Cedar Point 2026

Evan had his 7th grade field trip to Cedar Point last week on May 12th.  When Sean had his in 7th grade, I pulled Evan out of school and him and I went for the day too (not as chaperones) so I offered the same option to Sean this year and he was all for it.  Evan had to be at school at 7:30am to get on the busses and Sean and I left the house around 8am.  We got there just before the park opened and got in line for Maverick since Steel Vengeance was not open yet.  We saw Evan in line just as we were about to get on the ride so we waved.  

We had a good morning and it was comfortable in sweatshirts all day!  We split the dining plan, which worked out good for the day between the two of us.  Sean rode the Raptor with me after lunch and it made him feel sick so he was iffy the rest of the day about rides.  He rode a few others and I did a few on my own, but by 4pm he was done for the day.  We saw Evan again in line for another ride and said goodbye.  We grabbed one more meal to go and a few small souvenirs and hit the road.  Sean drove home for the first hour and we switched just outside of Toledo.  Evan didn't get home until 9pm because their bus his bad traffic/an accident in Monroe, but he had a good day!  And his group paired up with his girlfriend's group so I think that made it extra "special".  

Easter, Cinco de Mayo, and Mother's Day!

It's been a busy spring, thanks to baseball!  Taking a moment to get caught up on all the fun things we've been up to off the baseball fields.  Easter was the last weekend of spring break, after we got back home from St. Louis.  My parents had just gotten back to Michigan so they came over for Easter dinner.  We went to church that morning, had our usual Easter breakfast, and the boys found their baskets.  Evan was in a lousy mood, but I think both boys enjoyed their loot.  Dinner was delicious and it was nice visiting with family!

My favorite week of the year rolled around with May the 4th, Cinco de Mayo, Teacher Appreciation Week, and Mother's Day.  It was a little anti-climatic this year because I ended up having my first colonoscopy that Friday and had to fast Thursday.  I missed out on our annual Teacher Appreciation luncheon, but the rest of the week was good!  We did our big Cinco de Mayo spread a day early since Evan had a baseball league game (and it ended up getting rained out).  Speaking of baseball, we did a Cinco de Mayo tournament again this year and did a tailgate that Friday night at the ballpark.  It was freezing, but the build-your-own nachos were a hit!  We went through 6 lbs of meat!

For Mother's Day, we celebrated with my parents on Wednesday night that week.  We went to Compari's for dinner and it was delicious, as always!  My parents got me a gift card to get a facial at a local spa.  On actual Mother's Day, Evan had tournament bracket play.  We brought two dozen pink roses to have the boys pass out to their moms and each boy recorded a quick message for their moms to play with their walk-up song.  It was a hit!  We unfortunately got knocked out of the championship game so that was a bummer.  But, we got dinner at Los Tres Amigos and watched a movie on Netflix.  It was a nice day.  

We are on the home stretch of the school year with the final 3 weeks to go!  Memorial weekend is this upcoming weekend and we can almost taste summer vacation.  I'm excited!

Evan's April Baseball Tournaments

April came and went rather fast, with lots of rain and cold temps, but we made it work.  Evan's coach ended up having them play in three tournaments the past three weekends in a row and they had their first league game as well.  Their first outdoor tournament came before we even had any outdoor practices.  We did the PG Spring Opener tournament at Canton Sports Center.  There were some good teams in the tournament!  They won 2-1 against the Canton Cardinals (a long-time rival), lost 17-1 to Novi Heat Gold, and lost 11-6 against the Northville Mustangs.  Evan pitched during the Novi game for an inning (none of the kids pitched well that game and the coach had to switch pitchers many times).  Overall, Evan had two hits and two walks for his 6 at-bats.

The following weekend, we were added to a tournament last minute down in Monroe for the SMARTS Spring Fling.  All games got rained out on Saturday, which made Sunday an incredibly long and cold day.  The wind was terrible.  We had to be there for the 10am game, then we had a break to be able to grab lunch out and warm-up, and then we played again at 2pm.  We won both games, which had us as the number one seed going immediately intro bracket play.  We beat the Oakland Reds 4-3 and Dagda 16-0.  We played again at against Dagda (the 4th seed) and they saved their best pitcher for that game.  We somehow lost to them 7-4 and got knocked out of the championship game.  To say the kids were bummed is an understatement.  Evan had 1 hit and 1 walk out of 7 at-bats.  He hit a bunch of ground outs. 

The following week was our first league game against a Hit Dogs team that one of our teammates from last year went to and Evan also knew a few other players from previous years/teams.  Evan was the starting pitcher and pitched almost two innings with 3 strike-outs and 5 ER.  He had two walks and two hits with 4 at-bats.  They won 18-7.  

That weekend the boys played in their first officially scheduled tournament in Garden City, The Kerwin Classic.  We've never played in that tournament before, but it sells out every year and is super popular with the local teams.  We had our first game Friday night during pretty steady rain.  We got 2 innings in and they postponed the game until Sunday morning at 8am.  We were winning 4-2 at that point against another Oakland Reds team (their top team).  Saturday, we played at 10:45am against the Livonia Hawks and it was an intense game 0-0.  The umps made a terrible call against Evan where we should have had a run scored, but they took it back.  Then, the other team said we made an illegal line-up.  Long story short, our coaches forfeited the game causing us to lose 6-0.  We had a game later that day at 5:50pm against LCB Legends and lost 8-4.  We finished out game Sunday morning and ended up losing 14-5.  So, we had a consolation game later that afternoon against Hitmen GCAA and won 13-0.  Evan pitched two innings and did amazing!  He had 6 strike outs against 7 batters!  He was on fire.  Overall, he had 2 hits and 1 walk out of 7 at-bats (not counting the game we forfeit).  

This hasn't been the smoothest start of a season, but I'm hoping it will improve as the season goes on.  We have a ton of games to play!  Evan's not hitting the best that he can right now, but that's baseball.  Slumps are a real thing.  In the meantime, I hope he's having fun and enjoying the time with his team!  He'll get there!