Saturday, September 11, Part II

The first three pictures were chosen to document how popular Hattie is with her older cousins! Kate is not shown in any of these but I am pretty sure I have offered photographic evidence of her pride in her baby cousin in an earlier entry. The M&M shirt belongs to Lanie's friend, Sophie.

Hattie's Aunt Julie gets in on the act too!

I am so proud of this couchful of cuties!!! Look at that tangle of legs! I was so excited that I had all seven grandchildren in one place and was dithering around, "Oh, I wish..."-ing when Jenny took charge for me. She corralled the big 6, plunked Hattie in Hannah's lap, and told me to start snapping pictures! Thanks, Peaches!!

Saturday, September 11 - Part I

Picasa saves my photos into folders by day and those pictures I borrow from others go someplace else in MY PICTURES. If I want to use Picasa to blog a single weekend, I end up with several different entries. This picture I borrowed from Jenny. It is the only one I have to post from DanMan's baseball tournament held in Sherwood, Arkansas, on September 10th and 11th. The team played in two games on Saturday. Papa went to the first one; Jenny, Hannah, Lucy, Hattie, Lanie, Sophie (Lanie's friend), Kate, and I were added to the fans in the stands for the second game. Lucy and Kate decided Nannah was softer than the bleachers!

For some unknown reason, the boys did not play well in pool play on Saturday. On Sunday they got it together but, because of their poor play on Saturday, they had to play the top seed in the tournament. El Dorado Powercats were ahead for most of the game and extra innings were needed before they were defeated and eliminated. DanMan had a good tournament and batted a thousand!!!!! This weekend we will be going to West Monroe, Louisiana, for another two day tournament. I THINK we only have one more tournament scheduled after that and then Fall ball will come to an end.

On Friday, September 10, we left El Dorado around eight in the morning in two cars. Tom and DanMan were in Tanya's Honda; Hannah and I were in my car. We drove to the Fussells' house in Little Rock and left my car in their garage in Jill's spot. Her little Nissan would live at the Little Rock airport for the next few days. Then the four of us drove to Springdale - with a yummy stop at What-ta-burger in Russellville. I had high hopes of making it to a knitting shop in Fayetteville that carries a brand of yarn that I want to meet. We didn't get to Northwest Arkansas with that kind of time to spare though.

I had been disappointed, when we were in the area for a wedding about 18 months ago, that we did not get to take kids on a true tour of Springdale, a town we lived in for a year and a half when Jimmy was 6/7, Julie was 4/5, and Jill was 2/3. We were living on the G.I. Bill and savings at that time so our entertainment was of the free variety. The local library had a wonderful story hour and, during our first visit, I met a lady who had just moved to town with her husband and their three children. Enter the Alversons into our lives! They have a son, Floyd, who is six months Jimmy's junior, a girl, Christy, who is six days younger than Julie, and a second daughter, Kathy, who is about nine months older than Jill. I have always said it was as if God plunked the Alversons down in Springdale to keep me sane; they moved there the same month we did - and moved away the same month we departed for Baton Rouge! Much of our time during this period was spent playing at the park adjacent to the public library. After showing the kids the house we lived in, we drove directly to that park. I took LOTS of duck pictures especially for Julie, who has multiple bird stories where she gets wet, is pecked, has her buttons bitten off, etc. I was also thinking MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS because Jill and Stephen were in Boston. (Stephen even brought me a postcard from the Boston Public Garden showing the statues of Mother Duck and her eight ducklings! Made me cry 'cause my mom had sent me the same card many years ago and I did not keep up with it. Thank you, Stephen.)



Well, dang! Somehow, I just deleted a picture of a sweet family of ducks! Here is DanMan by the pond...

...and here is Hannah!

Couldn't resist a shot of this baby. He was very careful not to let any of us get too close.

I had better get busy now. I will be going to DanMan's Parent/Teacher Conferences in a little while and I need to get ready for the Fussells to spend the night with us before I leave. I plan to hide a little Christmas shopping, clear the yarn from Jenny's bed, and make some brownies.

Bo and his kids in Springdale

I am home after a very busy four and a half days!! I don't have time to write a long journal entry now but I wanted to get this picture, that I absolutely love, posted before it disappeared somehow. I took it with my phone; I took two others with my real camera but they didn't turn out nearly as well! I never have any luck sending phone photos to facebook or e:mailing them. I can usually send them as an MMS though. I sent this one to my kids and Julie was able to post it to her facebook page and I stole it from there!

Before we left home for our busy weekend+, we had made arrangements to meet our friends, Connie and Marion Harris, at THE MARKETPLACE in Springdale at four for an early dinner. When we arrived at the restaurant we saw all the football buses parked in the next lot at the Holiday Inn. We had no idea that the team was staying there Thursday night. I texted Bo and told him we were next door and when he came out to board the bus to let us know so we could come out and say "HI". He texted right back and said he could come then. I will never forget seeing his children break into a run as soon as they saw him coming across the parking lot! (Tearing up just thinking about it!) Wonderfully enough, Connie and Marion drove up right then so they got to visit with him for a few minutes - and they got to see how thrilled his kids were to be with him!

I will not make you wait until I have time to post again to find out that we were soundly beaten in the game. No excuses - except that we were playing the #1 team in the largest classification in the state. More later.

Friday, September 3, 2010

I already told you that we won our game on Friday night! Maddy had never been to a home game before but you can tell she's got the spirit when you see this picture, taken at the pep rally held just outside the stadium pre-game. Usually we buy a meal from the Wildcat Booster Club before the first game but they were all sold out. That meant we didn't feel guilty taking a free meal from Matthew Shepherd's campaign. He is a candidate for state representative. Matthew is a very nice young man and has several connections to our family: he was the Wildcat QB while Jimmy was a Wildcat coach; he is a lawyer in the office where Julie worked for several years; he and his family go to church with the Junior Johnsons. Last year, as we were tailgating before the state championship game, we set up Stephen's wonderful gumbo next to Matthew's tent. He was handing out Wendy's chili, which was good but could not compare to Stephen's cooking! Many people thought our group was part of the campaign effort and we did not bother to correct them.

DanMan was just a little nervous before kick-off. I took many more pictures of him pacing than these two but you get the idea!

This picture, taken just before kick-off, shows our wonderful new turf! EHS fans are so very proud of our brand new field!!!

Hattie is five months old!

It didn't hit me until I saw the date pop up on my last entry that it is September 4th and Hattie is five months old!!!!! We are so glad the Easter bunny brought us you, Baby Girl!

Wildcats claim first win of the season!

The El Dorado Wildcats claimed their first win of the 2010 season by beating the Camden Cardinals 43-13 last night on our newly installed astroturf!!! The photo below shows defensive line coach, Jimmy Johnson, at the scrimmage game held in Nashville a weeke ago.

I am hoping to download the new pictures on my camera, and maybe take a few more, during this Labor Day weekend. I just wanted to get this picture - and news of the Wildcat win - posted quickly!