How We Spent Our Summer Part 1 - Travel Baseball

At least once a day I think about writing a blog post. Not because I think our lives are just that interesting. I just need to write the things down that I want to remember.

I got lazy when I got Facebook, and now I wish I'd written more.

So here's a start on our summer. Here's what we've done.

We've played baseball. Every week. Every weekend, excluding Mother's Day and Father's Day although I'm sure we played in the yard on both of those weekends.

My boys are baseball-crazy and I'm okay with that. We love watching and playing with them, and my husband is actually enjoying his coaching responsibilities as well.

Last August, we decided to give travel baseball a try. We'd previously sworn off travel sports, and even slightly judged the parents that were putting their young kids in travel leagues, I have to admit.

Then, the stars aligned.

We were coming off of two mildly disappointing rec league seasons. The boys both enjoyed their teams, but they wanted to play with some better kids as well. Kids that could possibly catch a thrown ball, and maybe even kids that didn't ask to sit out every couple of innings.

And then we heard that a travel team was expanding and taking up residence (home field) in the sports park across the road. Our home fields. And literally, just across the field.

Ben tried out and made the 10U team. And Owen, after a sorted coaching path story, ended up on the 8U team, coached by my husband.

I lectured both boys. I talked about the financial investment we were making, and the fact that because we've made the commitment to this team, it comes first before other fun opportunities that might come up. One. Whole. Year. of commitment.

I suspected, and even voiced to my husband that both boys might just want to quit before the year wrapped. But we'd make them stick it out. And then they'd never want to try out for a travel team again.

I will now eat those words.

Our 10U team wrapped up their season with a tournament last weekend, and 8U is on track to play once more during the final weekend of July. Both boys are so enthusiastic about baseball that they considered dropping football this year (but decided to stay with it - yay! *sarcasm*) to focus more on pitching and catching.

Both teams had disappointing seasons, by travel team standards, with fewer wins than losses. But they still loved it. They loved the boys on the teams, and getting to know them throughout the year. They loved the new skills they learned, and the opportunities they had to improve upon the basics. They loved the weekends we spent away from home, focused on them and on the games, and not on the never ending yard and house work.

And although  my house has never looked worse, I think we've never had a better summer, with more dedicated time together.

And we're all looking forward to travel baseball tryouts for next year... coming up in just under 3 weeks!