I'm Baaccckkkk...

I'm back with a longer update than what I left you with this morning. I was SO sleepy this morning that I'm amazed I was able to put a coherent sentence together!!

This past weekend was VERY busy, but so very very exciting!

On Friday, Delaney had her 5th Grade Graduation and Awards ceremony. We were so incredibly proud of Delaney. She received a slew of awards; in fact, several people were joking with her that her medals were gonna weigh her down and tip her over! I know most people kinda roll their eyes when other people start bragging on their kids, but you're just gonna have to bear with me now (besides, I know mine aren't perfect; they can be little irritants at times, like every other child in the world! lol; but they also are so good and make me amazingly proud). So, I'm bragging!

Delaney received: Top grade point average in her class, top math average, 5th grade scholar, Presidential scholar, All A's (for this year, but also for all of her elementary school career!), a 4 on the Alabama Writing assessment (the highest you can get on the 1-4 scale); and she also got recognized for a presidential fitness award and also for being on the safey patrol. To put it mildly, we were all SO proud of her!

A few pics from the ceremony...

One of her awards from her principal...


I was NOT gonna lose it, because hey? this is just fifth grade graduation right? Forget about it!! All I could think of was how fast Delaney has grown up, how much I love her sweet-but-stubborn-little self, how fast I know the next years will go by (remember, it seems like just yesterday that McKenna was going through the same ceremony and she just finished her freshman year of high school!), and how proud I am of the young lady she's becoming.

I was doing okay until the entire fifth grade class started singing their song about growing up and spreading their wings (oh man!!), and then my mom leaned over and whispered, "I can still remember the day that Delaney was born. How sweet and little she was, and how we were all so happy!" That just did it for me!


At the reception afterwards, here's Delaney with Savannah, Scotti, and Shelby...

And posing with my Mom and Dad...


As soon as the graduation was over,we rushed up to the high school to pick up McKenna up (we couldn't leave early because she had her Honors Biology final exam; she had to get an 86 to retain her A in the class, and she got just under that and has a B; she was a little upset, but she knows what a tough class it is!).

We had to get on the road so we could make it to Pigeon Forge,Tennessee, for our travel softball tournament with the Thunderbolts. This tournament had teams from Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia. And, oh yeah, Alabama (we were the lone Bama team!). The girls played SO hard and it did so great! We won our first two games on Saturday (Delaney pitched the second game) and then went into elimination play that night.We lost our first elimination game 1-0 to a good Knoxville Storm team, so got stuck in the loser's bracket for the rest of elimination play on Sunday (it was a double elimination tournament). The worst news was that it meant we had to play at 8 am and could not lose a game all day if we wanted to be champions! We dug ourself out of the losers bracket, winning three games and then making it to the Final round. (The third game was very exciting, coming down to the wire and the other team having a chance to win it inthe last inning, when Delaney made a double play to end the game--she caught a hard line drive then threw a second girl out).

We had to play the Storm again,but had to beat them TWICE since they didn't have a loss yet.Well,we won the first game 5-0 and were looking great. Then in the last game we were ahead 2-0 going into the last inning. Our ace pitcher was getting tired so we pulled in Grace.She did her best, but the other team came out hitting and came back to beat us 3-2. It was a day full of drama, close wins, and close losses. But we came out as runners-up in a big tournament and we were very proud of the girls and how they played and carried themselves!!

This is what Delaney did most of the weekend....



(love that pic!!! that ball was about two inches over her head and she dove backwards for it and just missed it!!; we still got the out at first because our awesome rightfielder got it and threw it in!)


Here's some of what the rest of the team did over the weekend (because D's not the only one on our team; lol!!; I just have more pics of her! I don't know if you can see it, but Tyler has that ball in her glove; she dove for it!) ...

(the girls came out to congratulate Reisa for an over-the-fence homerun!!)

This is what McKenna did most of the weekend (and the REST of us--cheering on the team! She's such a great sister and cheerleader for D!)...

This is what Sydney did most of the weekend (we think we may start calling her Pig Pen; she was just a whirling mass of dirt, but boy did she have fun!)...


Delaney's biggest accomplishment of the weekend was her being awarded the Defensive Player of the Tournament for our team (both the first and second place coaches got to select a pitching award and a defensive award). If you look closely, you can see the surprise on her face here as she receives it from the tournament director. We were SO proud of her!

The whole team with their trophies. Go Bolts!!

Just in case you think we only played softball this weekend, we did do a few other fun things. We went and saw "Spiderman 3," got some Starbucks, went to a massive scrapbook store (thanks for the recommendation, Telah and Kim!), ate some good barbecue, enjoyed our hotel room, and

Go-karted...


And rode on some kiddie carnival rides (Sydney LOVED this mini pirate ship)...


It was a FUN trip, but thank goodness we aren't going out of town for another softball tournaments for a few weeks (this next weekend's is here in town!).

Looking forward to a good week with school ending, a Lost finale party, getting ready for McKenna's Europe trip, and some nights of actually staying at home (imagine that!!!).