Elyot is playing Soccer

Elyot is playing soccer! He really likes it a lot! Lots and lots of running! Mom and Dad have no

idea how to play soccer. We are a little out of our element! We know nothing about it. But he really does love it. It is his first year and he has a lot of friends on the team. He loves to play goalie too!

Alyssa the most AWESOME pitcher!

Alyssa did so great this year!!! Her pitching has come a long way. She started off the season pretty rough. I think one of the first games she hit four batters in a row! " They just need to move out of the way faster" That was her comment afterwards. She pitched a lot of games this year. We only had about 3 girls that could be consisstant. So lots of pitches for her!
Her best game was the last game of the year. We won our first round in the end-of-year tournement against Big Rock. Our next game was against Shabbona.
The girls did so AWESOME! Alyssa pitched great! She had 13 strikouts for that game! Most of the innings were 3 up 3 down too. We lost by one in the last inning. It was a heartbreaker!
Alyssa was pretty upset too. She took it really hard. But it truly was a great game.
The Saturday after that game the coach from the older league called and wanted Alyssa to play on the All-Star team in Grand Ridge. So she got to play up with the older girls. She absoultly loved it! She also pitched for them too. And she did a really good job. She struck out 7 in her first game! They got 4th place in the Grand Ridge tournement.
Little did we know that they were going to play in another tournement the next week in Marsailles. Alyssa again pitched and played outfield. They also got to play under the lights. Some of the games didn't start until 8pm. So it was very late nights and sometimes 3 games on Saturday! So it was a crazy summer and softball is finally over and I can finally take the equipment out of the back of my car and vaccuum it out!

Earlville Softball is finally over!

Yay Softball is over!!!! I can not tell you how crazy this summer has been! Our little softball team did pretty well this year. We only had 10 girls, which was really hard when they had vacations! We pulled some girls up from our younger teams to play. I'm still trying really had to have the new softball field built in Earlville. Its taking FOREVER! This field will be only for the girls! ITS ABOUT TIME!

The girls improved so much from the start of the year. Alyssa did really well too. Her pitching has gotten so much better. And she doesn't look at her mom after every pitch! I had a couple of girls that have never played a sport in their lives! Hopefully this will get them to be more active.

I tried to keep it fun for the girls this year- Learning how to slide with a slip-n-slide (they loved that) making a RACE out of everything- parents throwing water balloon at them at the end of the game-singing CRAZY cheers and running around like maniacs!

We had our end-of year cookout last Friday-I had a photographer take pics of the team so I gave everyone some copies-we had a crazy awards ceremony E.G. Hit the most batters with a pitch (ALYSSA) Best use of the equipment (DELANEY she got hit in the head a lot while batting) Best stop of a grounder by your face (OLIVIA long story)And so on. Then my team and I played a softball game against the parents. That was awesome. When I told them not to let them off 3rd they really didn't. They were jumping on their Dad's and tackling them left and right! It was so much fun and we won of coarse!

My hope is that they had fun this year and that THEY ACTUALLY LEARNED SOMETHING!

It's the best feeling in the world when you overhear one of your players saying to another one exactly what you have been telling them all year! Bring a tear to the eye! I get all choked up! JK! Anyway I HAD FUN and got to act like a big kid. Is that any different from everyday?.........

Gill Pickle 7/7/07

Dusty B hanging out!





I love these kind of pics!






Every year Greg and I are invited to the "Gill Pickle". We meet up with Beth and Dusty. This year Jen and Chris hung out with us too! IT WAS SOOOOOOO HOT this year! I felt bad for Beth. She had to be miserable. She didn't get too far away from the wading pools. My ankles were swelling because of the heat. I could just imagine how hers were! We enjoyed some great bands and got to see a lot of friends that we haven't seen in years!!! And teachers too! The theme was "What happens at the pickle stays at the pickle" If you want to see more pics, check out Beth's blog http://www.thebehringers.blogspot.com/ ! I would have put a picture of Greg in but he was doing something bad to the camera!

4th of July

IT WAS SO HOT ON THE 4TH OF JULY!

We went to Sheridan to Paul and Candi's house for a cook out and fireworks. The kids had a great time playing baseball with the Dad's!

Alyssa played bean bags just about the whole time! She was beating everyone too! Cooper and Elyot had fun hanging out. They are buddies!

Father's Day 2007

Father's Day was beautiful weather!
We went to Uncle Garry's and Aunt


Julie's to have a cook out and celebrate Great Grandma's 80th Birthday! The kids had a great time catching fish (AND FROGS!) Alyssa and Elyot caught some fish and put them in Aunt Julie's little pond that she has on her porch-One of the Blue gills kept jumping out! Elyot thought that was AWESOME! Later he tried to catch them in the little pond by hand! What a boy!


Alyssa had a great time on the 4-wheeler. She even got to drive it a little. The making of a SPEED DEMON? They are growing up too fast!

Chicago Cubs Game

Yes we went to Chicago again. It seems we have been going there a lot lately. This time we went to the Chicago Cubs game. Not my choice to go, I love the White Sox, but we couldn't pass up a chance of a game. Plus they were playing the Atlanta Braves which just happens to be Greg's favorite team! He was very excited.

So Greg, Doug, Jennifer, Mike and I took the train into Chicago very early in the morning. We hopped on the "L", again everyone should ride this, and took it to the Addison stop. We met Christy at her apartment which happens to be a couple blocks away from Wrigley Field.

It was great to be so close. We walked up to the game and found our seats in the bleachers. We were right under the scoreboard which is the only scoreboard that is still kept by hand and not electronically.

Wrigley Field is a very old staduim. The bleachers were concrete and very steep. Not ideal if you were going to drink a lot! Which we of coarse did not do!

It really was a great game. Lots of action. I got to see my first GRAND SLAM home run! Couldn't tell you who hit it, but it was AWESOME! Greg wasn't too happy his Braves were losing. He got a lot of looks from people for wearing a Braves jersey and Ohio State hat. Cubs won 10-1. The town was going crazy! There is an awlful lot of bars around the stadium too. Everyone was celebrating. Lots of young college-age kids pretty much. You can really tell the difference between the Cubs fans and the Sox fans. Its like 2 different worlds!Sox are still my favorite.

Well the rain held off until we went to get to the train. We all got soaked and decided to cram into a cab back to Union Station. Holy cow taxi drivers are insane. I think they are NASCASR rejects! We could have died at least 3 times. But we made our train!

It was a very long day but it was fun. Loved spending it with the family!