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Ugh.

Back On Track

After that surprising loss last Sunday, the Lake Shore Lightning girls got back into their winning form this weekend. Their first game was scheduled for 9 am on Saturday. It would have been against her former travel softball team, the Bayside Breeze, but that game was cancelled due to wet fields (on par with this whole season). The Lightning won their two other games, 14-0 (another Coral shutout) and 11-1, or something like that. We placed top seed for Sunday's elimination. We did stay after we were done playing so we could watch her old team play their next game. They won. And, it was fun talking to the parents and coaches I know from last year's team.

In the semifinal game, we could have played the Bayside Breeze, but they lost, and we played the Churchville Lightning. (I think Lightning and Storm are the two most popular softball team names) In that game, Kenzie got the first RBI, which turned out to be the game-winner since we won by slaughter rule, 10-0 (yet another Coral shutout).

The second, championship game, gave all us parents heart attacks. We played the Swoop, from Delaware. It rained during most of the game. Ali was having another phenomenal pitching performance, but so was the opposing pitcher. The Swoop squeezed out a run and led by 1-0 for most of the game. Once again it cam down to the bottom of the last inning. The game was tied, and I'm very ashamed to say that I've forgotten the circumstances that tied the score up. I think the excitement fried some critical memory circuits in my brain. Anyway, with one out, Kenzie came to bat. She hadn't gotten a hit yet against this pitcher. This time she stroked one to left-center field to get a single, with Toni at the plate. Toni ripped one to center that rolled to the fence. Kenzie took off, and wasn't going to stop until she touched the plate, which she did, as the ball rolled off the catcher's glove, onto the ground. Toni's dad (Big Tony), one of the coaches, now has to pay Toni a hundred bucks for that game-winning RBI. He also told Kenzie he owes her $25 for being in position to score that winning run. I won't hold him to it (and neither will Kenzie); we're just happy to part of this winning team.

For the weekend, by my count, Kenzie wound up going 8 for 11 (a .727 batting average) and was part of a few defensive plays. Several of her hits were line drives to the outfield, so that's a major improvement for the year. I only got upset at her once, when she was caught off the base when a fly ball was caught in the outfield. I then found out it wasn't her fault. She was obeying her coach's sign to steal second, was focused on that task as she should be, and just couldn't get all the way back to first to tag up. The same thing almost happened again in a later game. That's what happens when the batter is swinging away when a steal is called for.

To top off this great, but busy weekend, Alex said it was the best time he's had for a long long time. We need more weekends like this, where we can all be in the same place at the same time.

At the Beach

In between softball games, beaseball games, piano recitals, and traffic jams, we managed to squeeze in a few minutes with the Atlantic Ocean. Alex, Kenzie and I drove down Friday afternoon. We stayed in a condo in north Ocean City, only a few minutes away from the Delaware fields where the softball tournament was being held. This weekend also happened to be hot-rod weekend in OC. There were more souped up old cars around than anything else. I never got into those things, but obviously many poeple are hooked on the old, powerful, very noisy machines that suck up as much money as kids do. The OC police were very busy trying to control a situation where everyone seemed to want to show off their shiny metal babies.

Back to us. Friday afternoon, the three of us walked the beach, and Kenzie collected shells. Friday night, we walked the boardwalk. I love this time of year in the resort town. It's not quite open for the season, but there's enough to do and see to keep me entertained. The hot-rodders spend most of their time cruising up and down Coastal Highway, so the beach and boardwalk were essentially desserted.

On Saturday, softball ended early for us, so on Saturday afternoon we met one of the families from the team, who were staying nearby, and went to the beach. I couldn't let the kids show me up, so we all went swimming in the frigid Atlantic. It's amazing how cold that water was.

Also on Saturday afternoon, Vicki brought the rest of the crew down, after Connor's piano thing. She got caught in a ton of traffic trying to get there, and finally arrived after about 4 hours in the minivan. It should have taken less than 2 hours. She was a little upset. The kids, as usual, were pretty bad in the van, at least until they realized that they'd be sitting on the side of the road if they didn't shut up.

Our first game on Sunday was not until 2 pm so we had all morning to have fun. Naturally, we had go swimming again. I didn't go in as much as I did on Staurday. The tide was very low, so we could play on the sand bars. They won't be there in the summer, so that on of the cool things about swimming in the ocean this time of year. For some of our kids, this was their first look at the beach and the ocean. I think they had a good time.

Piano Competition

Connor has reached an age and a skill level where can start to seriously compete with other skilled pianists. On Saturday, he entered a competition for middle-high school aged piano players. His teacher was so impressed with how well Connor did, he called this evening just as we arrived home from our weekend getaway. Ray had apparently called earlier and left us a message, but he just couldn't wait for us to call him back.

Connor is (age-wise) in sixth grade, the youngest age that could enter this contest, so he played against older and possibly more experienced kids. To end the suspense, I'll tell you now that he placed third. Not high enough to get any money; only the top two earned money; but high enough for an Honorable Mention and an extreme amount of praise from everyone who knows how rapidly Connor has moved up in his piano-playing.

When I first told Connor how he had done, he was upset. He is a true competitor in everything he does, and won't happily accept anything but first place. All he could remember from his performance was the one note he missed. I had to remind him of how far he's come. In only three and a half years he has gone from Mary had a little lamb to Mozart and Debussy; from being rigid with fear at recitals, to performing with professional string quartets and under the pressure judged competitions. He is an amazing kid.

AP History

Unlike his parents, Alex seems to really enjoy his non-science classes, like Theology and History. I think I already mentioned that he received an award as the top freshman theology student at his school. Well, he is also doing well in his Honors World History class. He might end up squeaking by with a 90% if he gets an A on the final. Regardless, he loves the class, and decided to try an AP European History class next year. I met with the teacher on Friday to talk about the class. This class will be a killer. It is intended for high school credit and also, after passing the three hour long AP test, for college credit. The work begins as soon as school lets out in June. The text book is over 1000 pages long, and the first two chapters have to be read (with appropriate notes taken) before school starts in August. During the school year, students will be assigned a dozen pages a night, more over the weekends. The teacher informed me that nobody ever gets an A in the class. Most kids get between 70 and 80, a few rare students as high as an 87. This class is not taken to boost the GPA. It is taken to learn History from 1450, on, and how to write effective essays on the knowledge acquired, in a timely fashion.

Vicki and I have serious reservations about Alex taking this class. He will also be taking Honors Chemistry and Honors Geometry. This is too much to handle if he wants to also maintain his sports, especially baseball, which is one the greatest loves of his life right now, along with soccer. We told him the only way he could do this would be if he dropped baseball, and maybe even soccer, although the soccer schedule was a little (but not whole lot) less strenuous than baseball. He actually agreed, and, so far, has decided to give up baseball next year. I really hope he understands what he's getting into. But, I have to remember that he's going to be 16 in January and has got to start making some of his own decisions real soon.

Coincidentally, I just received next year's tuition bill in the mail. I gotta remember that this doesn't even count the extra we'll have to pay for his AP fees (not to mention a bigger uniform and new books). Ugh, and I guess we'll have Driver's Ed to pay for in the Fall, too. I guess that'll take care of the soccer decision, since he'll have to skip after school sports to take his driving lessons.

Busy Weekend

This has been a busy weekend. I'll summarize, then I'll add posts as I can for each item. Kenzie and I picked Alex up from school in Easton, then headed to Ocean City for her weekend softball tournament. Vicki stayed home so the twins could play basebal Saturday morning and take Connor to his piano competition in Annapolis. They drove to O.C. when that was finished, spent the night, then we all went to Kenzie's Sunday games. The kids and I actually went swimming in the ocean in the middle of May. It was very very very cold, but I couldn't let the younguns see me wimp out. We got home a few hours ago, and we are beat.

School's Out

On Monday, we had our semi-annual homeschool review with the county Board of Education. This closed our fifth year of schooling at home. The meeting only took about five minutes for all four kids to prove they did sufficient school work since our last meeting in December. The county uses homeschoolers/former teachers to do this, so it's a fairly simple process. Everybody kind of knows what everybody else is doing so the whole thing turns out to be little more than a formality.

Connor and Kenzie still have some History to finish up, though. They do a ton of Language Arts during the year, so if they're not finished everything by Review Day, I usually let them put it all aside until next school year. But I like the History stuff they're doing so I'm making them finish that up this year. I also keep all the kids doing a little bit of math for the whole summer. I can't stand completely idle brains for extended periods of time. We wind up taking some time off for the summer, not never a straight two months.

Alex is a little peeved this morning. His History class had scheduled a field trip to the Spy Museum in D.C. today. But, his baseball team has been scheduled to play in the championship game today. Recent rain-outs have wreaked havoc on the schedule so this conflict was not in the plans. We told Alex he was not to miss his field trip. He has only played in two of his 19 games, and we're quite confident his playing time would not be increased today, so there is no way we would put a baseball game above this trip. His teacher is also giving extra credit to students who dress up as a spy. Alex was wearing shorts and t-shirt this morning when I told him, at Vicki's behest, to get his spy suit on. I got a really interesting look from him at that point (not my first one of the day). Besides, I told him I never want to see him wearing to school what he had on this morning. Just because it's a "tag day" (where they are allowed to wear something other than their uniforms), you still need to dress nice: not like you're heading outside to practice sliding into second in thunderstorm. Ugh. I admit I have very little fashion sense, but Vicki would have been pleasantly surprised that I caught that one.

We had about 5 or 6 inches of rain over the past few days, topped off by some really strong winds. On Mother's Day, at Vicki's parents' house, the kids did as they always do, and climbed the purple leaf plum tree. The next day, some of that wind blew this tree down. Now they need to convince Poppop to buy something else they can climb on.

Finally, here's some pictures of Kearsyn at the park the other day.