Throwback Thursday, Father's Day Style

Yes, it's time for a throwback, but we're not going too far...just back to before Jacob turned eight, back to Father's Day weekend and beyond!

Let's start with last Tuesday  Jacob had a baseball game, and I remembered to take some pictures when he pitched!

The pitching is definitely a work in progress (as it is with everyone), but he's thrown some good ones!

After Jacob's game on Saturday, we loaded into the car and headed to Buffalo.  Somewhere along the way Craig took a selfie...

...so I got in on the action and took one on the other side of the car!

We spent time with Craig's family, had a nice Father's Day meal, then headed to our niece's softball game.  Oh, and speaking of Father's Day, here are the kids' gifts for Craig. 

Carter made a faux rock that says, "My Dad Rocks"

And the inside of the card includes some artwork :)

 And Jacob made a cool card and something out of foam...

The Canada tie is top notch!  Under the tie it says "Best dad 3ver!"  The other thing appears to have a Canadian flag with lacrosse sticks and a heart.  The corners say, "Likes Canada", "Likes Lacrosse", and "Likes Baseball".

The inside of the card is hard to read, but it says, "Dear Dad, You're the best dad in the world.  Here are some of the reasons why.  The first reason is you play lacrosse with me.  You get me stuff.  The second reason is you cook cheese for me.  The third reason is you let me be a car rider.  You let me go to Canada.  Those are the reasons why you are the best dad.  Love, Jake"

 His handwriting was actually very good!  And in case you're wondering I think the cheese reference is that Craig has made him grilled cheese before, and the car rider thing is that Craig picked him up before the afterschool program a lot near the end of the year, mostly because Jacob was having a hard time with some of the kids, and the teachers weren't really cooperative with a couple things in regards to going outside to play.  Anyway...

On the way to the softball game, Craig took the newest installment of his series of pictures of Carter eating...

Mmmmm....licorice!

On the way home, we stopped at Cabela's.  It's an outdoors store, so we pretty much need nothing there, but we'd heard it was cool (and got shut out when we got there at closing time once) so we figured it would add a little fun to our trip home.  Conveniently, the kids had to use the bathroom, so it was an above-average potty stop! 

Lots of taxidermy all over the store!  There was a waterfall with an aquarium just around the corner from this.

Jacob found a new use for a fishing net, too...

The trip to the store went down the tubes pretty quickly since the kids wouldn't listen, and were--as usual--asking for stuff.  We shuffled everyone out, and it was good to get home in daylight.  We started off a crazy busy week--Jacob's birthday, the end of school, two baseball games, two doctor's appointments, baseball concession duty, summer camp starting, and stuff I'm probably forgetting.  We were back at the ball diamond Tuesday night, and I couldn't help but grab pictures of Jacob catching...

And I'm a sucker for these father-son shots :)

Jacob got a game ball, probably because he worked his butt off pitching again!  It is not easy at this level because the kids can barely pitch, there are tons of balls and stolen bases, and it's just hard to get into any sort of groove.

Now that the season is almost over, Jacob is talking about playing baseball again in the spring.  We thought this would be it because he was so hesitant to play this year.  He's always willing in October and hesitant by April, but this year he was so into lacrosse that it was more challenging than usual.  He's also been less inclined to play catch in the yard, so it's clearer which sport is winning out.  With the overlapping schedules and this terrible setup for kids pitching, it wouldn't have been the worst thing, even though we love our core of players who have been together for years in a row.  But we'll have to see.

In any event, it's a busy week that will probably give me plenty of fodder for more blog posts!