They Won the Pennant!

Well, okay not actually the Pennant.... but Titus' team did go undefeated and they were the best team in their age group in the Cary Rec League.

Titus played Cary Rec this Fall and it was an awesome experience; great kids, great coaching and most importantly it finally got Titus back on a baseball field (first time since fall 2019).  He played primarily catcher because frankly he was the best.  However, on the last game of the year, as a sign of appreciation for playing catcher so much, Coach had Titus play pitcher and short stop.  Chris and Lance think he's a natural short stop, next time around we just have to it keep to ourselves he's also a great catcher (wink, wink).

All About Amber

Amber has wanted to ride horses well..... for as long as she knew they were horses not big dogs.  The desire to ride horses seems to be in a girls DNA and Amber is no exception.  Therefore, Amber decided to stop dance and give riding a try.  

Her first lesson was on October 9th (early B-Day present).  She rode a horse named Willie and she rode western.  It was a rainy day but that didn't phase her at all she was all excitement and has been every lesson since.

She has been learning to cook lately as well and one of her first projects was a fall favorite - Pumpkin Pie.  However, on her birthday the cooking was all left to us.  Her favorite breakfast restaurant closed, so we did our best to recreate the pancakes they make at home on her birthday.

 

Then later in the evening we had Holly, Mary and Frank over for the required Spice Cake, Birthday Cake.

The final part of her birthday celebration came today when we went to the NC Zoo with friends.  Amber loves going to the zoo and its always even better with friends.

All in all, I think she had a marvelous birthday celebration this year.  Amber is growing more beautiful inside and out each and every year and we all cherish her.

Dancing in the Rain

 ....and every other kind of weather.

It is really nice now that Lance can drive Jared and himself to Tuesday night dance, and it gives them a sense of freedom/independence as well.  

Tonight we all got to go dancing as it was the Harvest Dance at The Barn.  The kids had a marvelous time as usual, staying till the very last dance.  So thankful they have all learned to enjoy dancing.

Vrooom Vroooom

This weekend was the boys annual trip up to the Virginia International Raceway for the Michelin GT Challenge Series; an event they all look forward to each year.  Thankfully, its only a two hour drive from our house, which makes a nice day trip.  Due to the Le Mans moving their date, the event took place in October instead of August this year. This was a happy change as the weather was much cooler, though it started a bit wet.

Each boy has a type of car they prefer.  Lance is there to drool over all the Porsches.

Jared prefers to oogle the Corvettes with his father.  It was an incredibly exciting year for them as this was the first year they revealed the C8.R (see at top of page).  However, he is also very partial to the Lambroghinis.

Titus on the other hand is usually there for American Muscle, but there weren't any this year so he focused on Acura.

In the end, Corvette was the winner of the day in the GTLM class and Porsche blew out the GTD class.

Amber and I also look forward to this day, as special day of girl time.  We watched girl movies and did girl stuff.  Great day for the whole family.

End of a Season

Sometimes baseball is a dirty business, both literally and figuratively.  This is Lance's second year playing for Canes. This summer didn't start out as well as the previous year but that all changed when he spent a week playing on a select team in the PBR 17U National Showcase outside Atlanta, Georgia.  Here he was reunited with the team mates he loved best from Captials last year and in the process earned the respect of his teammates from the current year that were on the team as well.  The National coach and assistant coach absolutely loved Lance, his attitude, skill and versatility.  As a bonus we actually got to watch him play, as it was all televised.

Once the summer season ended, he was invited to play in two fall showcase events with the National team and one last Scout Cast yesterday.  Then it was lights out on Lance's travel ball career.

Its a bitter sweet time.  I think Chris will really miss being his concierge service on the road.  However, as he works and we pray, we know that even greater baseball experiences await him in the future.

HH Fall 2021

This is the beauty that makes us return time and time again.  I believe this is our sixth trip with the kids to the island.  We do things pretty much the same every trip because frankly we like it that way, so rather than a day by day post I'm going to let everyone tell in their own words their favorite parts of vacation.

Lance said, "I liked it when Titus caught the shark (the largest they'd ever caught on the island) and seeing the shark feeding frenzy."  I like watching him fish alone and with his siblings.  He even let me take a turn for a while, much to the amusement of the rest of the family (like when I casted wrong once).

Chris said, "I like the kids finding the sand dollars and playing bocce ball." We had picked up the game from Miss Beth this week.

 
Titus said," I liked playing bocce ball, eating food, catching a shark and going to the beach three times a day and going deep."  Titus was the first to find the sand dollars this time and then they kept finding them all week.  It had been a long time since we found sand dollars there.  One day the kids completely buried him the sand, much to his amusement (see video).  He brought his remote control paper airplane to the park, which was great entertainment, that is till it got stuck on the roof of a building.  Thanks to a team effort (including Miss Beth loaning us the the tools) we successful retrieved the plane without harm to the plane or the persons involved in the rescue.

Jared said, "I liked building my tank battle sandcastle, legendary golf and bocce ball."  I enjoyed our walk and talks along the beach and the humor he instigated back at the condo with the bottle blowing game (see video here). I also enjoyed watching him play "Marvin" with all the kids on the Pirate Ship.

Holly said, "I liked seeing the starfish, visiting maverick, seeing the Milky Way and the shooting stars."  Holly and I even created a new song to go with playing Jenga, dance and all...."Tumble, Baby...Tumble Baby".

Amber said, "My favorite parts were going to Beth's,  the Beach, finding sandollars, seeing the Milky Way and finding the sand flea and starfish."  I enjoyed helping her find the Sand Flea (a type of crab).  When I was little it was one of my main occupations at the beach, brought back some good memories. 

We had a lot of fun seeing lots of different animals this time.

This trip we noticed that all the cute little sandpipers runaway on one leg and Titus and Amber tried to befriend them.  

Thankfully there were NO stinging jellies this fall but were a lot of stingrays, possibly due to the exceptionally calm ocean or the fishing trollers that were right off the coast. 

We walked farther down the beach than ever before, a full mile from the walkway. All in all, another awesome and renewing vacation on the island.  Can't wait to come back!