And that wraps up June...

I cannot believe today is the last day of the month of June... where the heck did the month go? Let's see...

It went toward Joycie's high school graduation open house last Saturday, which went very well. It was a beautiful day, so we really lucked out on the weather. Everything went smoothly. I took last week "on vacation" to get stuff done for the open house and also to get stuff done that I've just been putting off... but I ended up having to do "job work" a lot, mostly from home, which was nice, but I also had to go into the office. Didn't feel like a week off, that's for sure. *sigh* Anyway, Kevin and Joycie really did a ton of stuff to get ready for the open house, and my sister, Kathy, was a Major Help, too. (Thanks, Kathy!!!) I'll have to post some photos, though I need to get some of them from my sister, Janet. I, who has my camera almost everywhere I go, totally slipped on taking photos during the open house. Ugh.

It has went toward more baseball games for Sammy. And we have a tournament this weekend in Shepherd. Sammy's on a "new" team, all 12-year-olds, a combo team from another local Little League. Their uniform shirts are the Texas Longhorn orange, and I love that color. Yep, that's totally a girlie comment, coz yes, I do care about the color of the uniform. Anyway, Kev is working midnight-12s for the next, oh, forever and day, so it's me and Sammy traveling this weekend. (Joyce is gone for the weekend, with a friend... and the house seems oddly quiet without her. Weird.)

June has also went toward quite a few pottery sessions. Sammy and I went Wednesday evening and finished glazing our critter-shaker-balls; we made 2 each. I can't wait to see them finished. We have had so much fun together doing this. Sammy has 1 more session from the 4 I purchased for him, and he wants me to buy him another 4 for the summer. I also went to a few sessions by myself, that is, without Sammy, and I got quite a bit done. I picked up my tree face that's completed (Sammy glazed it for me), and I'll have to post a photo of that. By Wednesday evening, I had 1 large pot in the kiln getting bisque fired, and 1 pot ready for glaze firing, as well as my large pedestal ready for glaze firing. I also finished the Greenwoman for my sister... it's drying and will hopefully be bisque fired within the next week or so. I can't wait to see how all those turn out. My fingers are also itching to start my next little project, which is all planned out in my head... can't wait! I know I said that already, but it's worth repeating.

I've also been totally swamped at work... this past week flew by. That's kinda nice, of course, but it's been a difficult week. Lots of fires to put out, and not the kind, thank God, they're having out West. Also, 2nd quarter close is upon me, and I'm definitely feeling the heavy crush of work pressure.

The last part of June also included a shopping trip, where we purchased a laptop for Joyce for college; it is part of her graduation gift from us. And it also included a very cool backpack carrier, an all-in-one printer-scanner-copier, plus odds and ends for it all as well. And then we spent a couple of hours at Best Buy getting the laptop looked at because it was behaving strangely... Joyce used a USB mouse that I have, on my suggestion, but it was an old mouse and her new HP laptop (with Vista) didn't like it, so we bought her a new mouse, also. Cha-ching, baby.

The end of June contained a new battery and alternator for Joyce's Rodeo, too... and some other miscellaneous work. I hear it again, don't you???... Cha-ching.

And last, but not least, my brother, Jim, turned 50, my nephew, Michael, turned 17, and my father-in-law, Gary also had a birthday... Happy Birthday, boys!!!

And now it's almost 10am, and Sammy and I have to hit the road soon to get to his first baseball game of the day.

Baseball, baseball & more baseball

Sammy has played in 2 tournaments so far on the allstar team, one this past weekend and one the weekend before... and he's in a "city tournament" for his regular Little League team still, and another allstar tournament this coming weekend...

Lots and lots of baseball.

The boys won the first tournament, and they all got a nice trophy...



They won the second tournament, too, and another nice trophy...



In the 2 tournaments, they played 8 games total, and so their record is 8-0. Not too shabby. Folks will say that playing Little League is not all about winning, and I totally agree... but it sure is a heck of a lot more fun when your son's team is winning...

Daddy is happy, too...




3 generations of happy boys...

SAMMY T!

Sammy's regular Little League Majors season wrapped up this week. His last year. Hard to believe. The last game was played against another team of boys from his school, most of them friends of his. It was a beautiful evening for a baseball game.

Sammy did great at bat, & he went 4 for 4. This is a shot of his triple...


That turned into a home run thanks to an error (overthrow to third). Sammy was pretty happy with it, and so was his daddy.



Sammy pitched a couple of innings, and he did a good job at that, too... except one of the first pitches he let loose was to his friend, Zack, who got an over-the-fence home run off from it. Zack loved it! Sammy not so much...

Here's the boy in action, throwing the last pitch, a 3rd strike, for the last out of the inning...








I love going through all my photos of Sammy pitching... he usually does the "tongue thing" and it's so dang cute.




Our boys lost that game, but it was close. Fun game to watch. Kev is definitely the proud papa.


The boys are out at the ballfield right now, at the first tournament game of the all star team, or as it's also being called, the travel team. Sammy was super happy to make the team this year. And it is another beautiful evening for a ballgame, sunny and breezy.

I bailed on the game tonight, though, because my neck is still so sore from the physical therapy I've been getting... it's like a big block of pain on the base of my skull with a matching headache. Sammy was so sweet right before he & Kev left, and he told me that he knew I wanted to go & watch him play but I should stay home and take care of my head. Sweet and smart!

T I triple-ger S

Last night, Kev and I were watching the Tigers kick some Texas butt Big Time... top of the 3rd, Tigers had 2 outs, score was 6 to 1... and Granderson hit another triple, 2 RBI's making it 8 to 1... a thing of beauty, truly. But my favorite part was when Rod Allen said, "Mommy, make him stop it!"

Baseball... and tempting fate...

Sammy has been playing a lot of baseball lately, on his Little League team (Majors) and on a school intramural team. I figure it's time to post a photo or 2 of him in his baseball duds. I like best the uniform for the school league, because it reminds me of old-timey baseball.






Joyce was at soccer practice... just watching since she can't play yet, and Kev was at work. Sammy was supposed to have a double-header at the school, but I took him out after the first game. Since the teams were put together basically for practice and learning, I didn't feel too bad. So much going on lately... I found I just could not sit there through one more game. Sammy, the sweetheart that he is, understood and even though he wanted to stay and play the next game, agreed to take off with me.

It was hot and sunny out, and shortly after we left the school, both of us were in pretty good spirits. Not really sure why... just relief, maybe. Sammy was on his new blue-covered Razr (he bought a gel-like cover thing for it the other day) and modeling his new shades from Aeropostale in goofy fashion for me.



How can you not love that face?!

I told him I was gonna post that photo on my blog. I am sitting here wishing I could remember his reply... all I can remember is that it was really funny and I told him I was going to use it on my blog post with the photo... *sigh*

Seems that everyone gives me instructions (i.e., direct orders) on occasion not to post a particular photo on my blog. For the most part, I am compliant. Goofy photos are the ones I love best to look back over years later, and I sure don't want to stifle that because one of my loved ones is fearful of seeing it on my blog.

After I picked up our mail out of our mail box at the end of our long driveway, I ended up stopping in the driveway to read a letter about a small college scholarship Joyce received (yay, Joycie! proud of you!). Sammy & I had our windows down, and Sammy asked to sit up on his window... he gave the argument that he has always wanted to do that and has never been allowed. Which is true. And you would think that with the injuries Joycie has experienced lately, I wouldn't have let Sammy try something so obviously potentially dangerous. But I did.

Sammy's a big boy, physically, and he's smart. He held on tight, and I creeped along. He hammed it up for me for the camera, and he had a blast.












Out in the sticks, we knows how to live on the edge, man...

Playing chest

This morning at work, because everything is running so slow (computer systems), I decided to have some of what I brought in for lunch for breakfast. So today I joined the Smelly Breakfast Club.

I heated up some of my famous scrambled eggs with croutons and cheese. Famous because it's something I cook that no one else in my family likes. Why should that get more attention than chicken & rice or baked salmon or the other dishes they love? Don't know. But yesterday evening Sam & Kev weren't home (they were in Detroit watching the Tigers lose... dammit), and Joyce had already had dinner... so that's a perfect opportunity to make what I like for dinner. Just for me. I mix the eggs & milk and add Caesar seasoned croutons, let them get a touch soggy & then cook them and add cheese. Mmmm.... Pretty smelly when heated up here at work in the mic, though.

My ultra-intelligent pooch, Reilly, had taken to peeing in the yard instead of going out to the woods. He'll do that when the ferns start growing. So when I let him out the front door, I always look at him very seriously, and while pointing to the woods I say in a very firm voice, "You go all the way out, Reilly, all the way out." He'll start to go, stop and look back at me, so I will say it again. So he'll go a little further, stop again, so I say it once more. And so on. This morning though, he took me straight to the front door and when I let him out and told him to go all the way out, he just trotted quickly out there. Guess his business was urgent this morning. On the way back into the house, I told him, "so, yeah, you know to go all the way out, you just like to play with me with that stopping crap, so cut it out in the future, I'm on to you, pal." I swear he understood me. He had a smartass look on his face.

When I was 10 or 11 years old, my oldest sister, Janet, had a super cute boyfriend, Bob. (And he's been my brother-in-law for over 30 years now.) I don't remember all the details perfectly, but I think we had company over. I remember that Janet and Bob wanted to leave, and I suppose so that they wouldn't interrupt so much, they wrote a note to my mom to get her okay for them to take off. They wrote something like, "is it ok for us to leave & go to Bob's to play chest?" Of course, they meant chess... File that one under Freudian slip. I still think that's a funny story.

Kev & Sammy didn't get home from the Tigers game last night until close to 1:00am, so the boy was pretty tired this morning. I had to resort to tickling him out of the bed. Put a couple of wiggling fingers near that boy's butt and he moves. Kev was still in bed, and when I came out of the bathroom after getting dressed, there was Sammy laying in bed with his dad. Kev said, with his arms wrapped around Sammy, "I'm not letting him go." I love moments like that.

Sam is so into the Warrior cats books by Erin Hunter. He zipped through the first series, and now he's into the second series, "The New Prophecy." Sam told me yesterday morning that it's The Best Series Ever. Kicks Potter's butt Big Time. I love it that I'm the one that found those books for him. His favorite books ever, and he owes it all to me. Best Mom award coming up. So if you have an eleven-year-old in your midst, introduce them to these books. They'll be forever in your debt.

The Wave belongs to us

It was a beautiful day at Comerica Park for a Tigers ballgame yesterday.


Our friends, John & Canice, organized a group to go to the game. There were 30 of us total, including friends from Texas who came up for the game, Jay & Sue and their kiddos, all 5 Cardinals fans.




Brooke and Mikayla:


Molly and Sammy:


Noah and Jack:


Canice did her part to get the kids fired up for the game, dancing to the tunes:




Drew and Kelsey:


Don't Miss the Ball, Hit the Ball.
Don't Fear the Claw, Be the Claw:

It sounds much better when a group of little boys are hollering it at the ballpark.

It was one quick inning after another, with a score of 1-1 going into the 8th. Tigers pulled ahead with 3 runs, and shut down the Cardinals in the top of the 9th.


It was a great game, from a Tigers fan viewpoint... Jay, of course, had a different reaction:


The Park was packed, since the Tigers are doing so well and the Cardinals are a great draw. It was Kids Day, and after each of the first several innings... lost count of how many, the Tigers gave away an electric Hummer to some lucky little kids. It was awesome. They had a bunch of give-aways going on. Not sure how many they gave out, but they were giving away bobble-heads of Polanco. Throughout the game, they'd announce the seats that got free pizza, hotdogs or whatever. One fan won a 7-day cruise. Then at the end of the game, the kids got to run the bases. Lots of fun.

The Tigers fans rule when it comes to The Wave. One time it went around the entire stadium at least twice. Cool. The Tigers rule!


On the way back to the car, the 4 of us decided to go have dinner in Greektown, so we went to the Pegasus Taverna. We went there once before after a Tigers game. Love the flaming cheese... Opa!

During dinner, I noticed that Joycie's nose and cheeks were getting more and more red... though we had all put sunblock on, Joycie somehow missed her nose and cheeks, and she got burned.

The drive home was great. Joycie and Sam kept finding the same song on each of their iPods, timing it so they started at the same time and then entertaining Kev and I by singing the songs together... for us, of course, sans music.


When we turned down our road, there was a doe standing there... she walked across the road, and then decided to hurry on into the woods as soon as I got my camera up. I managed one photo of her. She looks like she is on her way to her fawn (or fawns), because she's full of milk. I thought it made an interesting photo.

For laughing out loud

I have been trying to figure out all the functions available on my new Sony camera... there are so many. Just before Sammy’s baseball game Monday evening, I discovered that I can hold down the shutter button and take photo after photo after photo after photo... how fun! I took 236 photos that evening. This is a group I took of Kevin and Joycie during the first game. Joycie hammed it up for me... while Kev moved not a muscle.










It took quite a while to look at all the photos. I took tons of Sammy playing ball, but also many of Kevin and Joycie. When we were done with the slide show, Kev said, “I think I need to smile more often.” I got 3 photos of him smiling. Just 3. Here’s one.

I agree... I’d like to see him smile more. But he is just not the type. It’s not that he’s not feeling happy or content, or that he is not in a good mood, or that he isn’t fun... he just doesn’t smile or laugh that easily all the time. Particularly not in a public setting, such as at a crowded ball field. Don’t know why that is. Probably the same characteristics that make him want to sit with the wall at his back whenever we’re in a restaurant or anywhere. Or aisle seats in theaters or airplanes. That kind of thing.

Oh, Kev can do a major belly laugh with the best of us... though I can’t remember any time that’s occurred in public. At home, yes, and often enough. Once, early in our marriage & somewhere that I can’t remember now, I asked him, how is it that you are not laughing out loud at this? Kev said he was “laughing inside.” I call him the comedian’s nightmare. Oh, yeah, dude, you’re funny... I just don’t laugh out loud.