Red Dirt 11u State Champions!

 Our family has attended 21 baseball games in the past nine days between the NCAA College World Series in Omaha, Kyle's state tournament and Grant's state tournament. Omaha was a great experience - congrats to OSU for making it that far! Kyle enjoyed his season with the A's and had only hits on his last day of playing ball! Grant's team - well, they kicked their rears in gear at the perfect time to play excellent and brought home the State Championship to Stillwater! We are now home and I'm ready to clean my car!

 

Below are photos from the Red Dirt portion of our adventures. The boys played games over a four-day span, and came back from the loser's bracket to beat the team twice in the finals to win the USSSA Oklahoma 11u State championship!

 

Sibling support!

 

Addison, Berklee, Cora, Baylor and Reid.

The Sandlot Crew

 

Bodey and Kyle

 Grant and Chance were able to serve as captain's for the championship game. 

 You can see this picture is a lot less colorful.  During the 2nd inning, a storm started to blow through.  By the top of the 3rd, there was wind, dust, thunder and lightning.  We waited for a while and finally the umpire called the game and asked us to finish it the following night, on Monday, back in Tulsa (yippee).

This is a photo of one of our FIVE homeruns this tournament! 

 

 

Championship Game #2, Round #2

 

  I get to brag on this kid a bit.  He had the only RBI hit of the night, scoring two runs. Those runs kept us with the lead, ending 9-8.  The score was 7-4 at the time of the weather delay.

 

Running leap to his coach.  It was about this time when I started crying!

 

Gotcha, Coach!

 

blessed by supportive family!

 

team dinner.  Poor Red Robin!



This day was one of those "remember when...." days for these boys.  I cannot begin express the pride I have in the dedication of the boys and parents.  This team ended the season 22-22-1.  You want to know how much they lost at the beginning of the season compared to the end? They remained focused, followed the lead of Coach Vinny, and showed up determined on the right weekend.

 

Grant Walker - you are awesome. 

this is from Omaha but still cute!

This happened in Walmart!  We had so much to grab (including pillows which took up a lot of volume) and I decided to get two carts.  Kyle asked to "drive" the other cart.  This is the result:

 

Even in the moment, it was slightly funny.  The boxes of cereal kept falling like dominoes.

 

We've been able to swim a lot this year as both Julie and Kristy bought homes with a pool.  Here is one great view!

 

three amigos!

Jason's only house project lately! He installed a new, sturdy gate and added these blocks where the grass has never grown.

 

My folks took Reid to the airport last week and somehow this kid ends up on the tarmac touring - complete with candy bars from the stash inside - this private jet. They said he loved it!

 

baseball with his bestie

 

Jason's goal of joined the country club has happened! He and the boys are pumped to be golfing across the street now.

 

Grant has asked to help cook more.  He was in charge of the macaroni this night and thought it was a waste of time waiting so long for the water boil!  :)  

 

We had an impromptu date with these crazy kids! Thankful for their friendship and ability to just be "us" when we're together.

 

Volleygirls game night. Intense and serious.  :)

Omaha and the NCAA World Series

 It has been a dream of Jason's to attend the NCAA College World Series in Omaha, NE.  He has talked about it for our sixteen years together and we've never gone to it.  This year, Grant's team signed up to be in a tournament in Omaha during the event so we thought we'd go to a game or two!  Little did we know our own OSU Cowboys would make the tournament! They have improved as the season has continued and peaked at the right time!  It was a trip full of baseball, friends, and a lot of orange/black and red/black!

Road trippin'! 

 

we found some teammates!

 

We had great seats (in the shade!) on the third baseline!

 

Game One Win team huddle

 

just hanging out with Garrett

 

Rosenblatt is the site of the former World Series stadium.  This is a mini field located in the parking lot of the Omaha Zoo.  The home plate is the actual location of the Rosenblatt home plate and the foul ball markers are still there, standing randomly in the parking lot as a reminder of the history made here!

 

This day was Father's Day.  I'm not sure it was the best day for Jason as the boys were fussy and we ate where Grant wanted to as he wanted Olive Garden to fuel up on carbs for his tournament.  Regardless of the success of this day for Jason, we hope he had a great trip fulfilling this dream. We love you and are so glad you are the daddy of this crew!

 

We all have coordinating sun hats now!

 

Day one of the Red Dirt tournament was cool and it rained for a bit!

Our boys did really well.  We played teams from Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Illinois.

 

Monday evening provided us a 2 1/2 hour rain delay for OSU's second game. You can see how they put the radar on the jumbotron for everyone to see.  We chose to shop and eat at this point!

 

We guess most of the locals gave up on the rain and headed home as the stadium wasn't full when the game finally started.  The Morgans joined our seats and we hung out with friends during the game.

 

I find this funny as Grant and Kyle are on either side of Sean, not his own kids!

 

cotton candy makes every wait worthwhile!  :)

 

Kyle sporting his new hat!

 

Grant and his new hat

 

Reid and his new mini bat

 

Reid took our picture!

 

a panoramic view from our seats

 

Tuesday's Red Dirt games allowed my childhood friend, Meg, and her boys to come visit. It was a quick hour visit but great to catch up!

 

We came back to our room to discover we had no power which meant no air conditioning.  After a day at the ball diamond, we wished for some A/C!  The team decided to go to dinner together and we went to Cheesecake Factory.

 

Hotel wrestling!

 

Reid was able to sneak in a nap!

 

We let Reid sit and relax with her during this nearly miserable hot game!

 

My view driving home was pretty cute! 

 

Reid is pretending he is a "real" baseball player.