Summer Happenings

Summer is in full swing.  I can't believe it's already mid-July.  The weather tells me it's summer (it's been hot here for a week or so).  Baseball season tells me it's summer.  I guess it's summer.

Actually baseball season is almost over.  Henry is in his 2nd year of kid-pitch little league baseball.  After a rough start, his team ended up finishing with a winning season.  Henry got to play First Base (his preferred position) all year, except when he was pitching.  Yes, he is turning into quite a pitcher.  At this age you just really want them to throw strikes.  It's amazing how quickly a game can turn into WALK-WALK-WALK and before you know it you've walked a bunch of runs home.  He does a pretty good job and had a good time pitching, I think.  I still think he prefers playing First Base and honestly he's pretty good.  He could definitely improve his hitting but got better as the season went on.  Next year he'll be playing with older kids again (this year he was the oldest kid on his team) and I think he'll really enjoy it.  I hate to say it, but playing with younger kids frustrates him sometimes.  He gets frustrated when they don't take baseball as seriously as he does.  He gets frustrated when they don't know quite what to do in certain situations.  But it's good for him and gives him a chance to be a bit of a leader. 

William still has one game left to play in his final year in Coach Pitch.  Coach Pitch is so much more laid back than the league Henry is in.  The kids get plenty of chances to hit the ball - I've seen coaches throw up to 15 or so pitches to one kid just so the kid can get a hit.  It's fairly rare for kids to get any outs because they aren't that good at fielding or throwing yet.  So when they move up it can be a hard transition.  I know William loves baseball so I think he'll be OK.  He has watched  Henry play and practice so he's used to the longer games and practices.  He wants to be a pitcher but has seen how hard it can be so he's already working on pitching off the mound, even though he can't quite get it across the plate yet.  He'll definitely benefit from being the younger brother in this case.  Until then, he'll just have fun goofing around with his buddies during the game.

Jay started a new job.  After almost a decade at Icon Health and Fitness, he is now working at Utah State University as Marketing Director for Regional Campuses and Distance Learning.  He's been there a few weeks now and is settling in nicely.  The travel won't be as often or as extensive, but he has been taking some local (and by local I mean Utah) trips to visit the Regional Campuses.  Utah State has 26 (I think) of these smaller facilities around the state.  This week he made a driving tour of central and southern Utah, from Blanding to Moab to Delta to Beaver.  They even have a campus in Monument Valley, where he took this picture:

As the daughter of perhaps the world's biggest John Wayne fan, I was a little jealous that he got to see Monument Valley up close.  I grew up watching old Westerns so this landscape is familiar to me.  We may have to take a little family trip down to this area at some point.

Even though Jay has been gone all week for work, at least he's in the same time zone, which makes communication vastly easier.  I was able to text him real-time updates on the boys baseball games without worrying if I was going to wake him up. 

I think we're going to like USU.