but, again, had some great plays in the field, including a couple of double plays.  Carter caught all 6 innings with the struggling pitchers making him work hard with a ton of blocks.  Again, he only had one passed ball the whole night, and he threw out a runner trying to steal third. He got two at bats - one strikeout and one ground out to third.

After the game last night Carter had to go play a game for Smash, his travel team. He started the game off catching for our fastest pitcher.  He was exhausted by the end of the night.

The boys have to dress up on game days (slacks and a tie).

I'm scoring the JV games so I haven't been able to take pictures, but I got one of Carter warming up Drew before the game started on Monday.

The JV team plays again tomorrow at Brentwood Middle School.

Georgia Trip - Day 1

This year we traveled to Georgia for Spring Break.  The plan was to kayak, hike, and camp for the week.  We started the trip on Saturday, March 13th but had to cut it a little short to get back for Rylan's soccer tournament the next weekend.

We started the long drive down to Stephen C. Foster State Park in the rain but it cleared up quickly.  

We got unlucky this trip and hit a lot of construction and accidents that slowed us down.  We finally got to the park around 6:30 pm (Eastern).  We quickly set up our tent before it got too dark and then made dinner on the campstove in the dark (hot dogs and macaroni & cheese).  We also quickly remembered the one item we've been meaning to buy for car camping and had forgotten about - a screen tent.  The mosquitos near the swamp were monsters!  We got a lot of bites but not as many as you'd expect with the amount of mosquitos.

After dinner we walked down to the small marina area where there were less lights.  Saturday was a new moon and with the park being in the middle of nowhere, the stars were amazing.  Unfortunately I don't have a great lens for star pictures but I had brought my tripod and got a few "not horrible" pictures.

The Big Dipper:

We heard a lot of noises along the water's edge while hanging out looking at stars that we figured were frogs.  The next morning we started to question if they were frogs or alligators!

We eventually headed back to the campsite for our first of four nights at Stephen C. Foster.

Baseball Season has Started!

The opening night of baseball for Brentwood Ball Club was last night.  

Both Gray and Rylan had games.  Unfortunately Rylan only made it to last part of his game because he had NUSA practice.  But he still scored and helped his team win 11-3.

We were able to recruit even more Clovercroft kids for Gray's baseball team this spring.  Rylan's current homeroom teacher and Carter's old 4th grade homeroom teacher both have kids in Gray's class, and we even recruited them to be on the team.  This is an awesome group of boys and we are excited to be spending time with them!

I got a video of one of Gray's hits.  He's using a bat a little larger than he probably should but he loves it because we are borrowing it from Coach Jeff (it's Christopher's old bat). I love the comment from of the kids in the dugout near the end of the video :)

Book Character & Vocabulary Parade

 Last Friday was Book Character Parade for K-2 and Vocabulary Parade for 3-5 at Clovercroft.

Gray was a taco from Dragons Love Tacos.

Rylan used Carter's costume from a couple of years ago and did the vocabulary word "Peril".

Happy Valentine's Day!

We are hunkering down at home waiting for the ice/sleet tonight and then the snow tomorrow afternoon.  Right now everything is covered in a thin coat of ice.  It's making the roads bad but not enough ice to cause power outages (yet).

We got out to walk for about 20 minutes but the wind and low 20s sent us back home pretty quick.

We did practice our baseball throws and try to break the iced over retention pond.

Groundhog Day

 By Gray ...

Woodland Baseball

Middle school baseball practice started for Carter this week.  Unfortunately, it's been really wet here, and the boys were only able to practice Tuesday and Wednesday.  It's now super cold too.  I believe basketball ends next week though so the boys will at least be able to do workouts in the gym.

The coach put out the fundraiser signs we all purchased today.  He lined the greenway that runs in front of the school.

Hopefully the program gets a good cut of the $85 we had to pay for the sign!

Carter got hit by a pitch on Wednesday.  Here's what his leg looked like that evening ...

And this is this morning.  I think it's the worst baseball bruise he's had so far.  I'm sure they'll be many more.

Winter Indoor Series

Rylan has been playing in the TSC Winter Indoor Series over the last couple of months.  We put together a group of boys off the three U11 NUSA teams and have been playing in these weekend tournaments.  There are have been 3 tournaments so far at Crockett Indoor Arena.  The tournament is set up so that there are 4 teams in each grouping and they all play each other once.  All six games (which are 28 minutes long) are played over a 3 hour period.  This means that the boys will usually have 2 games that are played back to back.

One of the parents sponsored the team and paid for the jerseys (so we used their company's name in the team's name - Varden United).  I designed and made the jerseys for the team.

This group has been playing some of the toughest teams in the area.  This means not a lot of wins but some great experience.  In all three tournaments, they have lost the first 2 games and then either won or tied the last game.  There is one last tournament at the end of February.

L to R: Andrew, Caleb M., Reeves, Rylan, Brady, Grant, Arlan, Mac, Caleb L., and Connor

Missing: Maddox

Utah Trip 2019 - Day 6

On Thursday, May 30th, we woke up in Zion National Park.  We had spent two nights at site F5 in the Watchman Campground but had to move to site F1 for Thursday night because by the time I had made campground reservations in January, the campground had already been filling up.  Lucky the people in F1 packed up early, and we able to go ahead and move our tent over the few sites.  F1 was still a great site but there was less privacy between it and site F2.

We tried a new breakfast that morning with scrambled eggs, warmed up pre-cooked sausage patties, and cheese on english muffins.  Wasn't horrible but I definitely need some more practice on a campstove.

Thursday was our "Tourist Day".  We'd had a very long day on Wednesday so we thought it'd be best to give the boys an easier day.

We started the day by taking the shuttle through the canyon where no personal vehicles are allowed.  Our first stop was at the Court of the Patriarchs.  We hiked a very short little trail to a viewpoint of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob Peaks.

We hopped back on the shuttle after taking a few pictures and went to Weeping Rock.  This was a 0.4 mile round-trip, paved trail to a rock alcove with dripping springs.  I had really wanted to do both the Hidden Canyon Trail and the Observation Point Trail which start here but both were closed because of rock falls.  While this trip was amazing, it kept us on our toes with having to change our plans and not doing a lot of the things we had hoped to do.  But that just means we need to go back!  And then maybe everyone will be brave enough to try Angel's Landing!

Before getting back on the shuttle, we played around the creek for a bit.

Our third stop was at the end of the shuttle line at Temple of Sinawava.  Again, we had originally hoped to hike from here up The Narrows, but water levels were too high and this area was closed.  This will be on the top of the list though if we ever get to visit Zion again.

Instead we did the paved Riverside Walk along the Virgin River up to the entrance of The Narrows (it's about 2.2 miles round-trip).

This is the end of the Riverside Walk trail and where you'd normally enter the water to start hiking The Narrows.

You can tell in this picture that the river was really high and flowing fast.

After seeing just a handful of people the day before, it was the opposite on this trail with tons of people.

We got back on the shuttle and headed to the Zion Human History Museum at the entrance to the canyon.  Carter had two more items to do in his Junior Ranger book (he had to do more because he's older), so he and Brian stopped at two additional shuttle stops while Rylan, Gray, and I went straight to the Museum.

Rylan and Gray went ahead and turned in their books.  After saying the ranger pledge and getting their badges, everyone in the museum clapped.  Rylan was so embarrassed!!

The boys and I looked around the museum and snacked until Carter and Brian arrived.  When they did, Carter got his junior ranger badge and then we took the shuttle back to the Visitor Center.  We walked to our campsite from here and ate a late lunch (2 pm - sandwiches and chips).  It was super peaceful in the campground during the middle of the day.

After lunch we drove to the Canyon Overlook Trailhead.  

The trailhead is just on the other side of the one mile tunnel and we found parking just up the road in a pullout.  The trail goes to the top of Zion Arch, which you can't see ever on the hike as you come up the back side and end on top of it.  Plus the arch is more of a cut out of rock under the top ledge - there isn't an arch you see through.

The hike was short - about one mile round-trip.  The trail starts off above Pine Creek slot canyon.

Fun section leading to a shaded alcove ...

Taking a break to enjoy the view ...

This is a pretty popular trail but limited parking helps to keep it from being too crowded.

The viewpoint at the end of the trail of the main canyon.  The road is Route 9 before the one mile tunnel.

We explored the formations up here before heading back.

You can see one of the "windows" in the tunnel.  It's about halfway down in the photo and to the left.

Our next stop was further up Route 9 to about a mile past the second tunnel.  We parked here and hiked an unmarked, unofficial trail that is known as the Many Pools Trail or the Root Canals Trail.

We left the road on the wrong side but quickly crossed back under it through this cool tunnel.

We unexpectedly loved this hike.  It   We also only saw two other people the entire time which was awesome compared to the rest of the day.  The "trail" follows an open wash with a bunch of fun pothole formations.

The big boys took the hard, but fun, path.

We eventually turned around but I think we would have all enjoyed exploring even further.

You can see the crack the big boys took hiking up on the left side of this photo.  Obviously not the easiest path.

The setting sun was really beautiful.

On the drive back to our campsite we stopped at Canyon Junction Bridge to take a few sunset photos.  This is one of the best and most popular places to catch the sunset.

We returned to our campsite after this and had a late (8pm) dinner of nachos (hot dogs and hummus for kids).

As it's been awhile since I've posted about this trip, here are links to the previous days of this trip:

Day 5 / Day 4 / Day 3 / Day 2 / Day 1