The Weather Is Breaking

...and it is good. I think Spring is finally here, and the weather's been nice, except for all the rained out weekends. We took a walk to the beach the other day; the kids got to play in sand and get wet. I got them to sit still for a few seconds for some pictures. I was just missing one, since it was a school day. The joy of homeschool.

Another Rainout

Softball was rained out again this Sunday. Based on Saturday's performance, the Lightning ended up in first place out of twelve teams. They went 3 and 0, with scores of 2-0, 12-2, and 12-2. It's nice to be in first place, but it would have been much nicer to have gotten there by beating some of the other top-seeded teams. We didn't even have any rain at home. The front stalled just to our west, so we wound up driving 60 miles to find swamped fields, just to turn around and come home again. Next week we have another 60 mile drive. I hope it doesn't rain yet again.

MVP

When the Lightning wins a softball tournament, each player receives a trophy and the team receives a larger, team trophy. Since we do not have a building in which to display these team trophies, the coach gives it to the most valuable player of the weekend. This week, he gave it to Kenzie. Usually, he lets the girls vote on who gets it, but he apparently wanted to make sure Kenzie got it this time because he didn't allow the traditional vote. Kenzie was very surprised and very pleased. Here's her MVP award. The smaller trophy is the individual award that each champion received.

Connor Turns Twelve (Yesterday)

We didn't have much time, this weekend, to celebrate Connor's twelfth birthday, but he got his biggest gift when his soccer team won their first game of the Spring season. He played Goalie in the first half and had some great saves. One is pictured below, when he had to slide-tackle the ball away from his open net. In the second half, as center halfback, he played a key role in keeping the ball on the opponents side of the field. We did, finally, have cake and ice cream, tonight, around 7 PM, a day late but he didn't care. His grandmother stopped by with some gifts. I already bought, and gave him, his gifts a couple weeks ago. We stopped at a sporting goods store and he got re-supplied with his choices of soccer cleats and baseball cleats. I usually buy cheap soccer cleats that can be used in all sports (and Connor usually gets hand-me-downs, poor fellow), but since he didn't want anything else for his birthday, he got to pick a really nice pair of cleats for each sport. Happy Birthday, Connor!

That's Connor on the ground.

Making a Goal Kick.

Finally, Connor gets his cake.

And a few bucks.

First Place

Kenzie came home with a first place trophy. They tried to give it away by allowing an opponent to take a 9-5 lead into the final inning in game one today. Then the Lightning scored eight runs in the top of the last inning, and held the other team to only one, so they won by 13-10, but it I hear it was pretty stressful. Kenzie had another great day.

Another RBI

This week's softball tournament is local - only 50 minutes away - and it's all afternoon games, so Vicki and decided to take turns going to the games. I had yesterday, and it was a beautiful day. After a deluge of rain overnight, the day was dry enough to get both games in. I lost count of Kenzie's hits, but, according to what she told me, she had 3 hits and 1 strikeout in four at-bats, bringing her overall batting average up to .438, which is awesome. I'll update those stats if I get real numbers from our scorekeeper. She added a couple RBI's (now 8) and runs scored (now 5 or 6), too. Oh, and about four more stolen bases, including a very pretty delayed steal of third base. She also played shortstop, second base, right field, and third base.

Vicki has today's games, and it's much cooler and cloudier. I hope she stays warm. I'm home so I can watch Connor play in his travel soccer game, which is also local (only ten minutes away). So, things have worked out well for our schedule this week.

Here's Kenzie running to first after one of her hits. You can see the coach at third sending the runner home, while the coach at first is telling Kenzie to round first base.

Here she is, warming up in right field. This isn't an actual play in the game, but it was a good picture.

Vacuum Trouble

For a while now, Vicki has been telling me our Oreck is not working right. I've been telling her to change the bag, and she has, and so have the kids, and it's still not working right; seems to be leaking dirt from the bag. I finally decided to look inside the thing, and discovered that the dirt bag wasn't attached properly because the docking mechanism was missing. It probably got broken off, and was still attached the bag, when a bag was changed, and thrown out by mistake. I took the vacuum to the Oreck store. They told me the part would cost $49 to replace; for a piece of plastic. I had to say ok because we need a vacuum. The next day, they called me back and said the roller thingy is bent and should be replaced: another $49. And, to make matters worse, they said the bag clip would have been under warranty if I had the broken piece that they could send back to the factory. I was getting angry. It was obvious the piece was broken: it wasn't there! Anyway, they now want $100 (plus tax) to fix a two-year-old vacuum that cost me $400 when I bought it. I said to put it back the way I brought it in and forget the whole thing. For $100, I could buy something something cheap at Kmart to get me by for now.

I went online and found all the parts they said I needed. I bought them all for $37, including shipping, and I fixed my vacuum in the back of my van before I even left the Oreck store parking lot.

I will never buy, or recommend, Oreck again. I expect this kind of thing at a car repair shop, but not at a vacuum cleaner dealer.

Shiner

This is why girls shouldn't play boys' games (just kidding). Kenzie got this playing baseball with her brothers, and wearing the wrong batting helmet, in the near-darkness of a cloudy evening.

Second Place Again

But only because it was a rain-shortened tournament. Ten teams showed up. Kenzie's team only played two games, and by chance played two of the harder teams in the tournament. In the first game, they beat the team that took first place from them last weekend. The score was 4 or 5 to nothing. They shut the second team out with a score of 5 or 6 to nothing. This gave the Lightning a second-seed for the Sunday elimination tournament, which never happened because of the rain. So, they ended up second for the tournament because another team won their two games by bigger scores, I guess.

Kenzie had three at-bats. She struck out once, but got two hits, bringing her season average to .333 and OBP to .500. She added and RBI (now 6) and runs scored (now 3) to her totals, and in 14 games (13 plate appearances), she has only one strikeout. In the field, she played shortstop, where she got at least one out, but also some incredible diving stops that kept runners on first base. I wish I had seen her play, but I'm glad Vicki had a chance to spend some time with Kenzie on their mother-daughter weekend.

TRIPLETS ARE COMING!!!

Yeah, right...check the date.