Baseball, school, and job

Fall season at the ballpark has started. Well, practice anyway. Games start on Labor Day. Richard is coaching Hudson this time. He wasn't going to coach either one of them but the park called and asked him to coach in Hudson's age group because they needed one more. He's excited about it but hopes that his and Chan's games aren't always at the same time. The season is short, only 4 weeks and they don't play any games on Saturdays. I'm glad they are both playing.
Richard is playing softball for my bank's team. They had their first game Monday night and won 17-2. The other team was pretty sad. Richard hit the ball good. He didn't get anything hit to him in the outfield but he had a good time. He is the oldest on the team by about 10 years. It's pretty funny but as he says, "I may be the oldest but that doesn't mean I'm the most mature." So between him and the boys playing, we will be at some ball park 4 nights a week sometimes. Gotta love it!
School is going great for Chandler and Hudson. Chandler's school had open house last week and I met all his teachers. They all seem really nice and fun and they are all pretty young. I don't remember having teachers like that when I was in middle school. Hudson's doing well, also. He has a new best friend at school and talks about him all the time. His teacher writes notes in their folders everyday and that is my favorite thing to read. They are always positive and she shares a little bit of what his day was like.
For those of you who don't know, Richard is now full-time in the t-shirt business. He quit his other job in late June. Things have been going really well so far and he's been getting new business everyday. So...if anyone needs any t-shirts, uniforms, signs, or things like that, please let him know and feel free to spread the word along:)

P.S. Richard's b'day it tomorrow so Happy Birthday! I love you!
P.S.S. ROLL TIDE!

A sweet little voice on the phone

Last Friday I got a call at work. There was this sweet little voice on the other end asking, "Valoree, can Hudson come spend the night with me?" It was my niece Sydney and it was the sweetest thing ever. After talking to Caroline and making sure she was up for it, of course I said SURE! Richard and I decided it would be a great opportunity for us to have a much needed date night. We were going to a 5:20 movie so we were just going to leave Chandler at home but just as we were about to leave, one of his friends called and invited him to spend the night. So...it all worked out great and we were able to have a date without getting a babysitter. We went to see the Bourne Ultimatum which was great by the way! After the movie we grabbed something to eat at Zaxby's and were home by 8:15. How sad is that? We had a great time and it was good to just spend some time with each other. It was just nice to go to bed when I wanted to and sleep late. We got up and ate IHOP the next morning.
I was able to partially repay the favor by watching Caroline's kids for a couple of hours the next day so she could go shopping. I still think I owe her though! Not quite an even trade :)
Chandler really does have some great friends and I hope it remains that way as he gets older. He started middle school last week and is liking it so far. I can't believe he's so grown. I think back to when I was in the 6th grade and what I knew and how old I thought I was and it's really scary. I guess that's what prayers are for, right? Anyway...I am so thankful for the great family and friends that we are blessed to have! I can't imagine life without them.

A much needed vacation

We have been back from vacation for a little over a week now. It was wonderful. 10 days of no work and no responsibility. We went to the 11 year old Dizzy Dean World Series held in Rossville, Georgia. We actually stayed in Chattanooga, Tn. The park was about 20 miles away from the hotel. Some people say that it's a lot to take a week of vacation for a baseball tournament and that's not how they would want to spend it but we love it. How often do kids get to go on vacation with 11 of their friends and hang out at a hotel and swim with them everyday? Okay so maybe a few of those 11 you don't want to be with a whole week but you get the idea. We left on Thursday the 19th at about 3pm. Chandler went up earlier with a friend so he could be there for the opening ceremonies which consisted of a parade and a picnic at the park with a rock climbing wall, home run contest, bunting contest, and other activities. We met them at the hotel at about 8pm and the kids of course went swimming. Later that night, we made a family trip to Wal-Mart to get some groceries and lots of candy and junk food. We stayed at Country Inn & Suites so our rooms had a small kitchen area with a sink, fridge and a microwave. Note: vacation is the only time Richard goes to the grocery store with me. Richard's brother Russell stayed the weekend with us and his dad stayed the rest of the week. The games started that next morning at 9am and of course that's what game time we got. It was actually raining that morning so the games got pushed back until 11 so we got up at 6am for nothing. Oh well. We won this game and played again at 5:30 that night. We won that game also.

This is Chan playing 1st during our first game.

Anyway...we won Saturday's game and didn't play again until Monday night. We ended up losing Monday to Tallahassee (the team that beat us last year in the championship game) and Tuesday we lost so that put us out of the tournament. They ended up tying for 5th out of about 30 something teams so I guess that's not too bad but they should have done better. Let's just say we'll blame the coaching and I won't go into any details:) Chandler played great and had a great tournament. We are very proud of him and his talent and attitude!

Between game times we were able to do some fun things. One night we went to a place that had putt-putt, go-carts, batting cages and so forth. Hudson thinks you have to ride the go-carts every time you are on vacation no matter where that might be so luckily we found a place to do this.


This is Hudson with wind blown hair after the go-carts!


Richard had to get in the batting cages!



One day we went to a Children's Discovery Museum. It was okay. Not near as cool as the one we went to in New Orleans last year.

Here are the boys digging for dinosaur bones.




Hudson had a great time at the hotel and the games with the other "SOB's" (I'm not cussing, see earlier post for explanation) We were able to go swimming every morning and pretty much have the pool to ourselves since the bigger boys couldn't swim until after their games. The hotel had an indoor and outdoor pool. Hudson amazed the other parents by his swimming abilities. While other kids his age and older were wearing life jackets, he was doing flips off the side and swimming in the deep end by himself! He wanted to be a big boy and hang out in the lobby and walk around the hotel by himself but we couldn't let him do that just yet. The park where the games were played had a really nice playground so I took him to play on that everyday before Chandler's games.




All in all we had a great week and it was fun to spend so much time together. In the weeks leading up to this, Richard had been working like crazy so we hadn't been able to see him much. We ate a bunch of good food and at a couple of different places. It was a much needed break!

Finally!

I got my hair cut about a month ago and I've been meaning to post pictures but I just haven't gotten around to it. I took a couple but then didn't really like them so I didn't use them. I'm not real crazy about these either but oh well...you'll get the idea.