Countdown to DISNEY ...

we've planned our family vacation this year ... to DISNEY!!! and we're counting down the days ... we'll share details of the trip over the next few months .. in the meantime you'll see how excited we are to depart!!

Weekend with F A M I L Y !!

Mom, Maureen and Gianni arrived Saturday around lunch .. and we've kept them busy ever since. Ellie wanted to be able to hold, feed, tickle and entertain Gianni. Saturday afternoon we just snacked and caught up ... spent time outside in Ellie's pool and watched Beauty and the Beast before bedtime. Sunday was time for Bill's famous waffles .. this time with seasonal blueberries and chocolate chips. After morning time in the pool and a quick lunch Ellie went down for her nap while I took Mom, Maureen and Gianni on the tour of town. We hit all the highlights possible without leaving the car .. as the temps were in the mid-90's and humid. Back to the a/c, a bit more of a nap and Mexican take-out for dinner! Tonight we're enjoying The Lion King as the feature presentation! It was a quick two days to enjoy .. but that we did!

Happy Father's Day

Ellie made this plate for Bill for Father's Day

Finger painting went very well!

and then more finger painting ....

making a special cake for Father's Day - Ellie cracks the eggs!

Ta Da! The masterpiece cake is complete .. and delicious too!

Sunday was not quite to full of shopping ... a bit of groceries and we prepared for Bill's return from his 15th Annual NYC/Yankee Father& Son weekend. We couldn't wait for him to land and make his way home from the Richmond airport! We grilled rib eyes, potato salad and corn on the cob. Ellie was so excited to give Bill his bag of presents!

Girl's Weekend - Part I

Saturday morning began with a trip to Michael's to get crafts to make for Father's Day ... bonus: Make 'n Take Father's Day cards! Ellie liked the glitter best.

On to Barnes and Noble for a bit of quiet reading and picture books to take home! We'll put those to good use this evening before bedtime.

Then for some coffee and treats at Panera. She loves her sweets. I wonder where she gets that from?

Perhaps a nap is not too far away .......

Charlottesville Women's 4 Miler

The training program starts tomorrow for the Charlottesville Women's 4 Miler Training Program. I'm 'running' on September 4th for UVA Cancer Center Breast Cancer Program. Just the treadmill will not be enough, but the company of lots of other women encouraging us each to go on WILL!

Our family's new best friend!

We're spending time on our SOLE treadmill as we prep for all the walking we'll be doing at DISNEY in September!

Rock it out, Ellie!

Hot Fun in the Summertime

Baseball and Life

by Sandy Hingston
http://www.more.com/2051/18014-safe-at-home

Every Saturday our father took us into the yard and taught us how to bunt. Not how to hit a homer or a line drive. Just bunt. Forty-five years later, I finally understand why.

I’m standing on the scrubby grass of our backyard, years ago, behind the cramped ranch-style house where I live with my mom, dad, two sisters, one brother and my mom’s dad, who sleeps in my little sister’s room. My father’s arms are around me. His hands are covering my hands, gently pushing them upward on my brother’s sturdy Louisville Slugger. The bat is made of wood. They were all made of wood back then—maple, maybe, or ash. Wood that’s golden and smooth, with thin lines running through it like the veins on my wrists.

“You’ve got to choke up,” Dad tells me. “The bunt is all about control.”

My sisters are playing on the swing set. My brother is mowing the front lawn. They don’t pay any attention to Dad and me. My little sister’s still too young, and my big brother and sister have already been through this, have held the bat and stood with Dad behind them, his hands over theirs, demonstrating the jerk of the bat that will cause a baseball to drop precipitously to the ground, then roll a yard or two toward the pitcher, or first base, or third. A bunt, Dad says, is a thing of beauty. A bunt is opportunity.

A bunt is also hard. I’m fairly small, and the bat is unwieldy. Choking up feels unnatural; why would they make the thing so long if you’re supposed to hold it way up above the knob? Besides, what’s fun in baseball is swinging away, whipping that baby off your shoulder and lining a drive between the shortstop and third or, even better, whaling a fly ball out beyond the blueberry bushes that mark the end of our yard, not that I’ve ever done that. But Dad doesn’t teach us to hit—not any of us, even my brother. He only teaches us to bunt.

“Remember: control,” Dad says, and drops his hands from mine, coming around to pitch.

I don’t mind. It’s time with Dad, one on one, which is something all of us get precious little of. I want to please him, do it right, make him proud of me. I’m only six years old; I don’t understand baseball or my father.

I never asked him why he taught us how to bunt rather than hit home runs. We didn’t question parents the way kids do now, because if we did, we got our behinds dusted. Maybe he focused exclusively on bunting because we couldn’t hit away in the backyard of that little house; we would have taken out our windows, not to mention those of the neighbors.

A bunt is sacrifice. Chances are they’ll call you out, but your teammate will prosper. A bunt is a means to an end. It’s thinking ahead—it pays off in the future instead of right now. It keeps the game going. It is the antidote to selfishness.

I cannot remember the last time I held a baseball bat. But I’m still bunting, every day. When life seems overwhelming, I think about my dad, with four small kids and a wife and father-in-law all under one roof, working two jobs, and everybody needing new shoes, and our aqua-blue Plymouth station wagon that was just about gasping its last.

My siblings and I haven’t grown up to be long-ball hitters. None of us have changed the world. In the past few years, we’ve lost jobs, lost our savings, lost our confidence, lost our faith. Lost Dad. But thanks to him, we’re masters at making do, stretching things out, getting the most from what opportunity offers. At keeping it going with nothing more than grit in our hearts and our grip on the bat. That’s what he really had us working on in the backyard.

Sandy Hingston is a senior editor at Philadelphia magazine.
Originally published in the June 2010 issue of More.