What's Been Going On

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

These last few weeks have been busy.  The boys finished school on June 3. The following day summer baseball kicked off for Evan with two games on Friday, June 4 and a game Sunday, June 6.

On Monday and Thursday of this week, Evan was a counselor at the TRPD camp. He also had practice, etc...

Meanwhile, we have been trying to find someone to fix up our yard.  We have some drainage issues.  That, along with lots of trees in the yard, has caused the grass to die.  Many of the plants did not survive the freeze over the winter.  The backyard is lots of dirt which turns into mud when it rains and that becomes a mess when Chewie goes out.

This week we hired someone to redo the whole yard.  We're adding lots of plants and trees and they are going to bring in dirt and regrade the whole yard along with rocks to help with drainage before putting new sod in completely around the front and back of the house. They started yesterday in trimming quite a few trees to let more light onto the property and they sprayed some herbicide to kill what grass we have left. So now we're taking Chewie on lots of walks because we don't want him out in the backyard with the herbicide down.

Evan played baseball on Friday, Saturday and Sunday this week.  He has continued to excel at catcher.  He had a good weekend behind the plate.  The pitching was bad on Friday but he managed to block a ton of pitches in the dirt.  He gave the team a chance.  On Saturday, he caught again but the pitching was much better.  He didn't have to work as hard.  They brought him into pitch in the final inning with a lead.  He was able to shut down the other team and wound up with his second save of the season.  The coach was so happy with his pitching, he started him today.  Apparently, yesterday was just an appetizer.  Because he was lights out pitching today.  He pitched a 6-inning complete game. He struck out 5 and while allowing just 5 hits and only giving up one run. On the season he has now pitched 9 2/3 innings while only giving up the one run. Evan's best friend, Reid, was in the stands watching the game.  His coach from the spring baseball season came, as well, to watch him play.  It was nice that he had so much support.

Evan and Reid went back to Reid's house.  We picked up Simply Pho for dinner and brought it to Reid and Evan while, Rachel, Noah and I ate here.

Rachel is making cookies now.

Until next time...

Ribs on the Smoker

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This morning Rachel and I were able to walk.  I didn't have a meeting so that was nice.  One thing about working for a company on the East Coast - I have to start earlier sometimes.

We came home and I began to work.  Rachel laid down for a bit before going to school.

Around lunch time, I started up the smoker.  I decided to make ribs today.  I figured I could be done cooking the ribs by the time we had to leave for Evan's practice. 

When the boys got home, Rachel walked over to Luna's house.  They are fostering a dog that just had puppies.  The puppies are only a few days old and the boys wanted to see them.

Just before we had to leave for Evan's practice, I was able to get the ribs off the smoker, wrapped them in foil and a towel and put them in a cooler to stay insulated. 

Evan had a good practice and was really happy with his pitching and hitting.

When we came home, we had the ribs.  The boys ate a ton.  It was great that they liked it.

The boys are about to go to bed.

Until next time...

Baseball Practice But No Football Practice

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This morning Evan had baseball practice.  We met up at Wendy's with Reid's dad and took Reid to practice.  We did stop at Donut Taco Palace on the way up.

Evan had a good practice.  They had it set up with 9 kids in the field and three batting.  When there were three outs, they'd bring in another 3 kids to bat and rotate kids in the field.  Evan caught twice, played left field once, batted, played first twice and pitched.  He looked good at first base today.  When he was pitching, he actually pitched six outs since he got threw the first three outs so quickly they kept going.  He was very sharp pitching.

On the way home, we brought Reid and Braeden with us and met their parents to drop them off.

Rachel and Noah were at HEB when we got home.

Noah was supposed to have football practice this afternoon, but around lunch time it got cancelled.  It was nice to have the afternoon free.

Evan played basketball outside for a bit with Nathan.

Then I made popcorn and the boys and I watched the movie The Rock.

For dinner, we had Yaghi's pizza delivered.  We watched Timeless while eating.

The boys are in bed.

Until next time...

Mother's Day at the Ball Field

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This morning I got up and all three boys were awake.  Josh and Evan got in their uniforms.

We stopped at Donut Taco Palace on the way to the fields.  Josh actually got breakfast tacos.  Normally, Evan and I just get donuts.

Evan started the first game and held the other team in check.  We played a full six inning so Evan played second base in the final three innings.  He did well and made some nice plays.  He was 1 for 2 with a hit and a walk.  We won that game.

In the second game, Evan played second base the entire time.  Evan continued to make good plays in the field.  He grounded out in his first at bat and then walked in his second at bat.  Towards the end of the game we were losing.  We needed to get some outs to have the opportunity to come back.  There was one out and a kid crushed a line drive to Evan's right.  Evan leapt in the air to his right almost horizontal and caught the ball, rolling on the ground when he came down.  The parents went crazy.  His teammates went crazy.  The kids were coming over to him and high-fiving him.  The next batter got out and I thought the momentum had shifted.  Unfortunately, it did not and the Bucs lost.

Rachel and Noah came to the second game.  They were able to see Evan make that catch.

We did stuff around the house in the afternoon.

For dinner, we went with Grandma and Papa to North by Northwest.  It was very good.

The boys are getting ready for bed.

Until next time...

Steelers and Bucs

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Evan's baseball games weren't supposed to be until late afternoon, so it gave us the opportunity to sleep in.

When I got up, the boys were playing in the game room.  I went downstairs and took care of bills and other things around the house.

At noon, the Steelers game started. Both boys came down.  Rachel came down and went for a long run.  It was a nice sunny, cool day - a good day for a run.

The Steelers game ran longer than I had thought.  They ended up winning.  After the game, the boys went upstairs to start cleaning up the game room.

I got some food ready for Evan before we left for the baseball game.  He ate it and we both got ready and left for the game.

Noah and Rachel went to Brody's party.  It was a Star Wars party.  They were showing Star Wars to all the kids.  Noah had a good time and stayed until 8pm.

When we got to the fields, the games were running late.  We had to argue with the tournament director a bit but we only started about 20 minutes late.  The Bucs took the lead after one inning, 4-1.  Evan was playing third base.  In the second inning, Evan was holding the runner on at third.  The pitcher threw over to Evan and the runner broke for home.  Evan fired a bullet home getting the runner.  Evan popped out in the bottom of the second.  In the top of the third, the other team had bases loaded with no outs.  The coach called on Evan.  Evan struck out the first batter.  He had two strikes on the second batter.  The runner on third came off the base a bit much and the runner took off for home.  The third baseman threw home to get out #2.  The next pitch was a strike for the third strike and the third out.  No one runs scored.   In the bottom of the third, we scored 4 runs.  Evan got a hit and scored the 4th run.  In the top of the fourth, Evan struck out the first batter.  He got 0-2 on the second batter.  That batter then fouled off a few pitches in between some balls.  The count got to 3-2.  Evan didn't seem to be phased and threw strike three for the second out.  He threw two strikes on the next batter.  The batter then hit a ball back to Evan who threw to first for the final out of the game.  Bucs win 9-2.  The final line on Evan, 2IP 0R 0ER 4K.  So this weekend in five innings, Evan struck out 10 batters.

We had a little ceremony where the boys got rings.  This was the biggest ring of all.  Evan was very proud.

Evan wanted to stop at Subway for a sub on the way home.  So we picked one up.

The boys are now sleeping and I'm about to go up to bed.

Until next time...

Rain and Sports

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Evan had two baseball games scheduled today.  One at 8am and one at 9:30am.  He had at least one football game scheduled at 1pm.  If they won at 1 they played at 2 and if they won at 2, they would play at 3.  We woke up and it was raining.  I checked and all the games were still on.  Noah wanted to come with Evan and me.

We left, stopped at the atm, and then stopped at Donut Taco Palace and went out to the fields.  The temperature was in the high 50s.  There was a constant light drizzle and it was windy.  So it was pretty cold.  Noah ended up sitting on the bench with the boys to stay warm.

Evan got the start in the first game.  It was his first start of the season and only the second time he has ever started a game.  He started the game by striking out the side.  He looked great.  In the bottom of the first he crushed the ball to left.  The left fielder dove for it and trapped the ball on the ground. You could actually see the ball roll.  The umpire called Evan out.  Where is the replay!?  Evan got struck out another batter in the 2nd.  Then he was screwed by the umpires twice.  The first time the umpire told the batter to take first base on a walk on the third ball and not the fourth.  I don't know how he got to four balls.  We keep track of that stuff and I was keeping track in my head.  Then he we got the third out at first and the umpire called the boy safe.  Again, it wasn't really a tough call.  It didn't seem close to me.  A run scored on the play.  Ultimately, that was the only run that Evan would allow.  In the third inning, he added two more strikeouts including one to end the inning.  We scored a ton of runs.  Evan had a solid hit and RBI in the third inning.  Our big innings took up enough time that the game only went three innings.  So Evan pitched a complete game - 3IP, 1 Run, with 6 strikeouts.  So of the 9 outs he recorded six of them by strikeout.  He looked great.

In the second game, Evan walked and singled again.  He also had a great play on a slow roller at third base.  The Bucs won that game as well.

We left the fields and went to Texadelphia for lunch.

The football fields were gross.  The were covered in water.  Anywhere you stepped, even if it looked like there was no water, when you stepped, you'd sink and water would come out of the ground.  The team seemed tired and not aggressive.  Unfortunately, the team lost that game.  It was for the best.  It saved them from having to play two more games.

We came home and put on dry clothes.  Then we relaxed.

We had a Post-Halloween party to go to at our neighbors.  We went there at dinner time.  It was very nice.  We enjoyed ourselves.

After that, we did a quick shopping trip at HEB.  The boys seemed very hyper.

They are getting ready for bed now.

Until next time...

End of Baseball

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Evan's last baseball tournament started today.  We were playing down in San Marcos.  I woke up at 9am and Evan was already up.  The boys were watching Back to the Future III.  We got ready and left.  On the way down we stopped at Donut Taco Palace.

It was sunny when we got there and very hot.  The air was very stagnant and humid but we were glad to not have clouds.  The team warmed up and then we went to the field we'd be playing on.  The game before us was running very late.  Rachel and Noah got there while we were watching the previous game.

The Bucs played very well.  Evan walked in his first at bat and stole second but was stranded at second.  We took a 4 run lead into the top of the 4th.  We brought Evan in to close out the game.  He got the first batter to pop up on the first pitch.  Evan got ahead of the second batter but the boy started to foul off some pitches and ended up walking.  The same thing happened with the third batter.  Runners were on first and third for fourth batter and Evan seemed like he had had enough playing around.  He quickly struck out the fourth batter then got a soft grounder from the next batter to end the game.

Just after the game ended we started seeing a lot of lightning.  They postponed the game for 30 minutes.  We went into the snack bar and waited.  But it just kept getting darker and darker so we went to the car.  Just as we got to the car the skies opened up and it just started to pour.  They cancelled all the days games so Evan and I drove back home.  Rachel and Noah had left at the conclusion of the first game.

We had leftovers for dinner.  When dinner ended I got word that San Marcos had gotten a ton of rain and the entire tournament was cancelled.  So unfortunately, our season came to an end today.  But Evan did well and I think he was glad he got on the mound today.

We went to Dairy Queen for a celebratory dessert.  While we were there I got a text from the father of a boy on Evan's team.  They wanted to know if Evan could sleep over tonight.  So when we got home, I drove Evan over and dropped him off.

We're going to have a team lunch tomorrow and that will be it until August.

Until next time...

Austin Bucs

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

While Rachel and Noah are having fun in San Diego, the Austin Bucs were scheduled to play two today for the first day of a tournament.  I woke Evan up at the time I normally get him up for school.  He was pretty tired, but I think he was excited to play.

We had to stop at the bank on the way out and then we went to Donut Taco Palace for our normal pre-tournament breakfast.

In the first game, the starting pitcher struggled in the first inning.  Evan was playing third base.  The runner on third took too big a lead and the pitcher threw over to Evan.  The runner broke for home and Evan threw a perfect strike to get the runner out and end the inning.  The coach put Evan in to pitch in the second inning.  Evan needed 11 pitches to strike out two players and get an easy pop up for a 1-2-3 inning.  In the third inning, Evan went back out to pitch.  The first batter hit a ball between third and short.  The third baseman dove for it and ended up knocking the ball away from the shortstop.  It would have been a tough play even if he had gotten it.  Evan thinks it was an error.  I don't know.  Either way, it was the first base runner that Evan has allowed in 4 appearances dating back to September.  That boy stole second and third and scored on a easy ground out.  Like the base runner, the last time a runner had scored on Evan was 4 appearances ago.  In the fourth inning, Evan went back out there and gave up two solid hits to start the inning.  They were good pitches but the kids hit them well.  It didn't seem to faze Evan one bit and he quickly got the next three batters out to finish the game for a win.

In the second game, we struggled a bit with our pitches.  Darius came in to save us in this game.  Evan had a nice game.  He walked a couple times and scored.  The Bucs won this game to go 2-0 for Saturday.  That should be good enough to give us a bye tomorrow so we can start later in the day.

Evan and I went to Chick-fil-A for lunch.

For dinner, Mangieri's a local pizzeria sponsored the Bucs so we had a team dinner.  We ate outside.  It was just a really nice time.  The kids all were able to run around and play and the adults were able to talk.  The weather was beautiful.  It was a really nice time.

Evan wanted to get dessert afterwards so we stopped at TCBY.

Now we're home and Evan is in bed.  We're just waiting for the final results to be posted to find out our start time tomorrow.

Until next time...

Last Day of Spring Break

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Today is the last day of spring break.  The boys will be back in school tomorrow and I'll be back to work.  I tried to sleep in a bit because of that.  The boys were still up their normal time.

When the boys were eating lunch, Connor knocked on the door and wanted to play.  Evan and Noah went out and played with Connor and Christian after they finished lunch.

Rachel took Noah to go to his friend Owen's house later in the afternoon.  When Noah came in, Evan came in with Connor and Christian.

Evan had baseball practice today.  It was a really nice day out and the practice went really well.  Evan worked on adding some velocity to his pitching.  He's very, very accurate but the coach worked with him on really getting his arm all the way around and really pushing off.  I was catching and one of the pitches was really hard.  It hurt my hand.  He really did add velocity.

We stopped at Chipotle and picked up food for us on the way home.  We were able to eat it out on the porch.

The boys are now showering and will be going to bed soon.

Until next time...

Touchdown Evan

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This Sunday was much like last week's Sunday.  Evan had a football game and he had baseball practice.  It was his last football game so it's just baseball from now on.

I came downstairs around 9 and the boys were playing on their iPad and the Playstation.  Because Evan had all of his stuff today, the boys had to clean up this morning.  I gave them until 9:30 before they had to clean up.

Evan's football game went very well.  They lost, but they remained competitive and really had a potential chance to win towards the end of the game.  Evan was on fire.  He caught about 12 passes and scored two touchdowns as well as caught an extra point.  It didn't matter whether there were kids around him, he was catching everything.  His second touchdown catch came when he was in the back corner of the end zone.  The defensive back managed to get a hand on it but Evan still caught the deflection.  I think Evan was very excited about his play today.

We came home for 30 minutes before we had to get back in the car to go to baseball.  We are having a big cold front come in and the temperature was at 50 degrees and dropping.  The temperature really wasn't the problem, actually.  It was that it was really humid out and that the wind was around 15-20mph and it was a cold wind.  All the kids were having problems with their hands stinging when they hit the ball.  Evan had a good practice though.  We had our first live kid pitching to kid drills.  Evan pitched really well.  It's amazing how consistent he is in finding the strike zone.  He also hit well when it was his turn to hit.

We came home and had leftovers.

The boys just showered and are going up to bed.

Until next time...

Kid Pitch

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Today, Evan and the Marauders were in their first kid pitch tournament.  For Pony league baseball, when the boys are 5 and 6, they are in tee ball.  For ages 7 and 8, they do coach pitch.  At age 9, they do kid pitch.  The Marauders are an 8U (8 and under) team and therefore are a coach pitch team.  Starting in the fall though, they will have to move up to 9U and do kid pitch.  We decided to enter into a 9U tournament and do kid pitch for the first time.  The tournament was at fields southeast of San Marcos which is south of Austin.

Evan and I left the house at 8:15.  As is our ritual when we have early weekend games, we stopped at Donut Taco Palace and got donuts.  We got to the fields a little after 9am.  The first game was at 10:45.  The warm ups went well.

We were the "home" team to start out so we had to pitch first.  The first pitcher did pretty well.  There were quite a few walks and since we hadn't worked on holding runners on, there were quite a few steals.  That said, the kids played incredible for just having started working on pitching 10 days ago.  In the bottom of the first, Darius led off with a single.  Evan came up next.  He swung and missed at a pitch that was at his eyes.  Then he took two balls.  He fouled off the next one before hitting a slow roller to shortstop.  He beat it out and then the throw sailed past the first baseman and Evan took second.  He stole third and scored on a wild pitch.  The coach of the other team talked to the umpire briefly after that.  We got two more runs and an out before the other coach protested.  Apparently the pitching order was given to them instead of the batting order which meant we technically had batted out of order.  Since the protest originally was raised after Evan, his run counted as did Darius' run but the next three batters were ruled out and the inning was over.  In the bottom of the second because Evan was down in the lineup of the pitching order, Evan came up to bat again.  He fouled off some more before swinging out in front of a pitch where it hit the end of his bat and rolled down the third baseline for a swinging bunt single.  He scored when another batter tripled.  Unfortunately, we had two many walks and ended up losing the game but our defense was great and we played really well.

We had lunch at the fields and then threw to get our arms loose and had another game at 2:15 (though it was delayed due to a passing rain storm).

This game didn't go as well.  Darius led off the bottom of the first and grounded out to short.  Then Evan checked his swing at the first pitch but it hit the bat and rolled right to the first baseman for the second out.  We had a walk followed by a strikeout.   In the top of the second, one of our boys pitched.  He walked a bunch but also got two outs before he hit the pitch limit we had for him.  We brought in another boy but he was really wild.  I felt badly for him.  That's when they called on Evan.  Evan came in and got two strikes on the batter but walked him.  The next batter, Evan got 0-2 with two swinging strikes.  Then the batter just crushed one of his pitches, pulling it just foul.  But after that Evan got him to swing and barely hit the ball.  I mean it went about 5 feet.  The catcher got it and tried to get the runner going home but just missed him.  So Evan was back at it.  He immediately got that batter down 0-2 before the batter popped up to second for the third out.  So Evan threw 12 pitches, got 7 strikes and 5 balls.  I was really proud of him.  He did really well.

On the way home, we stopped at Yaghi's and got pizza.  The boys ate well.  They are now in their rooms.

Until next time...

Workout

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This morning, I got Evan up for school.  He didn't seem like he was in a good mood, though he didn't give me a hard time.  I just think he was tired.  I think he's just about ready for the school year to end.  Not that he doesn't like it, but it's been nearly 9 months of school now.

Noah got up while I was in the shower.  I got breakfast for him when I got out.  He seemed to be in a good mood. Rachel said he kept testing her later on though.  He asked for bread and jelly and then said he didn't want it...things like that.

This afternoon, Gabby came to babysit.  Rachel dropped her and Noah off to get Evan and then they all walked home.

I took Evan for a free class to test out this baseball program today.  They teach fundamentals but they also work on strength and how to throw right to gain velocity on pitches and bat speed.  It turns out that there was a boy there that Evan played tee ball with in his first year in tee ball.  For the first hour, they worked on core strength exercises.  They did many exercises up and down the stairs.  Then they used a heavy ball to twist their mid-section.  They got a band and exercised their arms and shoulders.  I wasn't sure what Evan would think of that.  He had never done it at all.  In the last 30 minutes they worked on throwing mechanics and moved into pitching as well.  I think Evan really enjoyed learning how to pitch.  I was very curious to hear what he thought at the end.  He said he really enjoyed it and wanted to do it again.  He liked it so much that when we got home, he went outside and played more baseball while I made dinner.

Rachel came home and we had dinner.  Then we put the boys to bed.  We're wondering if Evan may be sore tomorrow.

Until next time...