La Vida Loca De Flores

It's May and the 2009 Baseball season has FINALLY arrived!

Having done most of his "growing up" to this point in the "desert" of Southern California, where baseball season starts in February due to the weather (both the favorable weather in winter and the very real risk of actual danger of playing outdoors in 120 degree heat in mid July), Blaze was seriously ready for baseball season to start!

Blaze had a great season with the Cardinals, proving himself to be valuable player in a very close knit, small town baseball league. It was almost like he was a "rookie" coming to a new team for the first time. Most of these boys had been playing baseball together and been coached by the same coaches since they were little T-ballers. He managed to "wow" everyone, from the boys, making many new friends....to the coaches, being invited to play on Powell's All Star Team! He was so excited and was the youngest member of the team.

The Powell All-Stars took second place in one tournament, with Blaze pitching one shut out game, which was so awesome! Then, he made a fabulous diving catch of a line drive that was going like 100 miles an hour at second base! Don't get me wrong, the whole team was awesome and they took first place in their home tournament here in Powell, which was totally great! They were a great group of boys (and one girl, our cousin Shawnae) and it was so much fun getting to know and cheer for those kids and Blaze made some of his very best friends this summer!

The team also took a trip to Wheatland to State, where they won all of their games in the round robin segment of the tournament, and then had a devastating loss in their very first game of the single elimination portion! Those poor kids were so sad! But, even though the season ended on a sad note, it was a great one for Blaze, The Cardinals, and the Powell All-Stars!

Jett played baseball as an Angel this year and had a great time! He also made some great friends and his baseball skills have developed so much. He was a little disappointed because here in Powell, the rules and divisions are arranged a little differently than in California and so he went "back" to a coach/machine pitch league, where he was playing in a "kid pitch" division before. The great thing about that was that he was a great hitter with that ball coming in straight each and every time!

Jett's other favorite thing about this year's baseball season was the great climbing trees that shade the fields. Whenever he wasn't playing ball, he was climbing trees, as high as he could go...and when I wasn't watching baseball, I was yelling at him to get down!

For Kolt, this was his looonngg awaited first year of playing T-ball! He has been ready to play baseball since he was 2, so for a 5-year-old, that is a VERY long wait! To make it even worse, we had a very wet spring here and he got rained out for his very first practice, which was totally devastating to my poor little guy! Then...his second practice was rained out too....double devastating!

Eventually, the day finally came when he got to put on his "real uniform" and play in his very first T-ball game! He was grinning from ear to ear, with his equipment bag and his game day Gatorade.

Kolty had a great season too with, unfortunately, a few more rained out games, but he made many new friends and had a great time playing baseball and he just can't wait for next year!