Sportsballing.

There is a meme that I sometimes see about "let's have kids so that we can spend our weekends getting up early and sitting at youth sporting events," and lo, Tim and I are in the thick of it. Little League is in full swing, and so is Adam. He still likes to sit down in the outfield and play with the infield dirt, but he's good at bat and still wants to play catcher. He also just likes the whole event - he's doing well in practices and being a good team mate. And during opening ceremonies last week I won a $50 gift card to a local brewpub in the golf ball drop fundraiser (you buy a bunch of chances/golf balls and then they throw them off a cherry picker. As you do.)

If there's anything better than this picture with his finger guns, I'm unaware of it.

Ellie had her last basketball game on Saturday. The two leading scorers from her team weren't there, and they only had five kids so no one could sub in or out, so the team got absolutely creamed, but they actually did a pretty good job on defense, and it was good to see other players getting more touches on the ball (to be fair, the two best players WERE pretty good about passing to their team mates. Just... a lot of times those passes got instantly stolen.)

Action shot from Mimi! Ellie said she likes basketball, would be willing to continue playing. There's just not as strong of a presence here for basketball like there is for Little League or AYSO. I will say, I do find it funny that when we're at games and practices, there's always several dads who are as tall or taller than Tim - it's apparently where they all hang out. Adam still has two more games and maybe the playoffs? But he's not as into it, and so as much as I'm like "you signed up for the sport, you have to see it out and be a good team mate" if he'd rather play baseball, we may end up leaving the Grizzlies in the lurch - I didn't anticipate the overlap and the kid can't play two sports at once.

Ellie moved up a level in gymnastics about a month ago and is loving it. This picture just seems like peak Southern California kid to me.