This weekend may be the peak of fall colors around Oxford. Temperatures are in the seventies with clear blue skies. Many trees have changed and leaves are falling everywhere. One good rain or wind storm and it will all be gone. Zach and I drove out to the Country Smokehouse for an outdoor grilled buffalo burger and Pinconning cheese. On the way back we drove some country roads. Something about the color of the trees in the below scene said “STOP”.
I went out for a drive on the back roads of Lapeer and Oakland Counties. We are near the end of summer and a cold front meant a morning temperature of 40 degrees. Enjoy!
Tyler's baseball season has ended, but there is no rest for the weary. He's now in preparation for his freshman year in high school. Two weekends ago, he had tryouts for next springs baseball team. He made the team, along with a number of boys who played either Freshman or JV ball for the high school this spring. The new team has a pretty aggressive workout schedule for the remainder of the summer and fall. This includes Nike Sparq training to increase agility and speed. Hopefully this will translate to a spot on the high school team next spring. Meanwhile, he is attending "open gym" sessions for basketball on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays with a number of players from last years JV and Varsity teams. Thus, he is now in some sort of workout for 6 days each week.
On the academic side, Tyler is taking an advanced language arts class this year. A requirement is that he read "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" this summer. He has some assignments due when he shows up for the class this fall. He is about half way through the book. I've been reading along with him. I think the alternate title of the book should be "Mythology: The Complete Cure for Insomnia" as it is guaranteed to put you to sleep in 1 minute or less. I'm not sure if the ancient Greeks really believed this stuff, or maybe these stories were actually just skits for their version of Saturday Night Live.
Zach is spending a lot of his summer traveling. He has gone up to the Tawas City area a few times with his friend. Right now they are up at Mackinac Island. He also traveled to Cleveland where he attended an Indians versus Washington Nationals game. His friend Luke's father is a coach for the Nationals, so Zach got to sit in the family section.
Zach is also prepping for his driver's test. He is getting to be a pretty accomplished parallel parking expert.
Last night, Friday, July 2nd was Tyler's last game of the season. He played shortstop next to his friend Shawn. Below are a some boys he sent to their dugout early...
Tyler and I just returned from Omaha, Nebraska. We drove out on Wednesday the 23rd. Tyler's team, the Player's Edge Sluggers, had a game on Thursday and two on Friday. On Thursday morning, I checked the "Ticket Exchange" to see if we could upgrade our tickets to the College World Series Game 10. We were able to get 4 tickets just above 3rd base for the Oklahoma vs. South Carolina game. Two of Tyler's teammates went with us. The game went into extra innings and didn't end until the 12th, so we definitely got our moneys worth.
All the baseball facilities we played at were great. They had grass infields, press boxes, bleachers and great dugouts. We played in small towns around Omaha, namely, Nebraska City and Blair. I'm not sure how small towns like that can have such great ball parks compared to Michigan.
This week Tyler plays the final 3 games of his regular season. If they can win two of the three, they will probably get to go to the district tournament. After that, baseball will be over for another year.
Ahhh! What to do for the rest of the summer...
A few weeks back, we purchased a car for Zach to drive, once he gets his license. It is a 2003 Chevy Malibu. Of course, the first thing he wants to do is replace the CD/Radio with one that will interface with his iPod. Forty years ago, I wanted to do the same thing, but the decision was either 8-track or cassette tape. Things change but stay the same.
