My Love/Hate Relationship with Baseball

I grew up playing softball, just like my mom did. I love it! I love going to baseball games and I went to a lot of games growing up. I love cheering for the team and singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." I love watching my boys play baseball. Mark just finished coach pitch....and, I mean this in the most humble way possible, he was awesome. He could stroke the ball! He caught fly balls and stopped grounders. Mark works hard to be good though. You will often find him practicing baseball all by himself for hours in our yard. Dax just started T-ball and is so excited. He played really well at his first game and hit the ball pretty hard. Dax also stopped all the balls that came to him and always knew to throw it to first base.

Intense--always!

Mark getting ready to hit.

Dax is SO excited about his first game!

Uh oh...just as intense as his older brother!

Now, there are a few reasons I am starting to hate baseball. First, it monopolizes my husband's and children's lives. They watch every Red Sox game, read everything they can about the Sox, and sometimes I just want to toss the computer/TV out the window. I guess baseball is a good obsession, right?

Well, a few days ago, I found out about another reason to hate baseball. It is starting to cost me a lot of money.

Mark and Dax were playing baseball together. Dax hit the ball after Mark pitched to him and lost his grip on the bat (a plastic bat, by the way), and it shattered that window. So now we have to fix it.

Then, a day later Mark was hitting with the same plastic bat but using a soft baseball instead of a wiffle ball. He fouled it off and did this to our fence.

I've kind of been waiting for all of this to happen, but now that it's here I'm starting to have mixed emotions about baseball. Don't worry, I'm sure my love of the game will win out, but right now, I'm still a little peeved.

Seth's 1st Year

I had a coupon to Shutterfly to create this book for free (I did have to pay shipping). My older boys love their books I made for them, so I was glad to get another free coupon. I hope Seth likes it. They are letting me share it for free, so I thought, why not?

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly allows you to customize your photo book just the way you want.

We LOVE Yellowstone!

Lower Falls in The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

We really do love Yellowstone! Every other year, I convince my parents and sisters to come with our family for a trip to Yellowstone. We have so much fun together. It brings back lots of memories of the trips we took when we were just 5 little girls, instead of 5 grown-up girls with husbands and children. This year we went with out my youngest sister who is serving her mission in Philadelphia right now. We missed her, but we still had a blast.

My sisters and I on some vacation
(Brittany is missing in this photo, so I am probably 8 or 9)

Look at us now...10 kids later!

We went on hikes, visited the geysers and hot pots, ate a picnic every day for lunch, slept in cabins, and saw a TON of animals. That is our favorite part, well maybe the family bonding and memories, but animal sightings are definitely one of the top highlights of the trip.

This year we spent a few days in Grand Teton National Park after our four days in Yellowstone. Our entire goal was to see a moose. And we came down to the wire--we saw two moose, both within an hour of leaving the park.

We are already making plans for 2015. The rest of this post is just a few of my favorite pictures from this trip--we took 368 pictures. Crazy right? It was hard to choose favorites, but here they are!

First, the animals...

Mama black bear and two cubs!

Coyote

River otter

Fox

Beaver

Mama moose

Daddy moose

Boy Elk

Mommy elk and baby with spots...so precious!

Now for the memories...

Seth loved walking around the cabin.

Dax LOVES waterfalls.

We hiked around this little lake with the cousins.
Randy led while I brought up the rear...just like little ducklings.

We love hiking, but sometimes 4 year old feet get tired.

Mark and Dax with Josh at Wraith Falls.

Everyone on the stagecoach ride.

A lot of time is spent using binoculars in Yellowstone.
No, this isn't staged....I turned around and hurried to snap this photo.

I love the way this picture turned out at Storm Point.

Happy Brothers!

Gotta have a walking stick.

More waterfalls...nope, he can't just smile!

Ockey boys

Hidden Falls in the Tetons--A really big waterfall.

Mark matched the flowers so nicely.

Seth and Dax before the wagon ride.

We went on a wagon ride to a cook out.
Mark is slightly afraid of the Indian in the background.

See that road? Randy must travel every possible road, so we traveled on this one.
We didn't see much, but we met some nice cowboys.
The Tetons are beautiful!

Video Post

I should be packing for Yellowstone, but instead I have been watching old home movies and uploading new ones from the camera. That is sort of preparing for Yellowstone because I'm trying to clear my camera so I have lots of space for pictures and movies. Anyway, since I can't post for awhile because I will be out of town for the next week, I thought I would leave you with some movies to watch. One for each kid! Enjoy!

Mark performed in his school's dance festival the last week of school. I felt bad for him because his mask kept falling off, but he never stopped dancing. We had a lot of fun watching him!

Dax had a preschool program at the end of the year. I pasted a few clips of songs together. I apologize that it is slightly random, but he was so cute singing all the songs that it was hard to choose just one!

Seth has been learning to walk. He is so stubborn! If we try to have him walk between us, Seth sticks his legs out so that he can't stand up. But if he wants to go somewhere then he can walk just fine. Here's a short clip of Seth walking and a few other silly ones!