New Life- Week 66 (Summer!)

 It's finally here!  It's finally summer! Truth be told its come in with a bang, but more on that in a sec.  Merrick had a big week early on with the big milestone of completing elementary school.  Due to the pandemic we didn't get to have a big ceremony.  We didn't get to go on a jet boat ride, as is customary for the graduating 5th graders at his school.  Instead he got a couple of celebratory zoom meetings and a quick drive thru at his school.  He didn't seem too deflated by it though.  I think he is happy to be done with elementary school and is ready to move on to middle school.  For one of his zoom parties I had to put together a slide with pictures of him throughout his life.  It was giving me all the feels.  I am just thankful to have been along for the ride so far.

So that took us through Tuesday.  What have we being doing since then?  If you guessed baseball (the safe bet), you are right.  Merrick has practice 4 days a week and tournaments most weekends.  We are currently in the middle of our first tournament.  After yesterday we are in first place and will head back out this afternoon to play.  Unfortunately, we are in the middle of the biggest heat wave Portland has ever seen.  Yesterday, our first game got canceled because the other team forfeited due to the heat.  The game they did play was great!  Merrick's team mercy ruled the other team.  Before that happened, Merrick pitched a shut out inning and hit a home run.  We will see what happens today.  Actually...scratch that...the rest of the tournament just got canceled.  It's supposed to be 115 degrees here and 109 where we were supposed to play.  Hopefully we will be available to play when they schedule the make up games.

Other than baseball, we have had some other fun as well.  We have gone to the pool, gone to the river, gone fishing, gone to the splash pad (you may notice a theme here), had a lemonade stand, and taken walks (we like shady trails the best).

 If this week is any indication, it's going to be a fun summer!

New Life- Week 65 (The Boys)

 This week was all about the boys.  Baseball playoffs were this week and it felt like we were either at a game or prepping for a game all week.  Wednesday we had the first playoff game, which the boys won and Friday was the championship game.  The championship game was a good one!  Merrick's friend, Mitchell, was the starting pitcher and he did a great job.  Kai and Jason had great games.  Really everyone did.  Then, Merrick came in as the closer and pitched 2 shut out innings.  Over two innings he only pitched 19 pitches. He only had one hit and his first innings was a groundout and two strike outs.  In his first inning he pitched 7 straight strikes.  He was on fire!  After the game, the boys lined on the bases for medals from the league. Uso was planning to bring pizza for the boys, but he was late so Tala decided to stall.  He did so by buying out the entire snack shack, all the water, Gatorade, Rice Krispie Treats, and candy bars they had.  He spent $300 before the pizza even arrived.  Then Uso showed up with about 20 pizzas!  The boys were in hog heaven.  It was a night that won't soon be forgotten!

The partying didn't end there.  Merrick and Mitchell spent the night at the Ioapo's to keep celebrating and we had Tala's niece, Leighla, over here for a sleep over.  Then, last night, we had an end of the year party and BBQ.

As I said, this week was all about the boyS.  Today is Father's Day and this blog post wouldn't be complete without mention of our favorite Dad!  Jeremy put in SO many hours the last couple months coaching Merrick's baseball team and it is just going to get worse as we head into summer ball.  We are so grateful for him and all the hours he puts in for our family.  We are pretty lucky.

New Life- Week 64 (Wrapping it up)

This week has been all about wrapping things up as we finish up the school year.  Technically we still have over a full week left, but we are definitely in wind down mode.

This week Carrgian finished math for the school year.  She also finished up a big research project she has been working on on the ocean biome.  She has been working on this research project for weeks as it had a research writing component (I will include just this first page here), a model component, and a presentation component.  Carrigan worked really hard and I think we are both relieved to have it behind us.

Merrick is in wrap up mode as well.  This week he finished history and science.  He also finished up a big, final project he was working on in English Language Arts.   His project was on life lessons and the book The Phantom Toll Booth.  He had to do several mini projects and then make a short movie about one of the life lessons.  His was on "don't judge a book by its cover".

Merrick also wrapped up his regular season of baseball.  His team worked really hard and they ended in first place in the league.  He has two tournament games this week and then heads into summer ball.  Baseball is life.

  

That's about it from here.  Now we just have to mail it in until summer actually starts.

New Life- Week 63 (Fun in the Sun)

This week the weather got WARM and then cool again.  We also had Memorial Day this week so we had extra time to be out enjoying the sunshine.  I feel like we seized every opportunity we could to be out playing baseball, playing at the park, swimming, and even enjoying the river.

Baseball is pretty much life for our family right now with all of Merrick's games (and Jeremy's coaching of Merrick's team).  This has been amped up even more though because several of the cousins are getting close to being able to hit a home run.  They are all very anxious to be the next one to hit this milestone so love to find any excuse to get out and try.  The rest of us, including Millie, are just along for the ride.

Memorial Day also marked the beginning of splash pad season.  This gave Elsie a whole new option for fun during Carrigan's lacrosse practice.  We also stumbled on to Millie's mini twin at the park this week.  She was a Golden Retriever/King Charles Cocker Spaniel and I feel like she answered so many questions for us about Millie's DNA.  While she was smaller than Millie, her owner said that some of her siblings were Millie's size.

This week we also enjoyed the river for the first time this year.  The Brown cousins came out and brought their paddleboards.  The kids liked going for rides and having paddleboard water fights.  I even tried out paddle boarding for the first time.  I was even able to keep my balance while standing, but preferred to  paddle sitting or on my knees.  It was a pretty fun time until the end when we lost a good paddle and Carrigan got overheated and threw up.

We are all anxiously awaiting summer and even more fun in the sun.