The Diary of a Pitts Kid

Every summer my parents take the kids on a vacation. MawMaw and PawPaw have taken them to Fiesta Texas, the Alamo, Sea World, and Galveston. Last summer, Madison got to bring Mason along for the vacation; and this year Jackson got to bring Cole. This summer, their destination was South Padre Island. In the past, Corey and I have been on some kind of getaway while the kids were on their vacation, but this year we stayed home. The kids left on Wednesday, July 8 and came home on Saturday, July 11. Corey had to work, so during the day I was on my own. It was very strange! I haven’t had that much alone time in at least 9 years. I cleaned out the playroom, had lunch with Corey, lounged by the pool, solved crossword puzzles, shopped, & missed my kids like crazy! The absence of noise was almost eerie. Corey and I just sat on the couch in the evenings not really knowing what to do. The whole experience was rather bittersweet for all involved!

Madison kept a journal of their trip to South Padre Island. I typed her entries exactly as she wrote them in her journal. Here they are:

June 8, 2009
We woke up and ate breakfast. Now we are wating to go.

And lift off at 6:54 a.m. with 450 miles to go. It is 10:37 a.m. and we are between San Antonio & Kingsville. We are really past San Antonio. MawMaw & PawPaw just say that so Cason will quit asking. We are have a lot of fun in the car. If your wondering if I am being sarcastic I’m not. We are really having fun. We are doing lot’s of things. Jax is making paper crafts, Cole playing the DS, Cason is well frankliy I don’t know what Cason is doing. Being weird like always. And I am writing. MawMaw has bought snacks & rapped presents for if were good.

We are in Kingsville. We just ate lunch at Wendy’s. Now we are off to the beach again. We just saw a train and a dust storm in the middle of a field. We are now in South Padre and we crossed the bridge and we saw the Pirate ship.

So we got checked in and we went to the beach & swam. And then did a lot of things.

We had so much fun today. I hope the rest of the days are as much fun!

June 11, 2009
9:00 a.m. and lift off. We are on our way to Lorena. We had so much fun at South Padre. It was the best vacation ever. The sea turtle were cool & Schlitter Bound was so much fun. But the Pirate ship was the coolest. We had water gun fites, face painting & treasure hunt and a lot more. A guy hit his head and they called 911. It was the best vacation ever!

One of the things Maddie did not mention in her journal was their boogy boarding experience.

My parents said the kids were pretty good at it!

Here are pictures of the best part of the trip according to Maddie, the Pirate Ship.

There was sword fighting...

face painting...

swabbing the deck...

taking the "Pirates' Oath"...

and water gun fights.

The Sea Turtle farm was a great learning experience for everyone. Some of the sea turtles at this farm were handicapped - missing flippers, gashes in their shells, etc.

This Sea Turtle has only one flipper! She has to use a swim jacket so she doesn't swim in circles.

Another great learning experience was watching the baby sea turtles being released to the ocean early one morning. They learned that only a few of these sea turtles will actually survive their journey to the ocean. And that the sea turtles that do survive will return to the spot where they hatched to lay their own eggs.

and they're off...

Early morning beach pictures

Evidently, they were so busy while they were in Padre that Madison only wrote on the way to Padre and on the way home, but you can definitely tell they had a great time.

Let's See Some Fireworks

On the Wednesday before the 4th of July, Mari invited us over to pop some fireworks. Derrick, Mari’s boyfriend, is a pyro-technician, and runs the fireworks show in Galveston every 4th of July. When he bought the fireworks for the Galveston show, he got some to do at home as well.
I don’t ever remember getting to pop fireworks as a kid. We always went to the Freedom Frolic in downtown Waco to watch the fireworks show. In all honesty, firecrackers kinda scare me! The whole idea of holding something on fire that will explode at any second makes me nervous. So the idea of my kids holding something on fire that will explode at any second makes me very nervous! I think my nervousness rubbed off on my kids because they wouldn’t have anything to do with lighting the firecrackers, or even holding the punk for someone else. Eventually, Cason started lighting some of his own-surprise, surprise!

After the kids finished setting off all the little poppers, Derrick set up in the middle of the street for the big show. The fireworks Derrick shot off were awesome! I felt like I was in Indian Springs Park watching the show on the 4th. The kids and, lucky for Mari, the neighbors enjoyed the show!

The kids sat on their bikes and scooters in the middle of the street to watch the sky.

From left to right: Jackson, Brooke, Madison, Ashton, Cason, Adam, & Carter

At the baseball tournament on Saturday, July 4th, the Miller’s invited the team to their house to swim. The pool was very refreshing for the boys after playing ball all day! Once it was dark out, we headed to a local fireworks stand to shoot off our own fireworks. Again, Cason was the only one who would light any of the firecrackers. With much prodding Jackson eventually held a sparkler. He is such a cautious child, and I love it!

Can You Feel the Sting?

Jackson is playing on a 7U(age 7 & under) select baseball team called the Texas Stingers. This is the first time Lorena has had a select team this young. Because our team is new and rather young our games aren’t going that great, but the boys are having a blast!

Two weekends ago we played a double-header against a Midway team. Those were our first games, and a great learning experience for the boys and the parents. The team we played has been together for a year at least, so they looked awesome! It made us all realize that playing select baseball takes a lot of determination and hard work. Hopefully, our team can stay together and keep a positive attitude!

While Jackson played a baseball game, Cason and Carter played a game of their own; however, their game was a little different from baseball!
I L-O-V-E the hands on the hips!

Last weekend the Stingers played in their first tournament at the Riverbend Complex in Waco, which was an 8U tournament. Seven teams played in our bracket. There were 2 Midway teams, a team from Lufkin, one from Mansfield, one from College Station, and our very own Texas Stingers. Saturday we played our pool games, against the Braves from Mansfield and Texas Thunder from Lufkin, to determine when we would play on Sunday.

Our first game, against the Braves, started off great! We were only down by 1 going into the 2nd inning, and then our little guys fell apart. We ended up getting run-ruled in the 4th inningL Jackson usually plays in the outfield, but this game he played catcher. He had only practiced playing catcher one time (at practice, not a game), so I was nervous. In Jackson’s Little League age group, catcher is really an obsolete position. Some teams did not even have a catcher! There was a coach standing behind the plate to get the balls that the other coach pitched to the batter. If there was a catcher, they didn’t even have to move! So, this was very new for him. I’m pretty sure the umpire retrieved and threw back more balls than Jackson. After the game, Jackson told us the umpire told him not to get up. He did a great job for his first time catching, and looked super cute!

Chris McCloud, the head coach, talked to the boys after their 1st game.

The team talks always end with a huddle and a loud “Texas Stingers.”

No team would be complete without the little brothers to help cheer them on! Cason is on the left and Cage is on the right. Cage comes to every practice and game in full uniform! He is only 3, but could probably play with the big boys!
We played our 2nd game of the day against the Texas Thunder from Lufkin. The boys on that team were twice the size of most of our boys! They had 4 boys that were already 9 years old-we don’t have any. Every ball they hit went in the air to the outfield; until, they started batting left-handed. Even left-handed they hit the ball. Those boys were serious ball players! Needless to say, we were run-ruled in that game too. Thankfully Jackson got a break from catching because it was so hot, and played in right field. Of all the balls hit to the outfield, none of them were hit to right field, so Jackson had an easy game. Luckily, our boys were relentless and wanted to come back to play on Sunday.

The Stingers ended up being the #6 seed team in the tournament, so our next game was against the #3 seed team on Sunday at 11:45am. The Midway team we played the weekend before, which stomped us, was the #7 seed team. Evidently, they lost both of the games they played on Saturday by a larger margin than we did, so they were seeded last. It’s all confusing to me!
On Sunday we played the #3 seed team, which happened to be the Texas Thunder. We all figured it would be replay of Saturday’s game, but the boys had their game faces on, as Cason would say. We still were run-ruled, but the boys played very well! The games on Sunday were single elimination, so we were done. I think the boys learned a lot from that tournament too. We have a lot to learn and a lot of growing to do, but eventually we’ll get there! Our next tournament is the last weekend in July. I can’t wait to see how we do!

Camping 101

Camping out is really NOT my thing, unless I am in a camper with A/C, toilet, shower, cushioned bed, etc. I have never camped in a tent, and hope I don’t ever have to. Call me crazy, but sleeping in a hot tent, along with thousands of creepy crawlies, doing my business on the ground, and showering who knows where does not sound like fun to me! So needless to say, my kids are not campers either. I think they have the desire, but know that their mom is not cool enough for it. My reasoning behind their hidden camping desire is shown below.

The kids created a tent using every blanket and chair they could find. This kid-made tent was constructed smack-dab in the middle of our living room. Our living room could possibly be the smallest living room around, so this tent took up every bit of available space. Since I’m not cool enough to camp outdoors with the kids, I let them keep their tent up to sleep in. As you can see in the picture, Cason chose not to sleep inside the tent, but on top of the tent! When I woke up, I found him sound asleep on top of the table. He even had is flashlight ready for any invaders of the camp sight. You gotta love the imagination of kids!

Saturday O' Fun

Our Saturday o' fun started off snuggling and watching a movie. Well, attempting to watch a movie! Between Cason, Jackson, and Max playing switch-a-roo it was difficult to see the movie, but I loved the together time!

We spent the rest of the morning running errands, and counting down the time until the "Swim Party" at Debbie's house. The party didn't start until 4:00, so we counted down for a long time! But once 4:00 finally rolled around, we had 3 happy kiddos!






Debbie has rules for her pool that the kids must follow: no peeing in the pool, no running, no laying on the "adults only" floaties, no drowning on "whatever day of the week is," etc. However, she had one more rule for the party: if you wanted to swim, you had to sing karaoke. Cason was the first, of all the kids, to sing-surprise, surprise! He sang "Whatever It Is" by the Zac Brown Band. I videoed Cason singing, but for some reason I can't get it to upload. In the video it is hard to hear him sing, and really it was hard to hear him sing if you were there, but he looked really cute!

Madison wasn't that excited about singing, which really surprised me, but she finally did. Jackson was not going to have any part of singing karaoke! Debbie tried and tried to get him up there, but he was not going to sing!

She finally gave up and moved on to her next victim.

Corey was the only adult lucky enough to join the kids in the pool, and he didn't even have to sing karaoke. But he did get to play human catapult with the kids. He is just a big kid!