Mini-Olympics 2018

Each May, Haley’s gym puts on a mini-Olympics for the students in their recreational classes. Since gymnastics is her only sport and there are no games to attend, all family members marked their calendars and showed up to support her!

Haley performed a short routine on each apparatus, and then collected her medal and certificate at the end.

We are so proud of how hard she works at gymnastics! She is currently in advanced recreational class, level four, and she hopes to try out for team next year.

Haley’s photo shoot

Our niece Ali is taking photography at school and she got a nice DSLR camera for a gift, so she takes great photos. She invited Haley to do a photo shoot at an ice cream shop for one of her last projects. Of course, Haley said yes!

Ali sent me the photos and I picked out a few to edit and post here. I love how different they are, and how cute my daughter is! 🙂

Friday night, we went to Ali’s school for the art & photography show (also a concert, but we didn’t stay for that). You can see Ali’s photos of Haley displayed on the windowsill!

Northwest Trek

JT’s class had another awesome field trip! They’ve actually had four this year, but I’ve only chaperoned two. It was a gorgeous day for outside adventures, and I always get the best group of well behaved boys who are in JT’s friend group at school.

They all posed and then asked me to take a photo…. so cute.

The boys’ lunch spot included conquering rocks. Of course.

They also brought me flowers because I am a mom. Seriously. It’s too much.

Our view from the tram tour was so beautiful. I was impressed with how many animals we saw, given the warm day and sunshine.

I’m so thankful I have a work schedule that allows me to take off whenever I need to – and a work group who is so supportive (emails going around like, “Becky’s on a field trip today so we’ll just wait on this…”).

Camping + Baseball

We spent last weekend camping and watching baseball, and it was just lovely. It was Mother’s Day weekend, and we reserved a spot at an RV Park about 15 minutes from the ball field. We drove down Friday evening and were able to get up and have a pancake breakfast before getting JT to the ballpark by 6:55 AM – without getting up in the wee hours. 

Haley enjoyed remembering how to keep book during the games. She is pretty good at it! 

My mom came to the Saturday games and, when it warmed up and we took our jackets off, I saw that we were very coordinated. How perfect for Mother’s Day weekend! 

Saturday after their games (1-1), we went back to our camping spot and enjoyed the pool at the resort.

Then we grilled hamburgers for dinner in our little patio/grassy area.

On Sunday, we got up to do it all again! JT’s team played great and went to the Championship game. They lost with a score of 16-15 in extra innings – playing over two hours in 80 degree heat. It was impressive!

Because we had the camper with us, we were able to celebrate JT’s awesome base hit with cold ice cream bars after the game – while everyone else went running for their car and A/C. That was pretty fun!

California Trip 2018

We took a long weekend trip to California because our niece Madi was graduating college and we thought we would extend the time there with some more fun. My mom decided to come with us and enjoy a vacation too, since she has wanted to go to Disneyland with her grandchildren for about 22 years now. We were thrilled to make this dream a reality for her!

There are so many pictures from this wonderful trip, so of course I made a Sway for the entire thing. You can scroll through here or click on the full screen button to view the entire thing in a new window.

Silver Champions!

We had such a great time at the USSSA Red, White, & Blue tournament in Lacey this past weekend. The whole weekend was beautiful blue skies (albeit windy and not super warm).

There is a Dutch Bros coffee stand near the field… yay. 🙂

JT and his team won the silver bracket and were invited on the field to receive rings and a plaque for the team! It was very exciting.

JT had quite a cheering section for Sunday’s winning games, which was really fun. Everyone agreed that it was a great day for baseball!

Proud baseball momma!

And then the sun came out!

We had a spell of a LOT of rain last week and people around here were really, really ready for sunshine. And then it happened! I just love our house, and in the sunshine the view from my window (morning top, afternoon bottom) is just lovely.

It’s not warm yet though! Jim bought me a portable heater for baseball games. The trick is to put an umbrella over the heater and keep all that awesome warmth underneath. It worked great for JT’s scrimmage this week – I kept score and kept warm!

Marine Science Research Field Trip

JT’s class had quite possibly the best field trip I’ve ever been on this week. I’m so glad I got to go (only a few parents were able to attend)! We took a bus to the ferry, walked on, and ended up on the Seattle waterfront. I had these six lovely children in my group – all kids I’ve met before, all friends of JT’s. They really were the best!

Upon arrival on the marine science research vessel, we received an introduction to Puget Sound marine life, water shed, and food chain.

Then we got hands-on! We saw all the different parts of the food chain…

We looked in microscopes to identify phytoplankton.

During lunch, we watched a live video feed as divers gave us a tour of the waters under the boat! Then we tested the water visibility…

And took water samples and then looked at them through a video microscope feed with a marine biologist narrating.

We got to touch and feel all sorts of sea creatures indigenous to Puget Sound.

And – the weather turned beautiful!

JT’s buddies are just the sweetest kids.

We had quite a wait for the ferry (an hour) but everyone sat around in the terminal playing Go Fish, not really complaining about how hungry they were or the long wait. I was so impressed that I bought them all a treat from the vending machine on the 60-min ferry ride and earned “best chaperone ever” award from my group. 😉