September Stuff

Despite Ryder's early grumblings about Colton playing baseball with him, he is being the best big brother EVER to Colton and really looks out for him on the team, a fact which I appreciate so much.  And they've been enjoying playing.  They've won all their games so far (it helps A LOT that the kids who pitch on their team are actually really good) and I really like their coach.  Each practice, he chooses a star player who did well and yesterday Ryder got picked, so he was thrilled about that (he'd managed to catch a pop fly, so I think that was the reason why he got picked).  Anyway, I'm glad they're having fun.  Now each morning before we head to the bus stop they'll usually spend a few minutes playing catch in the driveway.  It makes me so happy!

Ryder hit two doubles at his last game!

Colton is still figuring out batting, but he's getting better each time!

Meanwhile, the youth in our ward decided to hold a pinewood derby contest, so my kids have been having fun using power tools at youth night:

And then, of course, there's always a little downtime while others are using the power tools!

We noticed recently that Ryder was having trouble with his long distance vision.  He couldn't read the hymn numbers (from the 4th pew!) and when we went to that high school football game, he could read the score, but he couldn't read the words above the score.  If I can read those with my uncorrected 42-year-old eyes, I figured that wasn't a good sign.  So we took him to get his eyes checked and now we're waiting for these beauties to arrive:

I think these will frame his eyes really nicely...

So far his eyes aren't terrible: his prescription is -1.25 in one eye, -1 in the other.  Hopefully they'll stay that way and not get worse.  In the meantime, he's very excited and nervous for his glasses to arrive!

And in more personal news, my BFF Tracy just moved to Wisconsin!  😭😭😭  She's been in Manassas ever since I moved to Charlottesville, so I realize that *technically* I moved away first, but she was still an easy 2-hour drive away and I liked knowing we could meet up and/or see each other at the ward camp out!  That's going to be a LOT more difficult now that she's 15 hours away.  So I was actually pretty sad about her move, although I am also really happy for her, as they were pretty crowded in their townhouse AND NoVA is a pretty crowded place, as well.  Their new home is lovely and huge and I'm sure they'll love being closer to family.  But obviously, her leaving meant we needed to get together one last time:

Quick-- take off your masks for the picture!  L-R we've got me, Jacqui, Sarah, & Tracy at some park in Woodstock, VA

Sarah and I carpooled part of the way there and back.  But unfortunately, about five minutes into our drive, her husband called and announced that he'd just tested positive for Covid.  So we got to mask up in the car.  I'm still fine, but Sarah and most of her kids all caught Covid (despite being vaccinated!) so that's been a real bummer.

I miss you already, Tracy!!!