The final days in the Major Leagues

Seeing my boys go through the baseball program, the Majors is BY FAR the best.  Juniors just isn't as supported and high school....  well..  Back to the best of the best.

Here we are at the playoffs - 4 teams and lots of fun.

Braves beat the Angles, but they loose to the Giants. 

Love seeing this guy on the mound.  He got more consistent as a pitcher this season.

Became quite the hitter too.

They had a great team with really nice kids that they all got along.

Here are all the kids leaving the Majors at the end of this year.  Thanks to Kari Mullins for putting this together.

The final game was against the Angels.  Rather memorable event of Drew getting handed the wrong bat and him getting kicked out of the game by a very over zealous ump (the district ump, so over Ed)  Drew spend the final innings on the fence with his coach while the team tried to pull out a win.  The last ups had 2 kids on base with the kid covering for Drew up to bat.  We will choose to think of Drew up there smashing a walk off, but that just isn't what happened.  

I am so proud of how Drew, Chris and Pete handled it.  They didn't fight, they didn't scream and yell.  There were a few tears and it sure pained us to have Drew finish life on the majors this way.  His team was super supportive and crushed by the outcome as well.  Guess that is really the best you can hope for.

Sadly the ump apologized because it was the wrong call.  There was discussion over playing the game over again because his absence had an impact on the outcome of the game.  But time and schedules just didn't allow.  We watched the final night of the majors and with the Giants coming away with the big win.  

Moving onto All Stars.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE this poster that Kari put together.  Something about Drew base running is a blast to watch.  He loves a good pickle.

 

Baseball banquet

Thank you to Colleen for snapping this photo of the freshman boys on the baseball team.  Love these kids, but

Mixed emotions as the season carried LOTs of kids and a coach new to baseball just rotating them all out.  It wasn't terribly successful.  Shane got a few innings to be the closing pitcher, a few at center, but nothing terribly reliable.  Makes us wonder if he or his buddies will be back.  Will channel the memories of the majors and a great summer league for Shane!!  Those were the best!!

Fishing is rain of shine with these 2

Fishermen are at it rain or shine and that surely applies to these 2.  They were up early and on their boat working on 8 weekends in a row of sleep overs.

Finally had them come in for breakfast

Following weekend with more screens

And another kid! They were having a blast out there.  

I opted to enjoy the sunset by making their burritos and packaging them up to kayak them out.  Meanwhile I flipped the kayak (getting soaked - but saving the burritos)  changing clothes, getting in, but forgetting life jacket.  Going back to get life jacket with kayak propped along side.  Kayak not propped enough so floated away....  Jumped in getting wet AGAIN to grab kayak.  Put clothes back on, finally got back in kayak and headed to boys.  Linked up with them right before the lightening.....time to come in clearly...

Next morning serenity

 

Graduation for Ashley!

Love these moments of the boys helping out Chris - even getting dressed for the graduation.

It rained right before the ceremony but they held strong and kept is outside.  We opted to sit on the hill over looking the ceremony which was awesome.

See you see sweet Ashley?

Great simple speeches by Grace Asmar, Lauren Marze.  Both Shane and Nick were upfront with the band.

Love these photos that John Bishop snapped!  He had much better seats.

Right AFTER the final moments of the ceremony, the clouds came in and rain started.  It was a quick storm but caused most folks to hurry up with the hugs and photos.  After it passed they got the most BEAUTIFUL sky!

Here is the rainbow our friends captured at the lake.

Chris and I volunteered for the substance free grad party.  We had the 9:30-12:30 shift (opting out of the 12:30-3:30 shift) it was held at Big Sky in Farmington and it was DECKED OUT.  super fun. 

 I was so impressed by the kids.  They PLAYED all night.  It was a bit weird giving out money so I was kinda thankful when that ran out and it was more about the fun.  Here is the all class dodgeball game.

 

Golfing with Nick

End of the season for golf means parent kid scramble.  With Chris still in recovery mode, I was the next option.  Truly an honor to be asked.  Maybe a few warm up swings would be helpful for me, but lets be honest, we are going to use all of Nick's shots.  We were a 4 some with Kenny and Nathan May.

While we didn't finish first, we had fun.  Nick had a pretty impressive first year finishing All Conference and just a few strokes away from All State.  He also walked away with the MVP award for the team.  Gotta love Coach Phelps.

Here is the team = with Nick Fox, Tyler Ugarte and Artie Hayes as the lead seniors.

 

Liz and Crew at the Lake

Liz's family drove from MD to have a few days at our Lake house in Winsted.  We weren't terribly ready to open the house to others (shower was still leaking, screen in porch isn't done...) but they seemed to prefer that over other options.  They used it head to Quinnipiac and the Berkshires.  We carved out Tuesday night to get together and do some boating.

Funny seeing this crew together.

We shoed them wake surfing too - Seb gave it many tries but Winslow was the one that got up

Nice work lady!!

We enjoyed some burgers on the patio and let these boys (Nick and Seb) paddle over to the Briggs to grab a wake board that needed a home.  Asa popped over to say hi on the beautiful evening (that was still having a bit of an allergy impact on a few of them)

 

Wyland's Graduation weekend

Headed down to Crofton Maryland to Celebrate our first nephew, Wyland, in his high school graduation.  Fortunate is a simple 5-6 hour drive.  We grabbed Drew from his school Lake Compound trip, Nick skipped his scholar athlete ceremony (Congrats to Golf ALL CONFERENCE) and we arrived at 11pm.  Thank you to Shannon for having a delicious breakfast ready for the morning - pumped to see these faces around their table this morning.

We headed to hear folks for an afternoon of golfing and swimming before the festivites.  Last time we were here was 2012!  Drew was a BABY.  

Boys loved the golf course and the golf cart and we loved having the putz around together.

Next up the party festivities.  Shannon as a friend that makes the dessert - delicious right?  

Yes Wyland is headed to BUCKNELL - which is also where Shannon went.  How super cool!!  What a beautiful connection to share.

I offered to take some photos of their crew as memories for them.  Here is Bob Liebs Naval Academy roommate and 2 daughters and a little bit of Karen Lieb.

Next up, our side of the family

Some of their Crofton buddies

Kids rocked the Pickle ball set up!

Some shmoopy chilling

Had to capture a photo with the hostess

Here is one of Wyland's college roommates and his son (recent Ohio State Graduate - fun fact, went to school with Blake Corum

end of the evening cake cutting

Trying to capture the final obligatory family photo!

Great looking crew right?

Liz's crew had to jet but I had to keep snapping a few memories - Love that these cousins can hang so easily

Always great to have these 2 together

Wyland does love to clean up - this happened about 2 seconds after we left.

Super fast and fun weekend with everyone all together.  Love to have these joyous occasions that bring us together.