America's Favorite Pasttime

Today was the first day of t-ball  baseball for our boys.  They were soooo excited.  Very different from a few years ago when we basically had to drag Micah out onto the field for soccer, t-ball, and flag football.  This time, they were ready to go.
Liam's team was first up, and Micah's played after his.  As I was looking at these pictures, which for once I thought I would just let speak for themselves instead of narrating each one, I was struck by one thing that shown through in almost all of the pictures: these boys look thrilled just to be out on the field playing baseball.
One day, if they keep playing, the game will be about RBIs and what position they're playing and practicing for hours and batting averages.  And that's okay.
But today was about throwing a ball, and hitting a ball, and running like crazy after a ball in the field, and being so excited about playing that they started dancing while waiting in line for their turn to practice batting.
Today was about boys having fun playing baseball.
And did they ever.

 

Go Steelers!!

Cheering on the home team!

And in this one, Liam's pretending to be a Pirate.  We're proud of ALL the Pittsburgh teams, which isn't something we can usually say at this time of the year!!

Yeah, We Live Here

There are a lot of things to complain about when you live in Florida, but there are some pretty awesome things too.  Tonight, on what was probably our last free Sunday afternoon/evening for three months, we enjoyed the awesomeness of our state by going to Florida's playground.

We fought ferocious waves.

With a wedding as a backdrop (only in Florida),

we played baseball.

We took our trucks into the water,

and built sandcastles with a stray truck part.

We kicked around on the sand

and in the waves.

We jumped the waves in 87 degree water.

We celebrated loving that we can come here often and don't have to wait for vacation to go to the beach.

Bob Ross couldn't even recreate the colors on our playground.

As others wallow in the last days of summer, we'll wallow in water, and celebrate beachy family time on Sunday night in September. Thank you, Florida!

Legoland: The Legos Post

As I mentioned in the last post, spending Micah's birthday at Legoland was a great idea, and we enjoyed seeing the Lego creations almost as much as riding the rides.  I think the boys could have spent a whole day staring at the Lego world the builders had created.  It was really amazing what they did with those little plastic boxes.
A crowd at the Daytona speedway.

The Luxor hotel in Vegas.  Tim and I stayed there on our visit years ago.

No replica of Vegas is complete without a wedding chapel.

New York City

 

Lady Liberty

 

Liam is in the front of the picture for a little perspective on how tall the Lego city was.

 

Albert Einstein and an unfortunately placed plant.  The plant was real.

A huge giraffe

They had these signs up all around the park to give people an idea of how much time and effort went into creating these.

A close-up view

The Golden Gate Bridge

A school bus that actually moved - the boys were entranced.  Literally.

A crooked picture of the crooked street in San Francisco.  Tim and I were here once too while visiting the west coast three years ago.

The painted ladies

The Capitol in Washington, complete with a marching band in front - and a really sweaty guy in the background.

A Lego lion family