Beautiful blue sky and freshly manicured fields.  Heat, friends and laughter.  There was only one thing missing – Practice on the Major’s field. Jon volunteered to help with the Farm League to get a bit more ball time. He has a few buds on the team Z, G, E & Miss T.

Exercises.

They put him in as catcher for the day. He got pretty hot.  He said catching was fun.  Squatting behind a pitching machine was not as intimidating as crouching down in front of a fast and hard pitching league boy.

Miss T is pretty serious.  She is on Fiy Yah!

Jon is following after his brother’s foot steps in the volunteering areas.  He is finding out that helping someone else – usually brings a lot of fun to the day along with extra possibilities to participate in areas that would have been closed. Thankful to this lil Farm League team – wishing them luck and remembering/practicing their skills during the World Series next weekend.

Having a couple of the coaches for the other Farm /Minor leagues ask if Jon could help at their practice made me smile.  It’s good for boys to feel needed!

Watching Wave reports has become our life. I suffer through. Sitting on the beach, reading, watching the surf and the little wet suit clad groms fighting through the surf to make it to the outside, waiting for their wave in the set.

This past weekend was the PNW Clean Water Classic in Westport, Washington. Quite a few surfers from Lincoln City traveled up, rented camp spaces and enjoyed the party on the beach all weekend. In the rain, wind and cold. I stayed home and sent Jon with a car full of surfers.

He came back with a 3rd place Juniors trophy. 

He was pretty happy about it. I was a bit conflicted and confused.  Ya see, his best surfing buddy also came home with a 3rd place medallion for the Juniors division. They were in the same heat . . . how could they both win 3rd?  After a nice long chat with the Surfrider folks (amazing people) I learned that the heat was full, and they swapped two boys.  So Jon won in a different division as his friend. Pretty cool either way. They win off of points – and the points speak!

After we got back from the beach to take a photo – it was time for all good little groms to do their school work. we are enjoying IEW Teaching Writing with Structure and Style – Student Intensive B. He did the entire lesson with Andrew Pudewa on DVD. Then he did his geography on his own too.  I love the confidence that surfing gives a boy.  I also love that his coach won’t let him go to swell calls if he is behind on his schoolwork.  I might owe his coach a Ginger Beer.

Special thanks to the Oregon Surf Shop, Tigersharks Surf Team Coaches, and Surfrider for a great weekend!!!

People question why I love to blog often. I respond that I love the social interaction, on line and in person. I love having a record of what we are doing. So far, everyone I have met because of this blog has been a blessing to my life.

One fun encounter was with Jeanne de Sainte Marie. She is an illustrator on the iPad poetry interactive project – A Word’s a Bird. She was researching cattails and came across my blog.  We interacted via email asking and answering questions about the seasonal studies we had completed.  She wanted an authentic account for a year round cattail study.

She just emailed me to let me know the app is ready!! It launched on May 16th, 2013. If you peek on their Facebook photo and iTunes photo, you’ll see the cattails drawn out. 

Call me a nut, but this is about the most thrilling thing ever on a foggy rainy Tuesday afternoon. or Any afternoon. There are cattails on the Facebook photo and on the iTunes photo!

Facebook : A Word’s a Bird

iTunes for iPad 2 and above: A Word’s a Bird

Twitter: AWordsABird

If you have an iPod 2 or above, I think this is just about the best $2.99 you can spend! 

Want to see the posts?

• Spring
• More Spring
• Winter Spotting at the Aquarium

I am not an affiliate, I did  not review the app, I have not had access to it since I do not have an iPad. I just wanted to share it with you all. If you have time to download it and post a review – she’d appreciate it!