A Weekend With Our Kansas Family

Kea & Miguel came with our sweet Kansas nieces to spend a few days with us.  What a great end to July!  I did a poor job taking pictures but it was such a treat to have them here.  The kids played, Kea and I got to catch up, and we managed the high 90s weather as best we could.

goon...

These sweetie girls played so hard.

It was a series of rotating beds a bit...

Sunday morning Mike & I had to have the teens at the church by 6 a.m. to leave for their mission trip so that night we put a teen on the couch instead of the bunkmates.  

The next night, with Natalee gone, the girls had a bunking party in the sisters' room!

We swam in the neighbors' pool, played games, played at the university indoor turf, attempted to play outside, ate, and enjoyed each others' company.

So grateful for time when we are all in our busiest phase of life ever.

Zayden's All Stars Baseball Season {Minors}

At the end of regular season, Zayden was asked to play on the minors All-Stars team.  This was a different kind of fun & learning experience for him.  He loved playing higher level ball.  He was mostly unknown by the coaches (who had a lot of the other players on a traveling team) so he had to work hard to prove his skill.  He learned what it looks like to stand against peer pressure, and didn't have anyone he knew very well on the team, so he had to be an extrovert.  He did a good job, we all learned a lot, and we're proud of how he performed both on the field and off.  He kept a good attitude, showed good sportsmanship, and worked as hard as he could.

There were two weeks of practice and four scheduled games. 

Game 1 on June 30th was a win.  Zayden was top of the batting line up and started the team off with a home run.

Game 2 on July 1st was a win.

flipping the coin...

He had to walk a lot this game.

Game 3 on July 3rd was a win and he had both set of grandparents there to watch.

Game 4 on July 7th, unfortunately was a loss, so we did not advance to state.  It was a disappointment, the umping was rough, and it was frustrating, but I was pleased with how Zayden handled himself.

A culmination of game videos...

It was exciting for Zayden to get to be a part of this and overall it was a worthy experience.  It gave us lots of talking points and we saw him mature a lot.