Iron Cinco Derby

 This post covers a couple of weeks...which seems to becoming a habit.  Anyway, Jack turned big 7 on April 25th.  No big hulaballoo, just a happy boy.  We're so glad Jack is part of our family.  To celebrate, I watched the home video of the day he was born at Norton Suburban hospital in Louisville Kentucky.   We were hoping for a girl, but are very blessed to have a Jack.

 While Jack was celebrating his birthday by having dinner at Dickies, I enjoyed another boy scout camping adventure with Drew's scout troop.  We went up to Baker Dam and it was a night of ferocious wind until about 2am and then steady soaking rain.  I'm not the greatest camper but I do love being outdoors and being with the youth...

 ...all 16 of them! (the other 5 or 6 boys couldn't make it for various reasons)  I slept in the van on a mattress but feel like I slept less than the boys did in their tents in the rain.

 At Laynee's request - a tribute to finishing a long project about Puerto Rico.

 It's Iron weekend here in St. George and Kyle gives us a reason to come out and support, otherwise we'd probably avoid the crowds and chaos.  The Burgess home gives us a great camp (even though they despise the location of the various races that run by their home on Diagonal).

 Kyle has been a busy man as of late - becoming Dean, finishing finals and graduation, and moving his family to Hawaii for 10 weeks while he teaches at BYU Hawaii.  He tells us that this year was more difficult than last year but we all know he did better than we could.  Oh, and while we were waiting for Kyle, we all witnessed a very scary bike wreck right in front of us.  The woman was ok, but didn't finish the race.

 Shana does a great job at keeping our Kentucky years close to our hearts by making the Kentucky Derby a special event.  She divides up the horses evenly amongst everyone and we all cheer them on.

 It IS the "most exciting two minutes in sports"

 Can you feel the excitement?!  

Ultimately, California Chrome was the big winner (with 2-1 odds) and I kept the $5 grand prize because I randomly picked him.

 Lauri and James planned and executed a wonderful Cinco de Mayo fiesta which also coupled as a bon voyage celebration for the Hawaii-bound Kyle Wells family.

 A pinata makes any party awesome!

And finally, Laynee was up north at the BYU invitational track meet and had a good safe time - it's always good to have her back home with us.

Vegas Easter Baseball Weekend

 When I think of Easter weekend, Las Vegas is not the first thing that comes to mind, nor is it my first choice of where I want to be (I'm not a big Las Vegas fan...sorry).

 Over the past two weekends, Seth's ball team made a transition to a more pure form of baseball...one where you can lead-off the bases and pitchers have to hold the runners on.  It's a much more active game for the kids and forces them to "think baseball" rather than passively letting the game happen and then reacting.  Last week Seth's team played a Southern Utah Baseball tourney with the older age group to gain experience and they did well for their first time with a 3-1 record, only missing the championship game because of run differential.

 This was the action at the hot-tub at the Henderson Comfort Inn.  There were multiple baseball teams staying there for the Easter Weekend baseball tourney.

 The boys did equally well in Henderson, going 3-1 in pool play and were ranked 2nd among the 9u teams going into the final day of play.

 They lost a close game in the semi-finals to end our championship run, but all-in-all it was a good time.  We were surrounded by friends and family and called it a little family vacation.

This was the professional field that the boys played on the first day.  If you look close, they even make it look like the outfield bleachers are filled with fans.  A lot of fun for the kids.

Catch up

 Apparently it was Doctor's Day a week or so ago...and my staff knows me well.

 Our Thunder baseball practice this past week consisted of sliding practice...on the slip'n slide.

 Drew and Jack are not on Seth's baseball team, but when they caught wind that there would be a slip'n slide - they were in!

 While Jack and Drew went straight to the more advanced "Pete Rose" slides, Seth was keeping it traditional.

 Later that same day, I rounded up the crew for some eats at Larsen's Frostop before we headed to a Dixie State double-header.

 I wanted to let the boys see what baseball is supposed to look like.  They watched for about 4 innings and then went out on the front lawn and played steel the flag.

 Rapid change of subject - Grandma Sullivan turned 87 a week ago and we gathered as a family to celebrate with her.  This is a wonderful woman.

 The ladies all gathered for dinner and the General Women's session.  This is a good looking crew.

 This past weekend was another busy one - but a good busy one.  Laynee was again running and did well.  I had to leave to go to Arizona to watch Drew in the final games of his DPSD (Desert Premier Soccer Division).  Laynee once again trimmed a little time off her mile from a 5:22 to a 5:20  - good enough to qualify for state.  Drew and I flew from Vegas to Phoenix with the Sims and Hendrix crew and had a great time.

 The games were actually in Casa Grande and right on the back porch of the motel where I stayed at for my 15 year old all-star baseball tourney.  The place hadn't changed one bit.  The pool was still shaped like a baseball bat and there was still absolutely no development around it for miles.

 It was off the upper decks that we'd drop the big bullfrogs that we caught at night time.  They must've survived, because when we went down to see the carnage, they were gone.  Ah the memories.

The boys played well - split the series with one win and one loss.  They ended up 3rd overall out of the top teams in UT, NV, NM, and AZ.  Not bad at all.

Why do we do this?

 It's weekends like this past one that really gets me thinking, "Why do we do this?"  On Friday, Seth had two baseball games in Santa Clara, Drew had a soccer game in St. George, and Laynee had a track meet in Hurricane.  I was able to make it Seth's games and Drew's soccer game while Shana watched Laynee run her mile.  They all did great.  Laynee broke the Freshman record for the mile at Desert Hills High School,  Drew's team beat the top ranked La Roca from up north in their soccer game and Seth won both his games on Friday in the first day of a two day tournament.  In my mind, I was still trying to justify how it is that we allow our lives to get so busy or more importantly - why?!

 So here's my thoughts -  Life is full of disappointments and failure.  We can't avoid it.  We will all fall down.  What we do after we fail constitutes who we are and what we will become - both temporally and spiritually.  We're giving our kids the opportunity to do hard things and fail often.  I know there's other ways to learn but this is one that we employ. I'll now get off my soap box. The next day Laynee broke the school record for the 2 mile.  Drew was down in Mesquite playing another soccer game that we couldn't make it down to, and Seth played 3 games on Saturday...and that was our weekend.

 Between our multiple trips from Santa Clara to Hurricane, a very hungry and frustrated Jack fell asleep.  Surely, visions of sugar plums were dancing through his head...or sugar anything.

 Seth's Saturday tournament in a bit more detail consisted of an early loss to a good Snow Canyon Warrior baseball team.  It was a hard fought loss (an opportunity to fail and then see how the kids would respond - right?)  Well, they came back to play their 1pm game with vigor beating the Canyon View Falcons by the mercy rule.  With a 3-1 record and a favorable run differential, they had made their way into the championship to once again face the Snow Canyon Warriors they had lost to that morning.

 I couldn't decide which picture I liked better so I included both.  Like I've said before, someday a lucky girl will take him home to meet her parents.

 With the bases loaded and no outs and the winning run on third base, Seth struck out two batters and fielded a soft grounder for the third out to send the game into extra innings.  We scored four runs in the top of the 7th inning and Seth then pitched to 3 batters - getting them to ground out or pop up for easy outs.  The kids had fallen down earlier in the day and learned that they could get back up and dust themselves off.

March Mayhem Southern Utah Baseball Tournament 9U Champions

March Madness

 Try to keep up.  Me, Jack, and Mandy at the Pizza Hut Classic watching some Flyer baseball on a beautiful spring Friday afternoon.

 It was a week ago now, but Laynee, Emily, and Maycee all headed to Folsom California to spend part of their spring break with their Grandma.  They had a ball.  Airport bums above

 #airplaneselfie

 Kayaking in Lake Natoma

 We interrupt Laynee's trip to let you know that Drew was working hard on the court with his basketball team and took a solid 2nd place.

 Back to the trip and here is Jane in front of the Sacramento Temple.

 #goldengatebridgetourselfie

 Jack enjoying his baseball size jawbreaker that Laynee brought home from San Francisco.  Someday a very lucky girl is going to bring this boy home to meet her parents.

 Fast Forward to this weekend - We don't do too many of the St. George races, but this is one of our favorites - The Spectrum 10K.  Laynee is here to defend her title and I run to support Laynee.

 And defend she did!  She took first place last year in her age division with a time of 50:01.  This year she finished with a time of 39:51!!!

 And the photobomber says, "That's the fast girl, right there."

 Good times with Dr. Troy Davis - one of the sponsors for this race (and the one who dumped chocolate milk on my left shoulder).

 These two pics are from Laynee's Dogtown 1/2 marathon a few weeks back...I just liked the pictures.  These are all boys from her cross country team.

Capping off February and opening up March

 Don't be fooled.  Yes, we've had some beautiful weather over the past few weeks, but what looks like a summer afternoon of swimming in the sun was really a polar bear plunge in the freezing pool.  They jumped in twice, and they only did it the second time because the picture of the first jump was blurry.

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 This is a very good friend of mine and some one whom I greatly admire.  He is a co-worker at my office who is leaving for Afghanistan in one week for a year.  He leaves behind a young family of 5.  We will miss him greatly at our office.  I wanted to sit down and have lunch and visit before he left, so I stole him away after his last day at work on Friday for some sushi.  We will all be praying for your safe return.

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 How many days til Seth's birthday you may ask? That's a double zero!

 Birthday cake with 9 candles and a photobomb from the Drewbster.

 With Seth's birthday falling on the same weekend as one of his baseball tourney's, Shana toyed around with the idea of having a party on Thursday before his games, or Friday after his games.  In the end, there was some negotiating that took place between Shana and Seth.  Shana will be the first to tell you it was a win-win deal.  Seth sold his birthday party for an undisclosed amount of money.

 This is the pre-game snow cone feeding-frenzy.

 The boys had a great time playing through the rainy weather.  They made it into the finals and came up with a tough loss to a team they had beat earlier in the tournament.  They fought hard but were just plain exhausted when it came down to the fifth and final game in two days.

I just had to snap this one.  An instant classic.