Birthday Baseball Bash!

Yesterday, my birthday "day",  I had a bunch of family and friends over for a BBQ and baseball game! It was a great time! :0) The weather was bright and sunny, the fellowship was great, and the baseball game was epic. I was so glad that several of my friends and their families could come out and celebrate with me; they made the day!

Two generations of the T. family (and Brielle)!



 

The J. family from church

    

 The next two families are homeschool friends. :0)

 

The B. family

 

 

  The L. Family

 

First off was the barbecue.

We men clustered around the grill, of course.

 

Laughing with the guys

I was the lucky recipient of hand-drawn pictures from the J. kids . . . 

 



 

 . . . and a couple of awesome books from the B. Family. Thank you!

 

 

 

After the barbecue, we all migrated over to the Mossyrock baseball fields for a rip-roaring baseball game. I forced almost everyone to play. :0)



Team Red

(From left to right: Ben L., Mr. L., Daddy, Caroline, Joshua B., Timmy, Mr. J., Joe, and Lydia)

 

 

Team Black

(From left to right: Abe L., Izariah J., Mr. T., me, Jadon L., Richie, Abel J., Valerie, and Victoria)

 

 

Team Red batted first and started the game off with a bang. After scoring two runs and loading the bases, Mr. J. strode up to the plate and promptly hit a grand slam over the fence.

 

Mr. J in the middle of his mighty swing

 

 

Team Red celebrating their grand slam (notice also the dejected Team Black players)

 

Though down early, our team refused to give in and battled the entire game. Luckily we had several sluggers on our team, including my big brother(-in-law).

 

It was six innings of intense, if chaotic and comical, baseball!

 

 

Joshua B. almost made that catch :0)

 

 

A play at the plate!

  

Gotcha!

 

The pitcher for team Red couldn't help but poke some fun at our all-star team. Here he is trying to get a ball "high enough" for me to hit.

He also did a great job of keeping our "fastest" runner, Mr. T, close to the base

Our team was down 11-4 at one point, but after tightening up our defense a little (I shifted out to the outfield to catch all the fly balls Team Red was hitting), we started an awesome rally. By the bottom of the fifth inning we were within three runs of our nemesis, 18-15, and with the bases loaded, Izariah J. delivered our team's own grand slam to give us our first lead! Unfortunately, our wonderful photographer missed getting pictures of our celebration, but a lot of back-slapping ensued afterwards. :0) The grand slam proved to be the game winner, for we kept Team Red from scoring again thanks to some great defense. We even threw Mr. L out at home to seal the victory! Ha! Don't mess with the birthday boy's team! Final score: Blacks 19 - Reds 18 (I know, sounds like a football game)

I definitely will have lasting memories from this birthday bash; it was awesome!