Baseball Season

Not to be a huge downer here, but I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that baseball is one of the leading negative factors of our life in Monterey.  In general, everything has been great.  The house is great, the weather is great, the school is great.  Matt's job is great, I got a job that I didn't love but I needed the paycheck so that was great.  Soccer was great. Basketball was great.  

Baseball....eh, not so much.

To begin with, it was so so great in out old neighborhood.  The local little league practiced and played at tremendously well kept facilities less than a half mile from my house.  It was a very well organized league with great people.  Peter was doing well there.  If we were still there he would have been able to play very recreational fall ball for extra practice.  He also would have moved up to Machine Pitch this year.  Even though he is only (still) 6.  They changed the age to move up last year actually.  

So, meanwhile, I did look, but didn't find any place for him to play fall ball here at all.  Maybe I missed some places, but I couldn't find any place that would play them that little.

So I'd done, what I thought was decent research and found out about a Pony league here.  Except then somebody told me to do a different city Pony league because it was better.  I listened to them, although now I'm not entirely sure why.  Somebody else told me about a different city Pony league but it was further away so I didn't do that one.  It is apparently really intense and competitive too.  Still another person told me that another city pony league is the "best" although they couldn't really say why one way or the other and *that* city seems a teensy bit ghetto to me, so I didn't listen again.

Some, come early January I signed him up to play in that 2nd city even though at 6 (nearly 7) he still aged into t-ball.  Then I hear from another mom here in our neighborhood that she put her kid in the original city and at 6 they had her son in machine pitch.  

I let it go an he played t-ball again.  At one point I spoke to the league president and basically he said that if I'd asked sooner they would have moved him up.  But I didn't ask sooner, I asked later so he played t-ball again.  

Grr.

They were supposed to have one practice before opening day, but it got rained out.

Double Grr.

They did not have weekly practices at all.  Instead they met for games 30 minutes early to practice a little then.

OMG.

At the opening day ceremony Peter discovered he was the only 1st grader on his team.

I'm so sorry buddy.  What a waste.

We made the most of it.  I got him some cool new gear.  We played catch when we could and practiced hitting sometimes on our own.  He was a really good sport about it overall.  But He definitely didn't get any better this year.  He had some fun.  He hit the heck out of that ball a few times.  But overall, it was not the type of season my competitive and talented son was hoping for.

Opening Day...

First game.

I was happy that after the first few games they went to coach pitch for those who needed/wanted it.  At least there was taht.

And Lucy and AJ had fun playing during his games like always.

Here he is playing first base.

This was funny, Matt rolled the windows down in the car on the way home and AJ's hair was blowing everywhere.

He looks so cute in a baseball uniform.

At one of the games Lucy caught this caterpillar.

It was all just, okay.  The coach did a really good job helping and mentoring Peter as much as he could.  It just wasn't the season for him is all.  I'm not sure what we'll do next year.  I will look for fall ball if I can find it, and then maybe he can have more of the baseball season, with more of the growth he is looking for.  

Beach Day!!!!

You guys!!!

I bet you didn't even know how exciting it is, but with this post I will be ALL CAUGHT UP on the posts about stuff that happened awhile ago.  And school starts tomorrow so just in time.

Right. Moving on then. So remember when I mentioned that Matt and I took the scenic coastal route home from San Francisco?  No, well, you can click here to remind yourself if you would like.

So, almost immediately after that trip Matt and I began plotting and scheming about driving up to one of those middle of almost nowhere beaches and spending an entire day.  And alright, so they're not actually in the middle of nowhere.  They're all just somewhere in the middle of Santa Cruz and San Francisco.  But trust me when I tell you it seems like you have straight up escaped civilization.  Many of the beaches lack actual parking lots or facilities.  This is part of the draw, of course, but it also requires careful planning.  We've long thought about getting started on camping, but up until now had absolutely none of the required supplies.  This seemed like as good a time as any to get started so we purchased a small tent, a small camping stove and a camping potty to get us started on our camping materials and prepare us for our day long beach adventure.

On the actual day, we got up bright and early (especially for a Saturday) loaded the car, ate a quick breakfast and headed out.  We drove up to Santa Cruz and then beyond for about another 20 minutes before we found a lovely beach to land at.  There might have been more "secluded" options if we drove further north, but then the ride home later would have been a lot longer.  

It took us maybe 30 minutes to unload the car again and get our little area set up in the sand but almost immediately after that the kids were running around and testing the water.  Literally, the water was absolutely FREEZING.  Lucy was in on the fun too, for a bit, until she fell over and got wet all the way up to her armpits and then she was basically done with the water for the day.  

She muh preferred sitting in the tent and sampling every variety of snack we had brought.  

She did venture out to play in the sand too.

I tried to get them to make me some California Snow Angels, but the sun was in Lucy's eyes so she didn't exactly cooperate.  

My kids, being who they are quickly made friends with another family seated near us on the beach.  Not sure if they were all that interested in the actual people (though they did include too teenaged boys) the large shovels they had brought, or the snacks which as it turned out my kids thought were much better than anything their LAME-O mother had packed, but in any case, we spent the later half of our day interacting with them.

One of my favorite parts was when one of their boys pulled the girls on his boogie board like a sled.  

We were briefly interrupted when  para-sailor wiped out and his sail landed right in front of us on the beach.

It came out the their boys were big into baseball.  I'd brought along Peter's glove in case he'd wanted to throw the ball around (with me.)  Well, Peter had no interest in playing catch with me, but he was ALL about playing with the other family.  

A.J. mostly just wandered around and collected rocks and small shells.

Getting pointers on stepping through throwing the ball.

Seriously, she brought home an entire bucket full.  Most of them are now floating around to various corners of my garage. 

It was a beautiful day and a wonderful family adventure.  I can't wait until next summer when we can do it again.