Boy, Stephen got so tuckered out with anticipation of this blog, he couldn't even finish his supper!! As y'all well know, little kids can sleep just about anywhere if they're tired enough, and Stephen sure was this night...
The end of May sees a number of things closing for the year...at least for now. Kenny is wrapping up a fairly successful season in Little League. This year was the first he went from using a batting tee to hold the ball to the pitching machine, which hurls the hardball at the batter at about 40 miles per hour. Kenny had very little experience hitting pitched balls, so he was pretty intimidated at first, but as he got used to it and we practiced at home (for a variety of reasons, they didn't practice much as a team), he got to be a fairly reliable hitter--perhaps one hit a game, with 2 to 3 opportunities per game to bat. He scored a run, and drove in a run with a sacrifice grounder, stole a few bases (real easy at this level), and played a variety of positions in the infield (recording a number of put-outs). He also started playing catcher the last half of the season, even with no experience at this position prior to this point. He is far from polished at catching, but seems to handle the job well enough and seems to love wearing all the protective gear--I think it makes him feel like a Storm Trooper out of Star Wars...
I've continued to volunteer on
archeological digs--the picture above is of a broken point or point preform type called "Honey Creek", which is common in parts of central Arkansas (this was from a dig near that site on the airport I've been helping with). I'm disappointed I won't be able to attend this year's Arkansas
Archeological Society summer dig at all, but we'll be out west during the dig...
This lovely flowerbed is at our church here in Monticello. These are all
day-lilies that were given to Hope by her Aunt Diane. Since we have limited area in our yard to plant them and don't have a lot of sun like these flowers like, Hope decided to use them to help landscape our new church site. This year they really filled in, and have been blooming wonderfully.
The pictures of Beth playing above and Kenny with the boys below were taken at a school year-end play day at City Park. Kenny and the rest of his fellow first graders spent the whole day playing at the park. Hope, Beth, and Stephen joined them in the afternoon for some play time and to share some
popsicles and other treats.
Beth's preschool ended this last week. She and her 3-4 year old classmates put on a brief song and dance number for the parents before they had cake and other treats. I took off an hour from work to join them--it was interesting to finally find out why Beth was always singing these little songs that neither Hope or I knew...
Today (Saturday) we traveled to Little Rock for a day on the town. We first went to the Little Rock Zoo, and walked around just about all the animal exhibits, like the pair of jaguars they have:
This took us pretty close to lunch, so we went to our favorite Little Rock Mexican restaurant for a tasty lunch before moving on to the main event--
Riverfest. Here's Kenny, Stephen, and Beth banging away on some drums:
In this picture, Beth seems unsure of the wisdom of petting a goat.
Riverfest is a three-day festival in downtown Little Rock that has a one-time admission fee and you can see lots of things, participate in lots of kid activities, and watch concerts, some with big names. This year's headliners included Heart, the B-52s, Hinder, Willie Nelson, etc. Unfortunately, the biggest names play later in the evening, and we couldn't stay out that late with the kids. So instead, we watched some guy sing and play kazoo with some kids and unlucky adults:
(If you look at the picture above, you'll see Hope trying to hide in the back row on the right side of the stage near the clown with the pink hair). We then watched part of a concert by an act called "Trout Fishing in America" (http://www.troutmusic.com/) who sing goofy kids songs. Hope really likes their work, and so do Kenny or Beth. The afternoon in Little Rock was somewhat warm and humid--not as bad as last year, but enough to get Kenny and the other kids hot and cranky:
Fortunately, there is a little water fountain-play park right next to the music stage we were at, so when the kids couldn't take sitting in the heat anymore, we let them splash it up for a while. This helped them cool down nicely, and we packed up and returned to Monticello. So, I'll end the same way I began, with a sleeping Stephen:
Boy, Stephen got so tuckered out with anticipation of this blog, he couldn't even finish his supper!! As y'all well know, little kids can sleep just about anywhere if they're tired enough, and Stephen sure was this night...
The end of May sees a number of things closing for the year...at least for now. Kenny is wrapping up a fairly successful season in Little League. This year was the first he went from using a batting tee to hold the ball to the pitching machine, which hurls the hardball at the batter at about 40 miles per hour. Kenny had very little experience hitting pitched balls, so he was pretty intimidated at first, but as he got used to it and we practiced at home (for a variety of reasons, they didn't practice much as a team), he got to be a fairly reliable hitter--perhaps one hit a game, with 2 to 3 opportunities per game to bat. He scored a run, and drove in a run with a sacrifice grounder, stole a few bases (real easy at this level), and played a variety of positions in the infield (recording a number of put-outs). He also started playing catcher the last half of the season, even with no experience at this position prior to this point. He is far from polished at catching, but seems to handle the job well enough and seems to love wearing all the protective gear--I think it makes him feel like a Storm Trooper out of Star Wars...
I've continued to volunteer on archeological digs--the picture above is of a broken point or point preform type called "Honey Creek", which is common in parts of central Arkansas (this was from a dig near that site on the airport I've been helping with). I'm disappointed I won't be able to attend this year's Arkansas Archeological Society summer dig at all, but we'll be out west during the dig...
This lovely flowerbed is at our church here in Monticello. These are all day-lilies that were given to Hope by her Aunt Diane. Since we have limited area in our yard to plant them and don't have a lot of sun like these flowers like, Hope decided to use them to help landscape our new church site. This year they really filled in, and have been blooming wonderfully.
The pictures of Beth playing above and Kenny with the boys below were taken at a school year-end play day at City Park. Kenny and the rest of his fellow first graders spent the whole day playing at the park. Hope, Beth, and Stephen joined them in the afternoon for some play time and to share some popsicles and other treats.
Beth's preschool ended this last week. She and her 3-4 year old classmates put on a brief song and dance number for the parents before they had cake and other treats. I took off an hour from work to join them--it was interesting to finally find out why Beth was always singing these little songs that neither Hope or I knew...
Today (Saturday) we traveled to Little Rock for a day on the town. We first went to the Little Rock Zoo, and walked around just about all the animal exhibits, like the pair of jaguars they have:
This took us pretty close to lunch, so we went to our favorite Little Rock Mexican restaurant for a tasty lunch before moving on to the main event--Riverfest. Here's Kenny, Stephen, and Beth banging away on some drums:
In this picture, Beth seems unsure of the wisdom of petting a goat. Riverfest is a three-day festival in downtown Little Rock that has a one-time admission fee and you can see lots of things, participate in lots of kid activities, and watch concerts, some with big names. This year's headliners included Heart, the B-52s, Hinder, Willie Nelson, etc. Unfortunately, the biggest names play later in the evening, and we couldn't stay out that late with the kids. So instead, we watched some guy sing and play kazoo with some kids and unlucky adults:
(If you look at the picture above, you'll see Hope trying to hide in the back row on the right side of the stage near the clown with the pink hair). We then watched part of a concert by an act called "Trout Fishing in America" (http://www.troutmusic.com/) who sing goofy kids songs. Hope really likes their work, and so do Kenny or Beth. The afternoon in Little Rock was somewhat warm and humid--not as bad as last year, but enough to get Kenny and the other kids hot and cranky:
Fortunately, there is a little water fountain-play park right next to the music stage we were at, so when the kids couldn't take sitting in the heat anymore, we let them splash it up for a while. This helped them cool down nicely, and we packed up and returned to Monticello. So, I'll end the same way I began, with a sleeping Stephen:
Comments
Great pics-- looks hot there!