Happy Birthday, Dad!

Happiest of birthdays to my dad!

 

 

Hopefully some ice cold beers are in your plans on this crazy hot July day. Love you!

Hawks Baseball & Independence Day

This *HOT* weather sure has come on in full force this week! After a grueling June at work, I took some extra days off around the 4th to have some down time and get caught up on some stuff at home. We also enjoyed a Boise Hawks game, even though they blew the lead and ended up losing. The post-game fireworks were awesome!

We bumped into one of Carter's teammates and his family at the game, which included Chloe! Chloe and Kendall quickly became the best of buds during summer baseball. They hung out quite a bit of the game.

The kids also got to get a picture with Humphrey before we left the stadium.

We got up early the morning of the 4th, grabbed some donuts, dropped Matt's car off at the fireworks-watchin' spot to keep it "reserved", and then headed downtown to watch the parade. This parade is always a blast because of the massive water fight between all of the firetrucks. Definitely keeps us cooled off right when that noon heat starts to hit.

The spot we picked to watch fireworks proved to be great - quite the view! And it was nice to watch a different show than our normal one.

Ahhhhh, normal life

Now that summer baseball has closed out, life can resume a more normalized pace. I had a few days away from the kids, so the best way to enjoy some peace and quiet is to head to the mountains. While the majority of the people were headed towards McCall for the holiday, we headed right at Banks to a far better destination. We stopped off at the staircase to see the water pounding downstream. We just missed a couple kayakers, who are just crazy to even attempt this stretch of river under normal circumstances, let alone the high water year we are having. This is even lower than it was a month ago.....I can't even imagine. The volume of water going through right now is unlike anything I have ever seen. 

My absolute favorite place to be is sitting by the river, reading a good book. Hands-down. Best thing on earth. 

 We hiked around quite a bit so I could show Matt some of the best places up near the cabin. It was a warm day for sure, so it's a good thing we kept close to the river to cool off - that water is still ice cold!

We stopped off to see a couple great camping spots, and I was floored to see this one empty. There were fresh egg shells in the fire pit, so someone had clearly been there that day, or the day before. Crazy fun memories at this spot - I need to restock all of my camping gear and show the kids this spot. I'm sure it'll be one they will use on their own someday. 

Baseball and Other Shenanigans

Just one more tournament and life can return to normal.

 

Just one more tournament and life can return to normal.

 

Just one more.........

 

Holy baseball! 

 

It's a damn good thing I have unlimited PTO at work, because I surely would have maxed out any cap by now. Sheesh! The East Boise Classic was a fairly small tournament - only four 9U teams participated - but the game schedule was just as grueling as some of the larger tournaments. Carter did fairly well in this tourney - several hits, a couple walks, and a couple hit-by-pitches that left him with some bruise battle wounds. Wear them with pride, buddy!

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

The team ended up in the championship game - again playing East Boise. For some reason, our team has a mental block against East Boise (we have lost every time we have played them). The boys ended up taking second place, grabbed their medals, and got the hell out of that heat!

 

 

 

We made time for a late Father's Day / birthday for Veronica celebration BBQ as well. We needed some downtime!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(recreated this 2014 picture)

 

 

Definitely needed some of these this weekend:

 

 

 

 

Again, just one more tournament.........

Dairy Days Tournament

I only have four pictures from this tournament because it was league sponsored, meaning I did a shit-ton of volunteering both at the concessions and field prep (7am-6pm field prep was NOT the best decision). And let me just say, for the record, that it should be MANDATORY for every single parent of a kid on the team to volunteer. As in, there are probably 4 of us doing the lion's share of everything. Grrrr, people.  Anyway, between the scheduled games, concessions, field prep, keeping book if we were home team (again, ANYONE else wanna help?) and getting into a verbal altercation with one of the player's fathers, I managed to snag four lonely pictures of Carter.

(Yes, he has two different jersey numbers.......they have pet rats at their father's house, and the old jerseys were too close to the cage and were completely shredded by the rats. So a different jersey is now his......and Davis has been added. Whew!)

Happy Father's Day!

To the best there is, Dad, I love you!