Our long weekend is over and it's back to work today. We really had a great weekend and it was a much much much much much needed break from work. We spent the weekend in Freedom at Andy's parents' house and were able to visit and relax. Some of Andy's family was visiting so we had a family picnic at his Grandma's house and were able to see lots of people that we normally don't see when we come to visit and that was fun. We fished Sunday and then left Monday morning to head to Anthony for a Trap shoot. The Trap club is on a lake in and so there is a really shady grove of trees to hang out in and we were able to fish and hang out around the lake too though it was so incredibly hot in the sun after a weekend of sun. When we got home Monday night we realized that they were having a John Wayne marathon on TV so the boys and I watched Rooster Cogburn until I finally gave in to some much needed sleep.
Yesterday we were still off work so we all slept late! Yoo-hoo! Cole and I ran to Ponca to run some errands and Andy and Wyatt ran their own errands and did some guy stuff in Ark City. Then we met back at home after lunch and went to a shooting range and had a little family outing target shooting with the boys. I had a two hour golf lesson yesterday and we had baseball games last night. It was nice to do things we wanted to do for a change instead of things we HAVE to do.
Work was especially painful this morning after a long weekend, but AHHHH such is life I guess. Until I figure out how to retire at 32, I guess I'll have to keep working. Notice I say retire? Stay at home Mom's work too darned hard so I say that I want to retire instead. That sounds so much better!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Baseball Part II
As I mentioned in a previous post, baseball in Ark City has been quite dissapointing for Andy and I. The boys aren't old enough to really understand how things are being run here yet.
Initially we knew we would be dissapointed in the facilities. We have been blessed to have played years past in Winfield where the boys were truly lucky to have such great fields to play on. In Ark City we play at Sleeth, home of the sewage treatment plant...right next to the field Wyatt plays on...seriously. A great hit would literally end up floating around with the Baby Ruths! Uggh.
It didn't take long to learn that raw waste is not the only thing that stinks around there. Cole's first scrimmage was last week. He scrimmaged the Association President's team. It was a slaughter! Because it was picture night for the traveling teams, we found out really quickly that the Pres has stacked his team with traveling team players. Cole's league is the 7 and 8 year old league though there were two boys that played on Wyatt's third grade football team last fall. So they are basically stacked with third graders and stud 7 and 8 year olds and are absolutely rolling over every other team in the league. Last weekend we had a tournament and had to play them again right out of the gate and were run ruled as was everyone else!
The irony of all this was that we noticed that the same snotty little klick that we had to endure during football just happened to be the parents of the kids on the President's team! We found it hard to believe that they just accidentally ended up with all their kids on the same team. You see most towns rank their players and then spread the higher ranked kids throughout the teams for a couple reasons. They don't want any one team to be too strong, but also, it's good for weaker players to play with stronger players. Stronger players are a good teaching tool.
Andy mentioned what we had noticed to Wyatt's coach and he explained to us that in Ark City, President suggested that kids that hang out together and who's parents socialize together should get to play together. Well I guess the other coaches agreed without realizing what his plan was. Basically he wanted to be able to stack his team and he wanted to make sure that their kids don't have to play with kids that the parents don't socialize with. The same guy coaches a team in Wyatt's league too and he has basically done the same thing with less success though. His team did beat Wyatt's team last weekend, but not without a fight. They barely pulled it off.
It is very dissapointing that we live in a town that places status in a klick above the love of the game of baseball. But as we learn more and more, it seems that this klick in Ark City is pretty much the foundation of life here. These same parents put their kids in the same schools even though they don't reside in the designated area. It just so happens that is the school our kids go to. And the same parents run the show there too.
My whole life Ark City people have talked about Winfield people like Ark City people are more down to earth and Winfield people are snotty but having lived in both places, we both agree that Ark City is a tough town to live in because of this klicky crap. And the sad part is that the people who are in this group are not of high social standing. They don't have great jobs for the most part or come from good families or even have fabulous houses. Many are big partiers. But they have this idea that they are a desireable group to run with. We certainly don't agree.
As Wyatt's coach put it, "The good thing about letting them have their own little team is that you don't have to deal with those bunch of parents on your team. Thank goodness for small favors.
Initially we knew we would be dissapointed in the facilities. We have been blessed to have played years past in Winfield where the boys were truly lucky to have such great fields to play on. In Ark City we play at Sleeth, home of the sewage treatment plant...right next to the field Wyatt plays on...seriously. A great hit would literally end up floating around with the Baby Ruths! Uggh.
It didn't take long to learn that raw waste is not the only thing that stinks around there. Cole's first scrimmage was last week. He scrimmaged the Association President's team. It was a slaughter! Because it was picture night for the traveling teams, we found out really quickly that the Pres has stacked his team with traveling team players. Cole's league is the 7 and 8 year old league though there were two boys that played on Wyatt's third grade football team last fall. So they are basically stacked with third graders and stud 7 and 8 year olds and are absolutely rolling over every other team in the league. Last weekend we had a tournament and had to play them again right out of the gate and were run ruled as was everyone else!
The irony of all this was that we noticed that the same snotty little klick that we had to endure during football just happened to be the parents of the kids on the President's team! We found it hard to believe that they just accidentally ended up with all their kids on the same team. You see most towns rank their players and then spread the higher ranked kids throughout the teams for a couple reasons. They don't want any one team to be too strong, but also, it's good for weaker players to play with stronger players. Stronger players are a good teaching tool.
Andy mentioned what we had noticed to Wyatt's coach and he explained to us that in Ark City, President suggested that kids that hang out together and who's parents socialize together should get to play together. Well I guess the other coaches agreed without realizing what his plan was. Basically he wanted to be able to stack his team and he wanted to make sure that their kids don't have to play with kids that the parents don't socialize with. The same guy coaches a team in Wyatt's league too and he has basically done the same thing with less success though. His team did beat Wyatt's team last weekend, but not without a fight. They barely pulled it off.
It is very dissapointing that we live in a town that places status in a klick above the love of the game of baseball. But as we learn more and more, it seems that this klick in Ark City is pretty much the foundation of life here. These same parents put their kids in the same schools even though they don't reside in the designated area. It just so happens that is the school our kids go to. And the same parents run the show there too.
My whole life Ark City people have talked about Winfield people like Ark City people are more down to earth and Winfield people are snotty but having lived in both places, we both agree that Ark City is a tough town to live in because of this klicky crap. And the sad part is that the people who are in this group are not of high social standing. They don't have great jobs for the most part or come from good families or even have fabulous houses. Many are big partiers. But they have this idea that they are a desireable group to run with. We certainly don't agree.
As Wyatt's coach put it, "The good thing about letting them have their own little team is that you don't have to deal with those bunch of parents on your team. Thank goodness for small favors.
Last Day of School
Today is the last day of school and we are all SOOOOOO excited! This means we can sleep later and not have homework every night! Yea! This morning we had a celebration breakfast of eggs, sausage, hashbrowns, and biscuits and gravy! All my boys headed off to school and work full from their ginormous breakfast. We have an awards assembly this afternoon and after that the boys are free men!
They have such a fun summer ahead of them including two sessions of swimming, baseball in the evenings, and rec activities all day long. I can't wait! I know how much fun they are going to have knowing that four days a week this summer they are going to have non-stop fun with kids their age and swimming everyday. I am a little jealous!
In between all their summer fun they will get to spend a week or two with Grandma Jo and will get to go stay with their Oklahoma Grandparents too. I hope that they have such a great summer that they are totally ready to attack next school year.
They have such a fun summer ahead of them including two sessions of swimming, baseball in the evenings, and rec activities all day long. I can't wait! I know how much fun they are going to have knowing that four days a week this summer they are going to have non-stop fun with kids their age and swimming everyday. I am a little jealous!
In between all their summer fun they will get to spend a week or two with Grandma Jo and will get to go stay with their Oklahoma Grandparents too. I hope that they have such a great summer that they are totally ready to attack next school year.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Craziness
It's been a long time! Life has been more than hectic lately and with work, baseball, church and life in general it's just been nuts lately. On a normal evening I don't get home until about 8:30 at night because we have baseball practices at least 3 nights during the week that start at 5:00 and don't end until 8:00. Lately we've had obligations on the weekends too which doesn't really make keeping the house clean much of an option. We do what we can but it's been neglected to say the least. Friday and Saturday we had baseball tournaments which made housework wait until Sunday after church which left me feeling really bummed. I prefer to get a nap on Sunday afternoons rather than clean house but it had to be done. I get really down when my house is messy.
I need a part time job with full time pay!
And after the housecleaning Wyatt and I worked on his science project. We made a solar system out of sugar cookies decorated in frosting. It really turned out awesome but it was a lot of work. More cleanup really than actual work. Well, getting all the different colors we needed took a lot of time. It's amazing how many colors you need to make planets. I did find out some really cool info though. Wal-Mart has awesome cake stuff that is not in the baking isle. It's with the wedding stuff. They sell the kind of concentrated food colorings that you dip a toothpick into. The colors are awesome. I won't ever buy liquid color again. They also sell the cake cardboards. We bought large rectangular ones and spray painted it black and had an awesome sky for our planets.
All in all his project turned out awesome and he was so proud. What's more awesome is that we really had a good time listening to music and making cookies and frosting them. We danced in the kitchen and played air sax and had some really good moves. Andy just shook his head at us. I'm sure we looked pretty ridiculous but we had a blast. The funny think is that there were a lot of songs about the moon and stars all evening and we thought that those songs were in honor of our project.
I can't wait to hear how his day went. When I left him at school he was grinning ear to ear because the kids were all gathered around his desk looking at his project. The recipe was so big that we made sun cookies for all the kids in his class.
This weekend was a crash course of how things work in the world of baseball in Ark City and to say the least we were less than pleased. More on that load of crap later though. Today I'm just so proud of Wyatt I am almost teary!
I need a part time job with full time pay!
And after the housecleaning Wyatt and I worked on his science project. We made a solar system out of sugar cookies decorated in frosting. It really turned out awesome but it was a lot of work. More cleanup really than actual work. Well, getting all the different colors we needed took a lot of time. It's amazing how many colors you need to make planets. I did find out some really cool info though. Wal-Mart has awesome cake stuff that is not in the baking isle. It's with the wedding stuff. They sell the kind of concentrated food colorings that you dip a toothpick into. The colors are awesome. I won't ever buy liquid color again. They also sell the cake cardboards. We bought large rectangular ones and spray painted it black and had an awesome sky for our planets.
All in all his project turned out awesome and he was so proud. What's more awesome is that we really had a good time listening to music and making cookies and frosting them. We danced in the kitchen and played air sax and had some really good moves. Andy just shook his head at us. I'm sure we looked pretty ridiculous but we had a blast. The funny think is that there were a lot of songs about the moon and stars all evening and we thought that those songs were in honor of our project.
I can't wait to hear how his day went. When I left him at school he was grinning ear to ear because the kids were all gathered around his desk looking at his project. The recipe was so big that we made sun cookies for all the kids in his class.
This weekend was a crash course of how things work in the world of baseball in Ark City and to say the least we were less than pleased. More on that load of crap later though. Today I'm just so proud of Wyatt I am almost teary!
Monday, May 4, 2009
Future Quarter Miler????
I must be the proudest Mama in the whole United States this morning! Wyatt rocked his trackmeet yesterday! Things started out a little rocky but soon got much better.
He started the meet with the long jump and got third place and was completely devastated! This was the first time that he even tried to long jump and even so, he was crushed. He decided right then and there that he was going to have a horrible meet and would not run well either just because of some stupid field event. Track is one of those sports that just takes some time to figure out what events you are good at. I tried to explain that too him but it didn't seem to sink in.
By the time that we started to warm up for his 50 meter dash, he was more relaxed but was pretty irritated at me because he didn't see the point in warming up. At that age it's just hard to impress upon a child how important that is. He ran a good 50 meter despite a really crappy start and got second place and was thrilled with that.
His 50 meter was a great warm-up for his 400 meter that followed shortly after. I really felt like this was going to be his race, but then until you actually get to see your child compete, you just don't know. We had talked strategy quite a bit beforehand and he actually listened really well and it showed in his race. Most people probably don't understand how much thinking there really is to do in a race like that, but there truly is. You absolutely have to run a smart race and he did amazing for his first time out. He had a really relaxed first 200 meters and then slowly and smoothly sped up through the next 100 meters. The plan was that when he hit the straightaway for his last 100 meters he would be at 75% speed and then from that point he would roll into a full out sprint for the last 50 meters. At the last 100 meters I thought that he was out of gas because he seemed to be just loping. I think it might have been more due to the fact that there was no one close to him and he just thought he could coast. When he got to the 50 meter mark I yelled, "He's coming up right behind you Wyatt!"
At that point I didn't know whether he had any gas left or whether he was pooped, but when I yelled out to him he took out like a rocket! It was actually pretty funny because everyone laughed because it was such a drastic burst of speed! He obviously had a lot of gas left and could have poured it on according to plan!
So he had an amazing race and really showed us what we had suspected all along, which is that Wyatt has the potential to be a great middle distance runner. He has an amazing naturally long, smooth, graceful stride that is just made for the 400 and 800 meter runs. It was so fun to see a child of mine on the track. I spent so many years competing and just loving the sport and to see a child of mine enjoying it too was just amazing. I know how Andy feels when he watches the boys play football. It just brings back memories.
So since Wyatt qualified for State we will travel up North so he can compete at the State level. I tried to explain to him that it's a whole different ball game up there and that the level of competition is going to be much more intense. That said, I really think that he is talented enough to do well up there. Most kids at that age are wanting to run the 50 meter and the 100 meter and are not thinking about the 400 meter. That said, there will be some tough competition up there but win or lose, it will be a great learning experience for Wyatt.
As we walked back to the parking lot Wyatt still grinned ear to ear. I told him that it looked like he had caught the bug. He grinned harder and agreed that he did. It's hard to explain that feeling that you get. For me, track was a love of racing. I didn't love running, I loved racing. Practices were grueling and I really never loved that part, but I loved the adrenaline or racing. I think Wyatt felt that yesterday.
We asked Cole on the way home if he wants to run when he gets old enough. He just said, "No!". He said later that he might but really didn't show any interest. That's really fine with me. Every kid had to decide what they like and what their strengths and weaknesses are. While I think that Cole has the build and speed of a sprinter, he may not ever have any interest in track at all. And that's fine with me.
He started the meet with the long jump and got third place and was completely devastated! This was the first time that he even tried to long jump and even so, he was crushed. He decided right then and there that he was going to have a horrible meet and would not run well either just because of some stupid field event. Track is one of those sports that just takes some time to figure out what events you are good at. I tried to explain that too him but it didn't seem to sink in.
By the time that we started to warm up for his 50 meter dash, he was more relaxed but was pretty irritated at me because he didn't see the point in warming up. At that age it's just hard to impress upon a child how important that is. He ran a good 50 meter despite a really crappy start and got second place and was thrilled with that.
His 50 meter was a great warm-up for his 400 meter that followed shortly after. I really felt like this was going to be his race, but then until you actually get to see your child compete, you just don't know. We had talked strategy quite a bit beforehand and he actually listened really well and it showed in his race. Most people probably don't understand how much thinking there really is to do in a race like that, but there truly is. You absolutely have to run a smart race and he did amazing for his first time out. He had a really relaxed first 200 meters and then slowly and smoothly sped up through the next 100 meters. The plan was that when he hit the straightaway for his last 100 meters he would be at 75% speed and then from that point he would roll into a full out sprint for the last 50 meters. At the last 100 meters I thought that he was out of gas because he seemed to be just loping. I think it might have been more due to the fact that there was no one close to him and he just thought he could coast. When he got to the 50 meter mark I yelled, "He's coming up right behind you Wyatt!"
At that point I didn't know whether he had any gas left or whether he was pooped, but when I yelled out to him he took out like a rocket! It was actually pretty funny because everyone laughed because it was such a drastic burst of speed! He obviously had a lot of gas left and could have poured it on according to plan!
So he had an amazing race and really showed us what we had suspected all along, which is that Wyatt has the potential to be a great middle distance runner. He has an amazing naturally long, smooth, graceful stride that is just made for the 400 and 800 meter runs. It was so fun to see a child of mine on the track. I spent so many years competing and just loving the sport and to see a child of mine enjoying it too was just amazing. I know how Andy feels when he watches the boys play football. It just brings back memories.
So since Wyatt qualified for State we will travel up North so he can compete at the State level. I tried to explain to him that it's a whole different ball game up there and that the level of competition is going to be much more intense. That said, I really think that he is talented enough to do well up there. Most kids at that age are wanting to run the 50 meter and the 100 meter and are not thinking about the 400 meter. That said, there will be some tough competition up there but win or lose, it will be a great learning experience for Wyatt.
As we walked back to the parking lot Wyatt still grinned ear to ear. I told him that it looked like he had caught the bug. He grinned harder and agreed that he did. It's hard to explain that feeling that you get. For me, track was a love of racing. I didn't love running, I loved racing. Practices were grueling and I really never loved that part, but I loved the adrenaline or racing. I think Wyatt felt that yesterday.
We asked Cole on the way home if he wants to run when he gets old enough. He just said, "No!". He said later that he might but really didn't show any interest. That's really fine with me. Every kid had to decide what they like and what their strengths and weaknesses are. While I think that Cole has the build and speed of a sprinter, he may not ever have any interest in track at all. And that's fine with me.
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