What Were We Thinking? (aka: The joy of travel softball in 35 degree weather and at 10 pm!)

We had a fantastic tournament again this past weekend with Delaney's travel team, getting all the way to the championship game. We lost 4-2, but put up a great fight against probably the best 10-and-under team in the state.

The good?
* Like I said--playing great games (we scored like 46 points in 5 games and gave up only 5 points!) and coming in second!
* Staying in a hotel so that we didn't have to get up at 4 am on Saturday morning to travel the two hours to the tournament (Gary set up his photography booth, so he had to have all of his equipment there by the first game's starting time.)
* McKenna worked hard again all day long and made some more money toward her SLU trip to London this summer (our last payment is $1300 and she's helped make about $900 of that!) Yay!
* The laughter in hearing Delaney's various nicknames being called out. At the ballpark, she is usually just called "D" (which came from a coach about three years ago yelling to her that she was playing great D-fense and then it sticking as her name); her travel coach gives everyone nicknames and he has gone through several with her. The latest was "Chicken Bone" (because her legs are so skinny; lol!), but now he has settled on "Money." It just cracked me up to hear her being called all of those names during just one at-bat ("Cmon, Chicken Bone, give me a hit. You can do it D! Cmon on Money!") LOL!
* The joy I get in seeing Delaney LOVE to play!

This is my favorite picture of the weekend and it captures that joy. See that serene smile on her face? (or maybe it could be because she was in a numb, 30-degree stupor!)



Which brings us to The Bad! LOL
Some of the bad included:
* Sitting in cold weather pretty much all day long! The wind was brisk and we just about froze our little tushes off. And believe me, sitting in the stands is HARD work when you're freezing (ha ha! Delaney always likes to remind me that it's HER doing the hard work, when I complain about being tired at the end of the day! I guess that's a tad bit true!)
* Sitting on a toilet seat that has pretty much turned to Frigid Toilet Status and being afraid that your butt might be permanently stuck!
* Trying to walk when your feet have Near Frostbite!
* Sitting in cold weather until 10:30 at night! There are benefits to being on a championship team. The bad side of it is that you are often still at the ballpark after everyone else has left!

I LOVE this picture of McKenna, Sydney, and I watching the last game of the night. McKenna had worked hard all day and finally got to actually watch a game! As we wrapped up tight before the game we were laughing about how crazy we were. "Yeah the only people here are the parents, and then the people who are being held hostage by the parents," McKenna said. (I think she meant herself, although she laughed as she said it! LOL)



One more picture before I go--this one of the team holding their runners-up trophy!



And hey, Gary, thanks for the pics! I stole them from your blog post this morning!!

See ya tomorrow... I've got a fun Random Tuesday planned!