Baseball and summer days

 Another raging rivers day.  When the kids don't find friends to hang out with, they do the slides with me.  I enjoy a few times down the slide.  Bobby found Paxton right away so he was busy which meant Emmy and I had some time together on this day.

 Not sure how many more years that Emmy will think it is cool to dress like mom.  We wear our blue and red for Bobby's games to support him.  This first game of the tourney he turned a double play all by himself.  Got the grounder, ran over to step on 2nd base and then threw a perfect throw to get the runner out on first.  He had no errors while on second and pitched a good game as well.  He is loving baseball this year.  His Nationals team outranked the Americans for the State tourney......his team is supposedly the B team but they've won far more games than lost at this point.  Proud of those boys and their coaches.

 We always have a few fans at the tourney.  Grandpa Bob, Grandpa Kelly, and Grandma Launa are regulars.

 Bobby loves to steal bases and here he is stealing home.  If he gets on first it is almost a given that he is getting home.

After the tournament we headed to the Moldenhauer Lake Cabin.  We had a great time tubing, roasting marshmallows, dancing and doing gymnastics moves (Emmy and Lexi).  It was a great day on the water and with family.

3rd Annual Medora Trip

We had fantastic weather for our 3rd annual Medora trip.  We met some new wild animal friends during our hike (what a sweet little puppy named Stella).  We saw buffalo, prairie dogs but no rattlesnakes or Elk this year.  We hiked over 3 total miles and we enjoyed each other's company.

 Dad is by far the best animal spotter.  Here he is showing Emmy where a wild horse is hiding off in the distance.

Dad took a lot of pictures of the kids and I but it was hard to get the entire family into a picture since asking people to take your camera in COVID times is not politically correct.  So, we did the best we could with a family selfie!

The kids asked to play on this playground and I was surprised and excited since I had thought they may be too old now to be interested.  Young at heart always!

We never miss out on our afternoon ice cream stop.  Home made ice cream can't be beat.

 The Medora musical was a bit different this year.  No kids came up on stage, people sat at socially distant places, the musical was much shorter than usual and so was intermission.  We also had to file out slowly with ushers directing us.  Despite all the changes due to COVID, we enjoyed the musical and once again the time with family was priceless.

The best addition to this year's trip was the horseback riding adventure.  I was on Charlie, Emmy on Gideon, Bobby at Hass, Robb on Rocko.  Charlie and Gideon are best friends they told us and they don't like to socially distance AT ALL.  Emmy and I were prepared for this along the ride.  Gideon kept biting Charlie's booty and Charlie kept trying to stop to eat.  It was a great ride that we really enjoyed.  The kids love riding horses and Emmy is proud at her skills that Grandpa Kelly taught her.  She has so many great memories of riding horse with him.

Baseball and birthdays!

 We've done some traveling for baseball.  We had a day trip to Minot (boys got 2nd place) with Bobby stealing home (and all the bases before that) to get the go-ahead run against Minot in a playoff game.  He is having a great year playing 2nd base.  He and Robb play baseball for hours every day and Bobby never tires of it.  The extra practice is paying off and the head coach tells everyone that Bobby is the "best 2nd baseman 9 yr old he has ever seen!"

 We always have some special fans with us since grandparents are often there too.  My parents were at both the Dickinson and Minot tourneys and Grandpa Bob came to Dickinson too.

Robb helps coach and he looks great in a uniform!

I get lots of extra time with the kids this summer and I'm loving every minute of it.  They are busy now too.  Emmy got invited to a movie (with two boys and two girlfriends) and an overnight sleepover last week.  She has a new style and new interests.  She enjoys anime, graphic novels, and she loves to learn new dances that she sometimes will perform for us.  Bobby loves baseball and reads a book a day.  We got him Kindle Unlimited this summer since he is going through books like crazy on the daily!

 We celebrated Father's day AND Robb's birthday. We did have friends over for an adult only swim party and the kids and I found some ways to make him feel special.  I also brought donuts to the boys' baseball practice on Robb's birthday.

 We have been doing projects and trying to get out of the house now.  We make art projects and we went to the Science Center where masks were required!

I celebrated a birthday too.  It was very fun in that I met up with my mom and Emmy and I got to do some shopping.  We also enjoyed Starbucks and Bobby made me some slides on his computer to tell me how much he loved me.  It was a great day with some of my favorite people.

 Every day I can find Bobby in the front yard with Robb playing catch, practicing pitching with the mound they made together or using the tied up ball to swing at (our neighbor gave that to us).  It is great to see his work ethic and how to strives for improvement.  Robb is truly the best dad to dedicate so much time to Bobby.  They often go to the diamonds to practice as well.

 One day last month we went to Raging Rivers.  I barely had time to get this one picture because the kids were so busy. I got to go down the slides once with each of them before they found some friends and ditched me.  I was happy to see them find their people but it was pretty boring for me afterwards.  I remember the old days when the kids were small and a day at Raging Rivers was truly exhausting for me.  Bobby had some trouble with one of his good friends and we ended up having a good talk about friendships and forgiveness.  He called his friend later that night to apologize and quickly they moved on to planning another play date.  Emmy found some girlfriends and was busy "flirting" with some boys.  I tried to give them some space.  She was very responsible and would check in with me.  New days for me in parenting.

 Emmy loves to dress up like anime characters and characters from TV shows she enjoys.

 Emmy finished up her Camp Education for the summer.  She did enjoy it and it was a chance for her to meet some new Horizon Middle School friends and teachers.  Bobby is doing so well at his Camp Ed.  I read his emails to check up on him.  Last month I overhead him creating an assignment for the class for math since the assignment his teacher created had technical difficulties.  He helped out and sent the assignment he created to the class to do instead.  He also chooses the "blue slides" which basically means he does the more difficult assignments online every day.  The students get to choose the difficult level of the assignments.

 Bobby has been such an important part of his team.  He is the king of stealing bases and sliding into home.  He also fields so well at 2nd and has also helped out by pitching.  We love watching him!

 The kids and I had a great time at the Zoo the other day.  We walked the entire zoo and really took our time to see the exhibits.  We rode the train and had ice cream.  I love spending time with these two loves.

 Emmy loves to cook so she has been making her own deserts and snacks whenever possible.  Here is a strawberry shortcake she made.

 We made a stop over the 4th of July weekend at the Mandan art in the park.  Emmy got mini donuts and a slushie, Bobby/Robb got pizza and a slushie.  I got a beautiful rock (purchased) by Bobby with two hearts on it to add to the collection of rocks with heart and I love you messages that the kids have gotten me at art fairs over the past years.  They are incredibly thoughtful.   Emmy wanted to purchase another one for me too but I convinced her to save her money as I have so many (and she has so little money).

 Out of all the Eckerts, I get the most love, hugs, cuddles, kisses from this one.  He is a special, sweet boy!

4th of July was a hard day for us since it is Candy's birthday and the first one we celebrated without her.  We had the Lovdal boys and Bob over to swim.  Later the kids and Robb stopped over to the Lovdal party to light off some daytime fireworks and then that night we watched fireworks on our deck while we cuddled.  It was a special day for family.