A funny thing happened on the way to the tournament...

After our last game on Friday night, we headed out to the cozy Motel 6 where we were spending the evening. Gary noticed that a police car pulled in behind us and followed us for the three or four miles down the road. He never turned on his siren, though, and we couldn't think of anything we might have done. So, Gary figured, it must simply be a friendly Gadsden City Cop riding conveniently behind us.

When we turned into the motel parking lot, the friendly cop pulled in right behind us. And then when we pulled into a parking space, he pulled in behind us. I got out, interested in what he was going to tell us. Maybe we had a broken tail light and he was going to just give us a warning? Maybe he was just randomly driving around, welcoming softball players and their families to his fair city? Maybe he was staying himself at the lovely Motel 6 overnight?

Nope, none of the above.

He began laughing when me, Gary, Sydney, and then Delaney piled out of the truck (remember, if you will: my car is still in the shop, my old car has no air conditioning, Gary's main truck won't run, so we are driving Gary's older Ranger which is soon to be McKenna's vehicle).

"Well, I guess you aren't the guy," he said. "We had an attempted robbery at the Sonic tonight by a blue Ranger with a blue cooler in the truck bed."

Yep, we had a blue cooler sitting in the bed of our blue Ranger. So we looked amazingly like the geniuses who'd tried to rob Sonic of all its cash, tater tots, and slushies earlier in the night.

The policeman said he realized we weren't the attempted robbers when he saw "the girl with the softball uniform on." We laughed with him for a few minutes and told him we'd been at the softball park all night. So, really, there was no way we were also responsible for the attempted-chili-dog-heist.

It gave us a good story for the rest of the weekend, and I even considered circling the Sonic parking lot a few times when I went the next day to get lunch.

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In other news (almost as exciting as the Sonic story!), we ended up having a pretty dramatic softball tournament (which is, usually, how our team likes to do things!). On Friday night, we lost both of our pool play games and then we lost our first elimination-round games on Saturday. Yep, we were 0-3 and not feeling very good about ourselves. The hitting just wasn't happening and we made a few important errors in the field.

I laughingly told a few of the girls, "Now, we've got them right where we want them." (Positive reinforcement is always better, I believe, than making the team feel any worse about themselves!) And, honestly, we have gotten ourselves into the losers bracket many other times before and then clawed-and-dragged our way out of it. So, hope was not lost!

And, wouldn't you know it? We came back and won our next two games and got ourselves into the championship round. We had to beat the other team twice (since it was a double elimination tournament). The first game against the team was SO exciting; it was a seven-inning game and it was tied the whole game through. It was 6-6 going into the seventh inning, and we ended up scoring two. Then, the other team got on the field and got bases loaded...with NO outs. They had the chance to win it all right there, but then...a pop fly that was caught, a ground-out that was thrown home, and then another pop fly to short stop for the third out.

By now, it was 10:30 PM (yes, PM) and the girls--and parents--were all very excited! But...we had to play a final game. It turned out to be sorta anti-climatic and we lost it, but I think our girls had pretty much used up all their energy in that first game.

Although we were sad to lose, I do think that the tournament taught all of us that you can never give up! There is always a chance to come back, even when you don't think there is. I was very proud of Delaney and all the girls!

So... here are a few pictures from the tournament, of Delaney fielding...

An individual picture of Delaney and a team picture that we will submit to the World Series (that we're going to in just three weeks!)...


And I really like this picture because it shows Sydney's team spirit too, in her Mustangs t-shirt. (Of course, my eyes are closed in it, so just ignore me!)...


and then, after we got home from the tournament (we pulled into our driveway at 2:10 AM!!!), we got up on Sunday (skipped church! Bad Mom!), and then went to a birthday party for my nephew, Garrett. Here he is with his Pokemon cake...

And then my favorite pictures of the day, as Garrett, Delaney, and Sydney all had to try on his new Indiana Jones fedora...




And now...here comes another week (can you believe it's almost July?).