Grady's Orioles!

Last week was the official end of Grady's baseball season!  His team finished in 3rd place...not bad for only having 7 players for tournament week!  It seems like everyone was on vacation, so that challenged the Orioles team a bit, but still I think they did fantastic!!!  They played 3 games...winning their first and second pretty easily.  It was the semi-final game that was a toughy!  Not only did the other team have a full roster, but they also fielded the ball fairly well.  The final score was 15-13, Cubs.  Grady had a pretty good baseball week, though!  He had 6 home runs on the week, with 2 of them scoring 3 runs including him!  He played mostly 2nd, with a little time at 1st...he had a few assists on outs along with a couple of outs while playing first!  He has already started practicing for next year.....it will be time for machine pitch!  Way to go Grady!  We are so proud of you! 

Gabe's Orioles

On Monday night Gabe and his Orioles team finished the season with a First Place Trophy...and quite a story to tell!  Gabe and his team went into the Catt Leedom Tourney with a first place seed...looked like it would be a pretty easy time getting to the championships...2 games and voila!, playing for first place!  Well, as the old saying goes...it's never as easy as it seems!  The first game was a booger!  With a first place seed, they had a bye the first round, so their first game was against a pretty good team!  Unfortunately, they lost that first game...but not all was lost...because it was a double elimination tournament, they just had to win their way back on the loser side of the bracket---piece of cake!  NOT!  They played their first game on Monday night, lost that one and then continued to play a game Tuesday, Wednesday and 2 on Thursday to win their way into the championship game!  That my friends, is a lot of baseball in one week..plus throw in 3 of Grady's games....yep, we definitely had bleacher bottoms!  Gabe had a pretty solid tournament...he had several good hits, played center and first, as well as pitched the entire game against the Cubs winning that game 12-1!  So, the Orioles had to win 4 games to get back into the Championships....out of those 4 games only one was easy, the others they really had to be on top of their game!  After winning the second game on Thursday night...they had the weekend to rest up and then it was time for redemption on Monday!  They had to play the team that had beaten them at the beginning of the tournament..and in order to get first place they had to win against this team twice!  Well, long story short....they did it!  It was a fantastic evening of baseball.....the boys were no doubt tuckered out, but the look of sweet victory on those faces was priceless.  I'm not sure if they had just went out and won that very first game, the victory would have been as sweet...something about having to come back and work your way to first just makes it that much better!  Thank you Gabe and the Orioles for a very fun and exciting baseball season!!!  Way to Go Gabe...we are so proud of you!!!

Horse Wranglers??!!

Okay, so I just had to share this story....so, last night Shawn and I were chillin' getting ready to watch Police Blotter on Jay Leno when I noticed a van slow down in front of our house, back up to our drive way, pull in, turn on his hazards, and pull back out.  Strange.  So, being uber nosy and concerned that he may have hit something (our precious Katie) I walked outside to have a look.  After I got outside, I could see he was parked, with his hazards on, right past our driveway, honking his horn...the situation just became stranger!  Shawn had then come outside as I was heading out to the road to see what he was doing and low and behold I see HORSES EVERYWHERE!  Oh my goodness, since living out here it has become pretty common to see critters on the road, in our yard, roaming the ditches....but usually it is goats or sheep, never 12 huge horses.  Well, we knew exactly whose they were, so Shawn gave the neighbors a ring and let them know, then Shawn and I switched to horse wrangler mode!  The gentleman who stopped was from Chicago and let me know he had no clue what to do, and that the horses made him nervous...when we found him he was still in his van, honking his horn...obviously not country folk as the honking was making the horses more crazy!  So, Shawn took out after the horses and I used a flashlight to slow traffic coming up the road.  The owners of the horses were actually in bed, so it took a minute for them to get on the scene....after about 10 minutes the horses came back toward their home...and who was standing there???   ME!  I put my little arms up, flashed my light toward the gate and I got all of those horses right back into their home!  Me, the one who is just as afraid as the city slicker of horses!  I will admit when I saw those horses coming my way, I panicked a bit....but I sure didn't want those horses to come any closer than they already were....so freaked city girl turned into horse wranglin' cowgirl!  I was very proud of myself, but I totally played it cool.  When Shawn and Keith came down the hill, they were like "Where are the horses?", and I was like "I put them in the gate."  Yeah, I'm good...I'm sure Shawn was floored as I won't even open the gates at the Fox Farm if the cows are around...but he played into my coolness....he was proud of his city wife!  So, not the usual evening at our house...but a good story none the less!  There are times I wouldn't mind living in the city again...but then I would miss out on times like these!  Ahhh...country life!