Soccer in VT

We arrived Friday afternoon and moved into our 3 family suite - which was sweet!!  Huge too.  Beautiful night and the kids got to playing and all of a sudden we didn't really know where they were - until we found them down here - hysterical and awesome at the same time.  Kinda proud of them!

This defines creativity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCjBXoRR7qw

Saturday morning Nick had an early game these 2 yahoos and I got the pool to ourselves - 

Roller coaster is my favorite aspect of this place  - would be happy doing it time and time again.

I went with Drew first as he can't ride solo.  Shane was in front of us - solo and since you can control your own break - shane - being solo - was nervous and didn't go fast.  Pretty sure he held up the entire 7th grade - so the next round we went together - and got to go a little faster - nice to know shane doesn't have the need for speed quite yet!

The long road up!

Here is the team Shane got to play on.  He wasn't on travel this year, so being asked to be part of the team for the tournament was quite an honor - scoring a goal for them in one of the games was the icing on the top - glad to see he fit right in.

Sour hot day and they played at 1;30-3 - yikes right??

Thankful these 2 could take cover

Thanks to Yvonne for capturing some great spots of the early morning games.  nick nabbed a goal too!

One sweaty Rowdies team

Love to see his determination in action

Nothing like a delicious beer and dinner on the way home in an adorable VT town.  The drive home along 7 was beautiful!

Of course the adults got involved too - everyone loves a painted mountain lion photo.

Great call on the 3 family suite - loved the hot tub time and thanks to hailey for a Saturday morning run - Yes, a house ANYWHERE around secret lake would be pretty fab!!

Always love traveling with one of our favorite fams!

End of the year celebrations

Some are just adorable!  

These 2 - I LOVE this teacher.  

She was so positive, loving and always looked on the bright side.  

Drew adored her too.

Thank you Ms. Campbel for a great year.

And an adorable end of year celebration - almost thought his hat was for the ugly duckling. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e48KuvZYTWI

Gotta listen to the Hugh and Drew poem.

These 2 cute as well - as Shane rocks the middle awkward 3rd grade stage.

See what I mean?

Shane's was a power point presentation - his fracture fairytale was spot on!  The 3 little chickens and a hawk - THAT is a keeper.

Baseball all season - and some Lacrosse too

With Baseball season over (or shall I say spring sports as we do have a Lacrosse player in there too) I wanted to choose our clear favorites and capture a bit of emotion from the season.

This was Nick's first year on the Majors and going into it we knew he wouldn't get much playing time.  a few innings here and there.  It was time to learn from the big kids and he team was full of some great leaders.  

Liam Glassey stands out as he was a relent lace catcher and huge encourager.  

Sammy Lincoln who has the fastest pitch I have ever seen - smiles almost as cute as Nick's  

Tommy Gibbons the boy you want to hang out with

Nate Hiscox the kid that learned to rise to the occasion.

This is Nick taking the mound for the first time in the Majors - Coach Lincoln on the pep talk - just throw strikes

Shane's First year on AAA - they almost didn't let 8 year olds play.  So Chris offered to coach so they could build another team.  During the draft Chris picked a pretty young team.  Its his first year coaching and he wanted to figure it out.

I have to admit, their season was TOUGH.  Lots of losses - lots of runs scored against them.  Minimal practices with rain outs - several tough talks looking for the bright side.

Than we had a HUGE win agains the Indians at the end of the regular season and it really was cause to celebrate - so we hurried up and host our end of the season picnic at our home.  It was a BEAUTIFUL Friday night and EVERYONE came.  

I tried to capture the panoramic - as I have never seen so many parents in the outfield.  We told the kids no mercy and we won!  I remember Greg telling me he was looking forward to this game all week.

This team started the play offs, lost the first game and than hit the losers bracket WINNING the next 2 to come back and REPLAY the winners.

Their GRIT was amazing.  Shane being one of the YOUNGEST players on the team and in the league was one of the best (sure I am his mom - but I saw it happen)  he pitched the final game with a busted thumb and made a diving catch!  Once he was pitched out we had to switch up and one of the most adorable 4th graders took over and sadly walked the winning run in.  Tough way to lose.  

Big tears in those boys eyes, but boy did they made a series of it and show amazing GRIT.

This team became a family and we loved it.

Somewhere in there Drew snuck some Lacrosse in - baseball at his age is just too slow for this guy.  So he tackled something a little more his speed

Easy to find him with his hair!  WE had to figure a way to keep it all back.  I want to remember nights walking between lacrosse practice and having 2 Games at VanGermon field too.  Nora was part of it all most nights.

Back to our Major Leaguer - several innings like this - but always eager to get in and help where he can.  I glowed on the field.

This was the game where they sealed the regular season #1 ranking (the game AFTER the Imagine Dragon's concert)- it was also the game where Nick got hit by a pitch to the neck and I almost lept the fence to check on him.  Jackie sitting next to me said, watch this Army kid get up and run to first - that is exactly what he did.

 Love everything about this photo and the effort he put into his game.  He took the mound in the 6th and final inning of the final game with only 1 out and based almost loaded.  He managed to get another out - however the pressure was intense and the took him back out with the score of 13-12.  Tony Gibbons (the kid you want to hang out with) came in to work the final out - The game ended with a heart CRUSHING grand slam home run but Angels leader Jack Bisqbiak and it was the must incredible finish - sadly for the other team.  

The big tears from all the boys truly shoed how much heart they put into that game and THAT is why we loved this season - because we cared about it.

Imagine Dragons

The best thing about this was the surprise - it really is the year of the Nick - Imagine Dragons is STARTING their tour HERE in Hartford and I can get lawn tickets on Tuesday for $20 - do you go for it?  

How many?  

Who will need to play baseball?

Nick's game on Monday was rained out - which meant Tuesday would matter but not as much as wednesday.  So on the way home from the rain out I asked him if he would mind missing the Tuesday game.  Of course he said he wanted to go to the game... but what if I had tickets to a concert.  He said, like a simsbury band concert?  No like Imagine Dragons.  

His face was priceless.

So is this one.

The show was amazing!

Look at the buddies we get to go with!

pretty good seats if I do say so myself.

They played them all - Whatever it takes (my favorite) was rather early and I was hoping they would end with it.  The lead singer was amazing and opted not to wear his shirt the whole time.(these were my first words to chris the next morning) that and they only sold 24oz beers - not cool

But the concert was cool and I loved being with Nick and our buddies!

A man and his floor - me and my leggings

Back when we de-modeled our garage chris vowed he would paint the floor.  he LOVES a painted floor - keeps the dust down.  Feels cleaner, more finished.  But when you are so eager to get in and use the garage that will often go to the wayside.

But he did it and I am SO impressed.  Because it wasn't easy AT ALL.  The paint spent the winter in our garage so when he opened it, the 1st can was fine.  at 7pm he realized the 2nd can was NOT.  Our local hardware store was closed, but home depot was open but of course their paint was different so he was starting again.

THIS was the hardest part.  Our wonderful neighbor even stopped by to make sure we knew it was due to rain at 5AM - translation, you may want to get that stuff inside.  We waited as long as we could and carefully carted it back in.

Not until he got every last bit = and critiqued my help

Kinda thankful my thing is leggings - Now if you are the fitness manager at the Zoo, shouldn't these be your uniform?

Nates Warrior Run

Anyone want to ROCK nates Warrior run??  

Honestly with busy baseball schedules I wasn't sure if we would have a game that morning or not, so I didn't plan a THING until Friday night - when I had Juliane spend the night and planned to pick up Derek.  Drew got a special Night with Oma Sue - 

Do the math on all of that and HERE ARE MY WARRIORS

Rosedale farms in Simsbury - almost a 2 mile course!

The Zoo Gym was in charge of helping with an obstacle - here we are at flower power - my AAR comment for next year - no flour - its turns right into glue - yuck.  Mud is WAY better.

This rock start right here raced the whole course!  This was my only shot of him!

Pretty sure THIS was their favorite obstacle

Both running,

just at a different pace - or maybe I caught him mid stride?

Scariest Obstacle

systemactically did it!

pretty rocking after photo - great job guys!  Way to make us proud - they would have gone back to the mud pit if it wasn't so far away.

Things to love about tonight - Children's Fair and Baseball

Tonight is the annual Children's fair - its a super hometown fun fair at the primary school.  Think bean bag toss, toilet paper throw and inexpensive prize collecting.  The first year we went we devoured it and LOVED it.  The kids could just run and play and all their friends were there.  Now its Drew's favorite thing and Shanes last year.  With baseball in full swing its also kind of an after thought.  

Makes my heart go out to this little guy as he was over the moon to win this at the cake walk - 

This is exactly where he should be, sweaty, running amuck with his friends - 

This right here - Nick had a blast playing a great game against the Angles and winning.  His ability to be 'in' a game is really exciting to watch.  But having him play for fun with Ryan is my favorite moment