Mother's Day

I got flowers!

It was a rose "variety pack," and very beautiful.  They're still looking pretty good, even!

 A close-up of one of the peach-colored ones.

And, these pictures were taken with my new lens!  I got the camera body last Mother's Day, and have been using lenses owned by my lab ever since.  But, now that I'm graduating soon, I'll have to give the lenses back.  So I got a very nice 18-105mm lens.  I love it.  It sure makes taking all those baseball pictures easier. 

I also got a pot holder with Levi's hand painted on it and two lovely cards made by A.J.  It was a lovely Mother's Day.

One of the Stars of the Game

Hello it's A.J. again.

I had a pretty good game today. On Thursday, I scraped both knees, the side of my right palm, and my pinkie so that made my game a bit hard. But that never stopped me. I pitched 1 inning, giving up one run. (My second lowest, 1st lowest 0 runs) When we were batting I got to hit. I bunted and was almost safe. If my bunt was a little bit softer, I would have been safe. I pitched for the next inning, but I got taken out because I was at 40 pitches. I got put at first base. The next inning I didn't play a position. Then I played center field. We got 3 outs. Then we were batting. I batted. When I was batting there was a man on third with two outs. I am the youngest kid on my team, so what do you expect? On the 2-1 pitch I hit a FLYBALL into left-center field off of a 10 year old boy that was around 5'2 I bet. I hit in our first run. Then when there was a man on first in the next inning he tried to steal. He was there way ahead of the ball but it got past the shortstop so I backed it up and there coaches were saying "go go go!" But the kid didn't listen because I was already tagging him and if he ran to third he would have been dead meat. Daddy said I was the Co-Star of the game. The final score was 9-3 and we were 3.


                                    Well see you next time.

                                                                              A.J.

So much to cover!

We have been some busy people.  I've started spring quarter, the boys are gearing up for the end of school, Aaron has been to D.C. and back and is going again soon, and baseball, baseball, and more baseball.  Did I mention baseball?  Yeah, we're pretty busy.

 
We've also been hiking recently.  We headed up a trail we've been on before, but we went a fair bit farther.  This hike took us through parts of the wilderness burned by the Station Fire and then eroded by the torrential rains this winter.  It was amazing.  Most of the trees were completely blackened, but right under them were wildflowers popping up.  Looking at the hillsides was like looking at a painter's palette.  I don't think the photos will do it justice, but I did the best I could.  Be sure to click on any photo you want to see better.  It will blow it up.

     

These two show the torched trees and the beautiful wildflowers replacing them.

      

Here's a close-up of some of the purple flowers and the top of the ridge we hiked to.

These two show the power of the rains we've had.  The gully on the left is huge.  That pipe is about 3-4 feet in diameter.  The bench on the right had been up where the boys are near the orange flowers.  It's not anymore!

Last Wednesday was A.J.'s first Pinewood Derby.  He designed his car all on his own, and did some of the shaping and all the sanding and painting.  It won the design award titled "I Wish that were MY Car."

It was also pretty fast.  It came in 5th place overall and is leading in this picture.

Levi running to first base after a MONSTER hit to center field (left).  Throwing to first after making a play at 2nd base (right).

He LOVES his team and his teammates.  Note: the kid standing next to him in the left-hand picture is less than one month older.  Evan 11 (his nickname) is the tallest 5-year-old I've ever met.

If you get walked, with more than one ball in the dirt, you'll be smiling at first.

These two are simply examples of how much bigger most of the competitors are! 

This is A.J. warming up to close out the game.  He came in with a runner on 2nd, 1 out, and a tie game.  His team isn't likely to win many, and this game felt like the playoffs for these boys. 

Celebrating after what felt like a win.  It was the most exciting tie ever.  The other team treated it like a loss, and our boys were thrilled to treat it like a win.  Note: the boy standing next to Levi (red hat) is our ace pitcher.  He's really good.  He got a home run to take the lead, but then felt dejected to give up the tying run.  Don't be surprised if you see him in the majors in a decade or two.

Life is crazy right now, but we sure are having fun.  I'm starting to apply for jobs, so feel free to pray for me if you want to!

The last trip to Catalina Island...

...for field work!  I spent last weekend (Saturday through Monday) at Catalina for my last weekend of field work. 

Hooray!!

Here are a few photos from my trip.

Tying the sync cord to the leg of the stand, so it doesn't get bashed around when the water comes in.  At high tide, it will be about 5 ft deep where my feet are.

My advisor, Dr. Carlos Robles.

A couple of sea lions (young ones) that we scared while we were working.  Cute little things, but don't mess with them!

These sea lions are sheltering away from some pretty big waves (that we had to brave!) and jumped in the water when the boat went by.

Some of the other wildlife we often see include crows (the smaller birds, wingspan ~3 ft.)  It's the bird of prey that is unusual.  So far, the guesses include an eagle or a young osprey.

These little birds are California quail.  There were several running around near the room where we stayed.

There are lots of beautiful plants, here, too.  This is a closeup of flowers on a lovely tree near the dorms.

Just one of the many kinds of amazing flowers.

And, finally, my buddy Gerry.  He put up with me and my crazy schedule ("Can you get us to Bird Rock and back?  We need to go at 2am and come back at 5am.  Thanks!") for three years.  I sometimes bribed him in brownies or cookies.  He would have taken us anyway.  It's his job, but he always does it with a smile.  

Thanks, Gerry.

(And, yes, he looks a lot like Uncle Mike.  They even have the same voice.  Creepy!)

New journals and Bistagne's first win!

A.J. mentioned a journal the other day, so when I was at Target last time, I picked up a simple composition notebook for him.  I also happened upon a cool one for little guys that has space for drawings at the top and the lines are extra wide for new writers.  So, both boys got a journal.  They were awfully excited to get it, and immediately sat down and started writing.

 Levi wears that silly sweatband all the time.  He loves it. 

And in other news, A.J.'s team won their first game!  I wasn't sure if that would happen this year.  His team is quite small, and most are rather inexperienced.  However, they have made huge strides just in the last couple of weeks, once the games started.  A.J. ended up only playing first base in this game because he smashed his hand into the corner of our chimney while playing basketball on Monday and bruised his fingers pretty badly.  He could catch fine, but throwing was another matter.  It's been a crazy season so far, having two kids playing, and A.J. has moved up a level and now plays two games a week.

Always ready.  We've had other coaches comment on #42 and how hard he plays.  It kind of makes me proud. :)  Notice the tape on his right hand...that's to try to hold the bandages on.

As Promised

You wanted a little bit about Levi's birthday and other goings on besides sicknesses and evacuations?
Ok, ok. Here goes.

Levi had a Spongebob themed birthday with a homemade Patrick Starfish cake and games headlined by Extreme Jellyfishing (popping balloons tied to kids' ankles), but also including pin the nose on Spongebob, and a Krabby Patty relay.

 Mommy's birthday theme was you're getting older aren't you. She didn't seem too pleased that the candles said 40 instead of 30.

Things got pretty busy around the time of Bethany's birthday as I had to spend 2 weeks in Phoenix and she had to make a trip to Catalina for a rain shortened research trip. We decided to go back to Catalina over President's day to have a little fun kayaking and looking around. We got this great shot of Levi falling asleep looking out the window on the boat ride back.

The other major happening of course is the start of baseball season. Levi likes baseball, but for him its more just an excuse to look good for the camera in his new uniform.

AJ likes helping out at Levi's practices and games. The kids on Levi's team call him Coach AJ.

That's all for now.

-Aaron

How A.J. got sick

Hello guys its A.J. again,

I first threw up Thursday night after baseball at about 9:30 and I had a headache but after that I said I felt better but I had more throwing up to do.And I threw up again at 11:30,12:30,1:30,and 2:30.On Friday evening I threw up at 5:30 and I don't even remember it because I fell asleep right after that.
    The next morning I had the fever with a 100.9 temperature.I had baseball practice at 2:00 at batting cages so I knew I could go.I did and by then most of my fever was gone so that was good.The rest of the day went fine and today nothing bad happened.                                                                                           
                                                                                                Sincerely,
                                                                                                                 A.J.

Mom's note: Isn't that way more than you wanted to know?  He kept asking, "what detail can I add to my sentence?"  This is because detail is what he has to work hardest on when writing for school.  I told him that this time, no one is really interested in the details.  :)