WISH YOU WERE HERE!

It happened…
I’ve become

“that mom”

You know that mom you see at the ballpark

sitting in her camp chair with a drink in the cup holder,

sunglasses and lip-gloss adorned

sunflower seeds in her oversized bag,

letting her kids run wild while she socializes with the other moms,

cheering on the team and thinking that her kid is the all-star.

I am now a full fledged suburban-driving soccer mom
(in our case it’s baseball)

I never wanted it to happen.
I tend to look down on the accelerated/ super league teams.

I thought they put too much emphasis on the one individual child and gives that child an elevated idea of the relevance of sports.

Does that make any sense? (that topic deserves a blog post of it's own later.)

Wade happened to get on an accelerated team only by accident.

And now we love it and are having a great time.

This past weekend was our first out-of-town tournament,

In beautiful EVANSTON, WYOMING!

I went to the tournament alone. Meaning without the help of husband and older children.
I mean I was ALONE. I called the shots. You answered to momma!

Brett and Lauren left that same morning for
a Pioneer Trek. Aren't they adorable.
(blog post coming soon about that too)




And Dean was home working hard to make it possible for the kids and I to be at the ball park blowing fistfulls of quarters on snowcones and nachos.


 





I was looking forward to a game here or there, then back to the hotel for relaxing by the pool...baths...kids in bed by ten and then "me-time" with my queen size bed, extra pillows, peanut m & m's and reality television.
Actually the weekend was quite different than I had imagined.
Let me paint you a little picture...

One game right off the bat. One loss right off the bat.

 One more game...this time a WIN!

We celebrated with a kids vs. parents baseball game at the local high school...

...which happened to be up fifty flights of stairs.
















I carried each child up one at a time,
cause they all fell asleep in the car and were ornery little skunks.

Quincy raided my purse each time I went back to the car.

Then it was back to the Hotel for swimming.

We stayed here.

Just kidding...(shudder)

You know me better than that. Remember my scary hotel experience?
We actually stayed here with our whole team and every other baseball team in the league

Thankfully we just missed the post-game victory swim.
50 frenzied little leaguers hopped up on gatorade and swimming together is a sight you just have to see once in your lifetime. Needless to say the pool was several degrees warmer than intended.

The next day was filled with more games...
more practices in-between games and more hanging out at the ballpark.

And if I were to be perfectly honest.

I jumped the gun and checked out of the hotel because I didn't think our team would be moving on to the championship on Saturday.

  They weren't the Bad News Bears after all.
They proved me wrong. Oops.

So without a hotel to retreat to in the middle of the day in-between games.
We had five hours to kill in Evanston.

And with stores like "Discount Liquor"  "Jolly Jack's Fireworks"  "Romantix video and magazine" and "The Boot Barn" the shopping was sub-par to say the least.

So..the kids and I drove up and down each street picking out our favorite houses.
This is my favorite. Just look at the garage. I'd move in tomorrow.

This house came in a close second.
















These were also lovely and charming houses.

    This was Kal's favorite house because it was a cool triangle shape.

  

It's funny,

Evanston has a clear economic divide.

Some houses are right out of Better Homes and Garden's magazine, and others are right out of the Thrify Nickel.

I know what you are thinking...

How lame of me to drive around taking pictures of random things.

And again I will remind you...

WE WERE IN  Evanston, Wyoming!

We  stopped to look at the world famous "Sticker Bus"

and discovered that it isn't rated G.

 It isn't even rated PG for that matter.

We hit all the local parks.  Some better than others.

As I pulled up to one scary looking park on the wrong side of town,

River asked if they could just "stay in the car."

We chased down a Yard Sale that led us here. 

Without wanting to sound snobby...           

I figured if they didn't want it....we probably didn't want it either.

Evanston has some beautiful trees and yards, and the weather was like being in the middle of the Caribbean. In fact I had to give myself a reality check every once in a while to make sure I wasn't in the Caribbean. 

   

When it was all said and done, Wade's team did awesome for it's first year.

 Wade said they came in second, but I don't think that's accurate.

  

But I could be wrong.

I was a bit distracted.

Mostly my time at the ball-park was spent telling Kal to stop climbing on the awning,

River to stop brown-nosing the other moms,

 Quincy to get out of my purse, and Canyon to be a good baby so I didn't have to nurse him in public. 

And so after eating out seven meals in a row...

And getting no sleep...

And running to wal-mart more times than I want to mention  

And checking in and out of Hotels

And wasting gas driving around

And getting sunburned

And washing Wade's uniform in the Hotel laundry at Midnight....

it was all for this kid

I still worry about giving Wade an elevated sense of self.

But in this crazy world...is that such a bad thing?

See you next year.