A sweet end to a great season......

"There are three types of baseball players; those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happens".

~Tommy Lasorda

These boys made it happen this past weekend at district 3 little league all-star tournament in Pendleton OR.

I am proud to introduce to you our Wallowa Valley 2011 9-10 year old baseball team!

and the men that brought them there.

Before each game they stood for the national anthem and recited the little league pledge.

Between games they found friends from other towns, watch some baseball games, and played hard for 4 full days.

They reunited with cousins from various counties.

Played hard during their games.

and listened to their what their coaches had to say

As you can see this baseball tournament isn't just about playing baseball or winning every game for that matter. It's a lot more then that. It's about time with family and friends, making new friendships, exuberant crowds, hearing your name over the loud speaker, loud music during warm-ups, keepsake uniforms, car documentation that "you" indeed earned a spot on the all-stars team, success, failure, and much much more! It's just a really cool experience and am grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of it all!

Hiking season has begun....

Here are the kids at slick rock falls yesterday (late June)

Here are the kids 3 years ago at slick rock falls in early August.
We are looking forward to days more like this in the near future. We are ready for all this beautiful sunshine to take away our dirty snow :-)

Team Chamberlain

So we made it through another family weekend of racing and loved every sopping wet moment of it. Crazy, I know, but when you are surrounded with people with great attitudes who want fun times, fun times happen.

Let's review my 2011 goal "a time of 3:30" shaving 13 minutes off last years time. Now let's review reality. I finished before my kids started to race which is ALWAYS #1 for me and I was 17 minutes slower then my fastest time, making it my slowest time in 4 years, but I am really ok with that. The weather was definitely the coldest and wettest it's ever been in 4 years.

We started out with a 1k swim and I have to say the lake felt warmer then expected due to the fact I was freezing, waiting for the race to start. Here I am getting ready (slowly) to bike. All pictures are courtesy of my daddy as for obvious reasons I did not ever whip out our camera.

This is after 2 more hours in the rain and mud. I crashed more on that course that day then I ever have on one course. It was a little slick. I was COVERED from head to toe in mud and some may have confused me for a drowned rat.

I then stripped some of the wet clothing and headed out for my 10k run. Miraculously I still felt great and kept plugging along. Like I said I was slow, but most importantly I had fun and I made it back for this......

My beautiful children lined up and ready to race.

They both ran about 1/4 of a mile and then biked 1 mile around the lake.

and then ran another 1/4 of a mile to finish strong.

Nojah took 2nd overall and Alexyss 3rd. They were pretty proud to earn their little metals. Alexyss promptly ran into the lake up to her nipples when she completed her race and is standing there soaking wet and shivering.

Mother/daughter leg shot

Tob raced for another team this year doing the run. On the run he managed to find a 6 point bull elk shed and carry it back with him. I was running out as he was running in and the mere sight of him carrying it brought a giant smile to my face as I yelled "You are NOT bringing that home". Only Tob would run off trail and carry such a thing back during a race, while passing other racers. He vowed to give it to the first kid he saw and that happened to be a little 4 year old girl who was THRILLED to have her new trophy. Oh my, only in eastern Oregon...... The sun shined the day before and the day after but I still wouldn't have changed the race day. I had a great day and lots of bruises to help keep the memories fresh in my mind.

Our season has come to an end and I have to say it's a little bitter sweet. Even though coaching can be exhausting we had an AWESOME group of kids who we'd coach year round if we could. They always showed great sportsmanship, were extremely coachable, and chatter boxes in the field and dugout, keeping their spirits high shaking off any mistakes they made and making up for it on the next play. They improved so much and were a JOY to have!
Nojah was one of the oldest kids on the team this year opting to stay down in minors so he would get more playing time and experience pitching and even though I would have loved to see him move up to Majors, I think it was a great decision. He did a great job for us at the pitchers mound as well as at shortstop. He really stepped up and was the leader we really needed out there this year.
Alexyss was amazing in the outfield always hustling to back up 1st or 3rd base each time there was a throw and talking her little heart out keeping everyone talking as well. She was thrilled the day she got to play one inning of second base and a did a great job when she did. Even though she wasn't quite ready for the infield this year she looks forward to moving on to softball next year and is already working on her pitching.
I am happy to say that Nojah earned a position on the All-stars team again this year and Tob earned his position as the assistant coach so we're not done yet but looking forward to going and watching a great group of boys compete in a couple of weeks.