Happy Birthday Natalie!

The girls had a great time at their cousin Natalie's 5th birthday party at Slip-N-Dip.

Happy Birthday Natalie! We love you.

Nora Roberts Reader

I have become a huge Nora Roberts fan. It began in December 2008 when I had my surgery. I started reading because I really couldn't do anything else during those weeks of recovery. Now I read because I just about don't want to do anything else. I read just about every night instead of watching TV. I also bring my book in the van. If I get to work early, I sit in the van and read for a few minutes. When I get caught up in a good book, I can't put it down. In fact, since December 2008 (that's 20 months ago), I have read 100 Nora Roberts books, an average of 5 a month. I just completed number 100 last night. It was the last book of her Circle Triology, and it was super good. Now on to book 101. Nora Roberts has written nearly 200 books so far. Just for fun, I am putting a section on my sidebar with the book I am currently reading. If you are a Nora Roberts fan, please let me know. I would love to chat about it.

Summer Camp

The girls have had a great time at summer camp this year. I can't believe this is the last full week of summer and that school starts next week. It sure has gone by fast!

Here's a sweet pic of the girls at camp this morning.

They have done so much fun stuff this summer at camp. Today they are having some jumpers and a bunch of other fun activities.

Cousin Visit

We had a great visit with my cousin April last weekend. She lives in Ohio and is moving to Oregon next month. I hope she will come back for a visit again sometime soon.

World Tournament

Anna Kate's tournament team played in the 10-Under Slowpitch Softball World Tournament this past weekend in Tupelo, MS.

Here they are doing a team cheer before the game started.

They played one game Friday morning. Anna Kate played second base for this game and did a great job catching everything that came near her and making the outs.

She batted great too. Her team won 20-0. The rest of the pool play games got rained out Friday after a couple of long rain delays.

We started back Saturday morning with double elimination play. They unfortuately lost the first game of the day, which, of course, sent them straight to the losers' bracket. This is a tough place to be. However, they won their next game against a Louisiana team. The girls played so good and were so proud of themselves that after the game they all had their hair painted pink and other fun colors!

They also won their next game against rivals Caledonia. Anna Kate pitched the entire day and a did a great job. We were super proud of her, but our proudest moment was her last bat in the Caledonia game. We were home team. We went into the bottom of the 7th inning behind 7-4. Obviously with it being the 7th inning, we had to either tie it up to go into extra innings or go ahead to win. The bottom of our batting line up did a great job getting on base and getting two of the runs back to make it 7-6. Then we were back to the top of our batting line up. Our lead off batter walked, which gave us a runner on first and second with two outs. Anna Kate, our #2 batter, was up. She nailed the very first pitch clearly over the right center fielder's head to knock in both of her teammates and to win the ballgame 8-7. Her teammates charged the field and hoisted her on their shoulders to carry her off the field. I wish I had gotten a picture of that, but I was going nuts, so I missed it. I think someone else got the picture, so maybe she will send it to me.

I am sorry to go on and on, but for a softball mom who played all her growing up years and to love the game like I do, that was such a proud moment me. I thought I was going to faint with excitment, and I believe her Daddy would have offered her the moon right then if she had wanted it. But what she got was the game-winning ball. I know this is something she will treasure.

Here is Anna Kate getting another hit in the next game. I wish I knew how many hits she got for the day because her bat was really on fire.

They played their hearts out in four 7-inning ballgames and finished in 5th place. So proud of these girls!

Here's one last picture of them acting goofy.

More Ball

Anna Kate's tournament team played in the ASA State Tournament this weekend. Although they didn't finish as well as they had hoped, they played the best they have played all summer, including earning a very hard-fought win against the Caledonia tournament team that had beat them two times earlier this summer.

Here's Anna Kate getting ready to catch a pop fly while playing second base.

She did a fabulous job at second all weekend, catching tons of balls and making outs.

She hit so well all weekend, especially in the Caledonia game. She had several hits, including a triple she shot past the outfielders that gave us a bunch of runs.

I like this shot of Anna Kate on first base after hitting a single and Tim right there with her coaching first base. He was so excited with all the hits she got. We are both so proud of her.

Happy 4th!

I hope everybody is having a great 4th of July weekend. Not much going on with our family -- just some softball practice, swimming, grilling hamburgers, watching a race on TV, reading and relaxing. We took these pictures before we went to church this morning. The church service was so wonderful this morning. We really enjoyed all the patriotic music.