Another One In the Books

Another week in the books and we are tired as usual.  Softball season is exhausting!  Last Sunday, some girls from my softball team headed out to watch the UofA Women's Softball play Oregon.  It was my first live softball game ever and it was pretty cool.   Except that it was really hot- 100 degrees to be exact.  But I really enjoyed it and I actually wanted to sit and watch the game.  Danielle O'Toole is the starting pitcher for the Wildcats and we got to watch her warm up, standing literally 10 feet away.  There is a lot of power in those pitchers- pretty amazing and I think I might be a teensy bit inspired.

This past Friday, we went to the Pima County Fair with the Goods.  It was great fun as usual and thank goodness Ms. Audrey likes to go on the crazy rides because mom and dad sure won't.

My main goal of the evening, besides riding all the twirly rides I could, was to get a selfie with a llama.  Mission accomplished....  Don't you love his teeth??!!

The other fun thing that came out of the fair was this cool "thing", for lack of a better word.  You supposedly can blow it up by just running and letting the air fill it up.  Not quite that easy and we ended up using the gas powered leaf blower to fluff it up.  It sure is comfy though.

Saturday night, we had another round of softball games.  We lost the first one in true Crusher fashion, 8-1.  There were a few flashes of good playing but it was mostly just us looking bad.  The second game was different story- we didn't actually play all that well but the other team's pitching fell apart so we took advantage of it and it was great!  We have now won two whole games and are on a roll.  4 more left until play offs.

After the game, I had my friends Ella and Isabel spend the night.  Here's how it worked- because of the way the duct work is set up in our house, mom and dad can hear everything from my room in their room.  It normally doesn't matter but when I have friends spend the night, it doesn't work so well for mom and dad to be violently woken by 11 year old girl squeals all night long.  So to solve that, dad went and slept in the RV, mom slept in guest room on the opposite side of the house and us girls took over mom and dad's room.  It was a pretty sweet deal and I've already decided that's how it should be every time.  We ate popcorn, watched a movie and I told mom that we had lights out by 1:30, which isn't terrible really.

Today was Nana's birthday- we didn't get to celebrate with her but sent happy thoughts her way!

And finally, we had another new visitor.  Mom found him in the crook of our big oak tree out back.  He's got a cute face, really.  We named him Jeff.  We think he hangs out with Frank and Alice, our resident raccoons.

That's it for us- have a great week!

March and April

It hasn't been an especially busy 2 months but we do have some things to report.  My softball season officially got under way in March.  I ended up on the same team as my two good friends from school, thank goodness.  Ella is my catcher and her number is 99 so when we are on the mound and behind the plate, we are known as triple 9.  Which is kind of cool.  Our team is kind of stinking it up this year but in our defense, we are a very young team with several girls who have never even set foot on a softball field.  We play Circus Ball as I like to call.  That's where no one can make a throw, no can catch and the ball ends up all over the infield and the outfield and the other team just keeps running the bases and scoring.  We did manage to finally win a game last week though so that was kind of cool.  I'm actually doing OK on the mound.  I'm playing up a level this year so it was a big adjustment to the bigger ball and longer pitching distance but I'm striking people out and no one has gotten a good hit off me yet.  We still have 6 games left though so we'll see.....

In March, mom had a continuing education class on myofascial release for 3 days over a weekend.  In order to recover, she took some days of work and went for a hike.  It was a beautiful spring this year with lots of wildflowers and lots of run off from winter snow.  She kind of wants to win the lottery so she can do this every day.

I also had my Heritage Night at school.  That was actually more fun than we thought it would be.  Everyone in class has a different country and we had to research the government, the culture, the geography and we had to make some food from there.  I picked South Korea, where Grandma Sue is from and actually learned a thing or two.  Grandma was amazing and made my favorite dumplings which, I can't lie here, were a hit.  Mom and dad left so stuffed from sampling all the food- meatballs from Italy, cheese quesadilla from Chile, arroz con pollo from Costa Rica, strudel from Germany, bread from Ireland.  It was all delicious- ask mom.  Her mouth was never empty.

So, we bought mom a pasta maker for her birthday like 5 years ago and she never used it because it seemed kind of intimidating to her.  I've been giving her a hard time about so she decided she would try it but I would have to help her.  Turns out, it isn't all that hard......
We made spaghetti the first time around and the next week, we made ravioli.  It wasn't always pretty, but it sure was fun and tasted delicious!

For Easter, we headed out to a new campground with our camping friends, the Goods.  It was a spectacular weekend.  We got in late Thursday night so we had two full days of relaxation.  We camped right next to a lake that was nice and cool which was a good thing since it was like a bazillion degrees. Not really.  Only about 93.  We had shade, a picnic table, easy water access and beer.  What more could you want?

Madeline and I spent almost zero time on our electronics.  We spend most of both days catching tadpoles.  We even got Mr. Mike in on the action.  We decorated Easter cupcakes and then decorated Easter eggs and then had an Easter egg hunt and then crashed hard into bed every night.  It was great!

 Even Ginger got in on the action.  This will be her only bath for the rest of the year so we made sure she stayed in a good, long time.  She had a ball as well and slept for three days after we got back.

So that's it for now- hope you all have a great week!