Take Me Out

Baseball season started tonight! Andrew and Sam had fun and looked great out there. Their team lost in a close game, 18-16 in 4 innings (thank goodness for the 5 run rule, and the time limit or we'd still be there). Andrew made an unassisted double play (caught a fly ball, stepped on 3rd when the runners took off) and they both hit well. The last out of the game was made when Sam fielded a grounder at 2nd and threw to Andrew on 1st. This will be a fun year!

Sun Fun

Some highlights of our spring break trip to Arizona:

• BASEBALL - Mariner's spring training was amazing. We went a little early to watch the players warm up. Andrew and Sam loved seeing their favorites so close up. They waited patiently until warm-ups were over, and were rewarded with autographs by Ken Griffey Jr., Yuniesky Betancourt, and some other guys we've never heard of. The game itself was fun too. The Mariners won 18-3, we had a nice lunch and walked around.


• We had great visits with family all week! Lots of people to visit and spend time with. We especially enjoyed meeting Ephram and Ethan, Lisa and Christa's boys. The little boys seemed to like having the big boys to play with.


• On Saturday, Lisa took us on a little hike that turned into some rock climbing that Andrew and Sam loved. Nice views of the city of Phoenix too.
• I don't think we saw a single cloud in the sky the entire week. Fortunately, our weather on returning has been nice, or I think we would be in shock.

Happy Birthday Alan!

Alan started his special day with breakfast in bed,

complete with presents from the Mariner's team store. Andrew and Sam liked it as much or more than Alan did, and they joined him on the floor (because, frankly, we don't trust them to eat in our bed. For good reason). Our other festivities took place last night, at our annual Mariner's ticket party. We share season tickets with 7 other families, and each year we have a draft party to pick our games. Andrew and Sam are mostly interested in the promotional give-aways, and we ended up with some good ones....Griffey bobble-head night, Felix Hernandez bobble-head night, Mariner's train car night, and my favorite, Mariner's re-usable grocery bag night.

Spring Gardening

Sam and I got out this afternoon to pull some weeds, prune some shrubs, and dig around a bit. My favorite moment was when Sam came up to me and asked, "Mom, is it okay if I get just a little bit dirty?" when he was already dirty from head to toe.

Andrew came out and joined us for a little while, but he's mostly been laid up on the couch this week. He's had a nasty cold, plus fever, so he's stayed home from school the past two days. He's been playing a lot of chess, either with me or on his own. I think he's hoping to get some tips from his cousin Ryan next week. Ryan is already a great chess player, and plays in tournaments.

Then, I had to include this shot of Bailey, who was clearly worn out from her day yesterday. She spent most of the day at the vet getting her teeth cleaned, then we picked her up and went straight to baseball practice. She seemed to enjoy being outside with the kids, and she made a good lap dog-warmer for Andrew since he wasn't able to practice yesterday. As soon as we got home, she conked out.

More Snow.....

We're reminiscing of Rochester this morning....

Science Fair

Here's Andrew's project on display at the school science fair, which was Thursday and Friday of this week. He called it "Planes Fight for Flight", and the project measured the flying distance of three different paper airplane designs. We're thrilled that he found a productive use for his love of paper airplanes!

There were many other cool projects at the fair. Sam's favorite was one that measured the worthiness of different brands of baseball bats, based on how far they bunted.

Sam-I-Am

Last week was "Read Across America" week, and in celebration of Dr. Suess' birthday there were a bunch of special events at school. Sam's class even got to eat real green eggs and ham! Sam cleaned his plate, true to form

Each day there was a trivia question with the announcements....see if you can answer these:

• in "One Fish, Two Fish...." what game do they play with the Gack?
• in "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back", what color is the ring in the bathtub?

Friday was pajama day, and also the day that we tested paper airplanes for Andrew's science project. The science fair is later this week, so stay tuned for pictures from that. Andrew's project is coming together really well.