Baseball & Vacation
Vangie traveled to Sonoma to spend a couple weeks house sitting at my parents. While she was in California she caught up with three of her close friends whom she has known since grade school. They had a great time catching up and going out to dinner. I was only able to join the family for a week. I spent much of the time working and eating fundraiser frozen pizza. Ok, I got to golf a few times and sleep in a little longer on the weekends but I wish I could have joined them for the full 3 weeks.
Here is Max giving Jake a piggy back ride infront of Alcatraz. It was a little chilly the day we were down by the Golden Gate bridge.
It was also very foggy, We walked to a fort that was used to defend the bay. Actually it never came under attack but it was a pretty cool fort.
Here are the guys burning off some energy running through the corridors of the fort.
Vangie likes this picture of the boys. Jake's nose is hiding behind a small porcupine made out of a coconut he bought in the store. There was a guy selling hotdogs under the bridge with grilled onions. They were really really good.
While Vangie and the boys were away they visited the Jelly Belly factory. There was a wheel you could spin with all kinds of gross Jelly Bellies. If you spun the wheel you had to eat the flavor that came up. Jake refused to spin it, but Max spun the wheel twice. He landed on Ear Wax and Baby Wipes. Max said that the Baby Wipe Jelly Belly actually tasted good.
One week while the guys were away they went to Pure Potential Soccer Camp in Sonoma. Here is a picture of the guys with their coach. They had a really good time at camp! Jake came home bragging about beating the best player in camp in a one on one drill! I was a little worried they would feel out of place and not have a good time but they made friends quickly and truly enjoyed going every day.
When it was hot Vangie would take the boys swimming. My parent's friends were very kind to Vangie and the boys inviting them over to swim and checking on them to make sure they were doing well.
Here we are in Land's End, San Francisco. The scenery was beautiful.
Vangie took this great picture on the hike of Max overlooking the Ocean.
This is a great picture of Jake hanging out at the Sabastiani Fountain in Sonoma. Conveniently it is in walking distance from my parents home.
Another beautiful scenic picture of Sonoma (at the Benzinger Winery). We did a few tours and a few tastings while we were out.
This is a picture of Max and the fabulous Miriam Shor perhaps you may have seen her on the new hit TV show "Swingtown" On CBS Thursday nights at 10:00 PM.
Finally onto the Baseball Season Wrap Up portion of the blog. Max's team had a rough year. They went 0-16. At the beginning of the season it seemed like Max was going up to bat looking to walk and not swinging the bat. Last year I tried working with him a lot on hitting. We bought a pitching machine and took lessons and went way overboard. I think things were all mental and not so much mechanical. Halfway through the season I offered Max $10 for a hit and $10 for an RBI. He started getting hits and his confidence grew. In the last game of the year Max got two hits and drove in one run.
Max got a lot of opportunity to play in the infield this year. He played second base most of the time. He made a diving stop in the second game of the year on a ground ball that was particularly impressive. He caught most of the fly balls that came his way too. He made an impressive catch in right field where he had to run quite a way to catch a fly ball. Despite the losing season Max got a lot of experience and gained a lot of confidence at the plate.
I coached Jake's team this year and we ended up going with a 500 record at the end of the season. Jake is still at coach pitch and the kids in this group are first and second graders. There are nine or ten players on about eight teams. We had a pretty young team with six first graders and three second graders. Despite having one of the youngest teams in the league we held our own. There was only one team in the league we did not win against.
In this league the kids get five pitches and if they can not get a hit they have to go to the T. 90% of the time Jake hit the ball when pitched by a coach. We are working on increasing Jake's power. I bet Jake a few dollars that he couldn't hit the ball in the outfield. Jake came through and collected a few bucks off Dad.
Jake played pretty well in the field. Not many kids at his age can consistently catch fly balls. Jake is great at catching a ball. We work a lot with kids on learning whose responsiblility it is to cover second base. It depends on which side of the infield the ball is hit. Early in the season there was a runner on first when a ball was hit hard to third base. Jake was playing second at the time. The third basemen fielded the ball cleanly and remembered to go after the lead runner. He threw the ball to second base, Jake came through and remembered to cover the bag and made an outstanding catch at second. It was such a good play the other teams coach actually complimented our players after the game.
It was a great baseball season and it was also a great vacation. Special thanks go out to Mom and Dad Unti for allowing us to spend time in their beautiful home in Sonoma. We look forward to seeing them at our house over Christmas.
posted by The Pants @ 10:26 AM
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