It was a VERY red, white, and blue weekend!!

Wow!! What a weekend!

We had a very nice Fourth of July spent with family (Gary's dad had not had the holiday off in forty years of working, so he was extremely excited to get to spend the day at home...grilling for all of us!) and we had a kitchen FULL of great food (grilled chicken, more racks of ribs than you can imagine, baked beans and all the side fixins', watermelon, homemade ice cream...yumm!).

While there, I got this cute picture of the girls (I don't get enough of these with all three of them together, so this one's a keeper, for sure)...

And Delaney, of course, had to hold her cousin Kelsey. (Look at all that red, white, and blue!)...

And Sydney had to play with her cousins in the little kiddie pool that Gary's Mom got (THAT was a huge hit!)...


After relaxing for most of the day, and then almost lulling ourselves into oblivion from the RACKS of ribs we ate, we headed out to a ballpark across town for the NSA State softball tournament! We were all geared up for the tournament, but we had lower expectations than usual. This was a big tournament with 14 teams in our division (12-and-under) and there were four or five teams that we knew would be very tough (we were the youngest, or maybe the next to youngest, team there and we knew we'd have a hard time keeping up with several of the stronger teams).

We started out Friday night with our flag flying and our fans cheering (that's McKenna and my niece,Lori, and then Scout waving from the press box!)...



And on Friday night, we ended up winning our first two games really well (although they were against two of the weaker opponents). We knew Saturday would be more difficult and we ended up losing to probably the strongest team in the entire tournament, the Tuscaloosa Tide, 11-1. Our second game of the day was rained out and delayed by lightning, so we ended up having to play on Sunday.

On Sunday, we started off in the losers bracket but we CAME TO PLAY and ended up fighting out of the losers bracket and being the winner of it (against two very strong teams!). We then were back up in the winners bracket and were in the final four of the tournament. By this point, we were just ecstatic about how we were playing. But we kept on doing it...and made it to the championship game. (Here's what the bracket looked like, if you can tell. The bottom page is the losers bracket, where we won out and then we advanced to the top page. We're in the red...the Mustangs)...

We ended up having to play the Tuscaloosa Tide again (the team that beat us so bad on Saturday...and they had beat everyone like this, 10-1, 8-0, 13-0)...AND we had to beat them twice to take first place (since it was a double elimination tournament). Well, wouldn't you know it? We came out and won that first game, 13-4!! It was unbelievable; we hit the ball, made great defensive plays, just everything!

Then,we had to play a second time...and we just ran out of gas. Our pitchers were tired, the other team's size and strength finally won out, and they won the tournament. But...WOW!!..to come in second place in this state tournament was HUGE for us and we were all so proud of the girls!!

Here are some great shots of our girls "in action" (THIS was why we won so many games this weekend! defense wins games!)...



And a few shots of Delaney (although, of course, we didn't get any action shots of the five or six really great defensive plays she made!! LOL)...


And then here we are with our big trophy. The girls were so excited, and they deserved to be...


Next up for the team is a much-deserved break from tournament play next weekend (in fact, we got our regularly-scheduled practice off this week too), and then the weekend after we head to the World Series in Maryland. We are starting to feel good about our chances there!

And then, of course, a July 4th weekend wouldn't be the same without some fireworks!

On Saturday night, McKenna and Lori did some sparklers out in the driveway. They were always my favorite fireworks to do when I was a child, so I always make sure there are plenty of them at our house on July 4th.


And on Sunday night, we had a July 4th extravaganza at church. We, of course, were at the ballpark playing the FIFTH game of the day when it all got started...but we got there in time to enjoy some hot dogs, watermelon, karaoking, water slides, and then fireworks.




It was a really great weekend all around. Great time with family, yummy-in-my-tummy food, some awesome softball, great fireworks, and just lots of fun had by all. I hope that your weekend was wonderful too. I'd love to know how all of you celebrated! (And, since Monday is usually my blog-catch-up-day, I hope to get by your blogs to actually find out about it all!)