I was thinking over this past holiday weekend that the boys have 1 month left of their summer! Just one month until school starts. Part of me is excited for them as they enter 6th (middle school!), 5th and 2nd grade, but mostly I am sad to think just how fast summer always seems to fly by.

This was a big summer of firsts for us as our first whole summer in a new house, in a new state, in a new town. It is also their first summer in this kind of heat! You sorta just get used to it and know that you’re either indoors, in air-conditioning, in the shade or in the water! Unless, of course, you are playing baseball, or your brothers are playing baseball, and then all of these rules go out the window.☀️😅

Players are wearing long polyester pants, thick socks, a non-breathable shirt and stand in the sun for hours on end. They’re equipped with hats, sunblock from their Moms, Gatorade and even a large fan (some times with a misting feature!) in the shaded dugout. In the summer heat of June in Alabama, our boys and coaches stand in the sun for hours on end, with 2 games on some days. It sounds crazy but we all love it. We wouldn’t trade it for the world. With 3 young, busy boys, their schedules are certainly busier than ours, and there is no slowing down in the near future.  I’ve taken PTO this summer for these memorable baseball trips and told the boys that these trips are our summer vacation. They are having the time of their lives. ♥️⚾️🧢

Backing up a bit here, Hunter, Deacon and Wyatt each had a great spring baseball season. We spent most nights at the ballpark, with each of them typically having 2 games per week. Sometimes, we had 2 games at once and some nights, all 3 played back to back. We (they, really) ate a lot of ballpark food, and the boys continued to make new friends. If a brother was at the ballpark on any given night for his brother’s game (not his own), we would oftentimes find them either playing wiffleball on an open field or basketball just adjacent to the the baseball fields. No days off! 😆 And there was one particular weekend during a mid-season tournament where all 3 boys were playing on 3 fields at the same time, right next to one another!

Spring season came to a close, and eventually, all-star teams were formed. As one of the spring season coaches, Josh became head coach for 10U boys all-stars, and both Hunter and Deacon made 12U and 10U teams, respectively. Josh also helped with the 12U team. This meant a new team of boys, new uniforms and a summer schedule of scrimmages, local warm-up tournaments, the state tournament (5 hours north in Oxford, AL) as well as a possibility to go to the world series. While all local tournaments for both 12U and 10U teams conveniently took place at the same location and same weekend, the 12U state tournament and 10U state tournament were scheduled for different weekends which meant 2 trips, 2 weeks in a row to Oxford. While we decided against actual travel ball this year, this summer felt just as intense but nice for only a season.

We traveled a bit this summer, mostly on weekends, both to nearby Florida, and here locally, and of course to Oxford. The teams all played well- they fought hard and on different occasions, brought home some big wins! Both sets of grandparents were able to watch the boys play baseball this season, too! The boys loved having them in the crowd cheering them on.

While the boys love baseball and are excited to play in the world series they also love the comradare that comes with traveling together as a team. They love all that opportunities that these weekends bring from team dinners, swimming together in the pool, 7:30 AM team breakfast in the lobby, to eating snow cones together, playing wiffleball or hanging out under a tent while in between games. And Wyatt is each of his brother’s #1 fan and has just as much fun as part of the team’s little siblings club getting dirty, sweaty, sunburnt and jacked up on snow cone high-fructose corn syrup by 9 AM.

And when the 12U boys finished early on Saturday with an unfortunate loss, we were able to score last-minute Atlanta Braves tickets and drive just 90 minutes east to watch a Saturday afternoon game. This was actually the boys’ first MLB game. Braves won, and Acuna Jr. hit a homerun! The older boys had to get new jerseys from the ballpark, I had a slice of pizza almost as long as my arm and Deacon even played (you guessed it) wiffleball at the kids turf/ play area at Truist Park.

The boys had off for a week or so and then quickly picked back up right where they left off to prepare for the All Star World Series which begins this coming week in Baton Rogue, Louisiana!

The boys are just thrilled with the opportunity to go. Josh and all of the coaches have been working so hard to get their teams ready. They invest so much time in each and every one of the boys on their teams. Most nights during the week, Josh holds practice for Deacon’s team from 5-7 PM, and Hunter’s team practices 6:30 – 8:30. Josh, and all of the coaches give it their all every night for hours. I’ll normally leave my class at the Barre and meet them there and watch practice for a bit. We eat dinner late, they shower and do it all again the next day.

Josh and I always joke that Josh plays baseball every year on both Father’s Day and his birthday. With his birthday coming up this week, the same is about true this year as we will be traveling 4 hours west to hot(ter?)Baton Rouge on his birthday. Wish us luck in the world series! 🇺🇸♥️⚾️🧢☀️

After we get home, the boys have a few weeks of camps and then it is back to school time. And with that, fall ball begins!