Lady Vols softball

So to prove that you can never have enough softball in your life, we and several other families from Megan's team showed up on Sunday at the Lady Vols softball game. We watched them beat Illinois St. 8-4.





We took a picture of the All Americans roll because Megan's hitting instructor, Sarah Fekete, is listed. She's a real celebrity!








The girls had fun.





Nicholas got cold.










And after a fruitless wait for the players to come out, they resorted to signing each others t-shirts and called it a day!

First Softball Tournament of the Season, Chattanooga, TN

After a long, cold winter, softball season is back! We had a bright, sunny day for our first tournament in Chattanooga. It was cool, but pleasant in the sun. The girls were excited to get back out on the field and test out some of the many things they have been working on since January.

The girls relax before heading to the ballfield.

The coaches can't stop talking strategy.

One last text before hitting the dirt!

A few cobwebs were evident at her first at-bat.

This one ended better!

Megan hit well all day, and played some very effective defense both at shortstop and in centerfield. She tagged out 3 runners trying to steal, including one time coming in from centerfield to cover second.














The girls took a moment between at bats for a photo op. Haley doesn't like cameras, but Ashley does!


The little brothers and sisters found ways to keep busy. And warm!











By the time the sun went down, the temperature was heading in the same direction. But our diehard fans weren't going to miss a second. Hats, gloves, blankets, even a sleeping bag!






















Not everyone was so sensitive to the cold, though. Here's Coach Mike sporting his shorts well after sundown. We don't recommend trying this at home :)

Knoxville Snow

So a few days after we returned from Wisp Resort at Deer Creek Lake, we had some snow in Knoxville too! OK, it was not quite as much as we had experienced in western Maryland, but the kids went out to play in it just the same. Needless to say, they did not need their snow pants :)

New Year's Eve

So New Year's Eve found us on the road to Maryland. Not a bad place to be considering we were on our way to visit old friends, but a little dissatisfying considering we were going to have to watch the long awaited matchup between Virginia Tech and Tennessee in the Chik-fil-A Bowl in a hotel room. David was incensed that we were not attending the game considering it included both of our alma maters AND was only 4 hours from our house. I pointed out that they were having torrential rains in Atlanta, he pointed out that the Georgia Dome, is, in fact, a dome and thus impervious to the weather. I reminded him of the last time we followed Virginia Tech to a bowl game (1999 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans): we weren't even able to score TICKETS to get into the game and had to watch from an alternate location and still the Hokies managed to lose the National Championship to the Seminoles.

I should explain here that David was pulling for VT in the VT vs. UT matchup for several reasons: he only went to graduate school at UT while I spent 7 long years at Virginia Tech; we lived in the Blacksburg area for several years when we were first married and he became a VT/Frank Beamer fan; VT is usually the underdog in a matchup like this and who doesn't love an underdog?; Lane Kiffen -- need I say more? David was not a fan from the get-go; and of course, there's marital harmony.

Anyway, after I reminded him of the 1999 loss, he stopped talking about going to the game and even vetoed my idea to make a detour to Blacksburg and watch the game in a sports bar there. So we found ourselves in Summersville, WV in a Hampton Inn watching the big game.

Well, some of us watched. Others played Nintendo DS until their eyes bled. I predicted early on that if we let Nicholas play his DS without restriction, he would be easily able to stay up until midnight to ring in the new year. Nicholas is usually an early to bed, early to rise kind of guy, even in a hotel room with lights and television on. He will often voluntarily come to us and ask to go to bed because he's tired.

However, I have seen the power of DS.




Clearly, the great and powerful DS triumphed. Nicholas made it to midnight and watched the ball drop. He even put the DS down long enough to tell us happy new year! Megan made it too, but this isn't her first year to stay up :)









Ultimately, the Hokies prevailed, but the big news of the night for Nicholas was the snow! It was snowing when we got there and snowed overnight even more. He couldn't wait to get out into it, even if it was only in the parking lot of our hotel. Little did he know this was only the beginning of the snow for the weekend!

Christmas Eve

Our family tradition is to attend Mass on Christmas Eve and then to gather at my sister's house for a meal, and this year was no different. It was the first year for St. Albert the Great parish to celebrate in our new space, and the new Fontanini Nativity was displayed for the first time. The Nativity is set up at the beginning of Advent and the animals and shepherds and townsfolk accumulate as the weeks pass. Finally, on Christmas Eve, the Holy Family arrives. The kids really do like going up each week to see what has been added, even if they look a little reluctant in the picture!












My sister, Ann, as usual outdid herself with her beautiful table settings and delicious food (beef tenderloin, broccoli with cheese sauce, and twice baked potatoes, among other things!)





















Megan and Nicholas are always eager to get home to get to bed so as to hasten the arrival of morning. They always get to open one present on Christmas Eve (and it's always pajamas!).









Nicholas decided to make some last minute changes to his list for Santa despite my brother Brad's explanation of the "go/no-go" meeting (where packing lists are finalized) happening several days before Christmas. And despite the fact that, CLEARLY, Santa had already left the North Pole as Megan was tracking him on the internet!












We left out a plate of cookies and some eggnog for Santa, and Nicholas left his list next to the treats. (You never know what Santa might have lurking in the floorboards of his sled. If it's anything like our van, there could TOTALLY be a extra light saber or video game that he would be happy to drop off under Nicholas's tree!)










Not long after, we all settled down for a long winter's nap!

Softball Tournament in Knoxville

Another weekend, another softball tournament. Actually, it has been several weeks since we played and unfortunately, this weekend, it showed :(. For the first time since Megan donned a Thunder uniform, we went 0-4 in a tournament and went home early. Lately, between illness (over half the team has been out at one time or another in the past 3 weeks for flu, bronchitis, and even pneumonia), weather (too much rain!) and middle school ball (4 of our girls play on 2 different teams), we have had very little time to get together and practice.

It wasn't all bad. The weather was nice! ;-)

Storytelling Festival, Jonesborough, TN

For the past 36 years storytellers from all over have been meeting in Jonesborough, TN the first weekend in October for the National Storytelling Festival. When Megan was in Lower Elementary (2nd and 3rd grade), I traveled with her and several of her classmates to the Festival. Now it turns out that the Middle School goes too! And I'll tell you, middle schoolers have a MUCH longer attention span than elementary students!








If you have never been to the Storytelling Festival, I highly recommend trying it out sometime. Jonesborough is a cute little town with artsy shops and tempting restaurants. For the festival, large, circus-like tents are erected all around the downtown area. All day long, various storytellers practice their craft in these tents. Some of the tellers have been coming for ages, and for others it is their first visit. We saw a mix of our old favorites and some we hadn't seen before. Some tellers are very animated with music and singing, while others have a more subdued style that draws you in slowly and has you sitting on the edge of your seat to see what happens next. One interesting thing that I noticed this year is that there is a common format in many of the stories. Most of them have some sort of repeating element that allows the listener to participate in some cases, or in others, to be able to anticipate some of the plot twists. I imagine that this repetitive rhythm allows storytellers to be better able to remember the story by heart.











When you accompany children (even middle school aged children, it turns out), to the Storytelling Festival, a visit to the Lollipop Shop is a requirement. They have every kind of candy that you can ever imagine (and some kinds you can't). Some kids (reportedly) burn all their spending money here, much to their parents chagrin. The girls that went with me showed some restraint, although I think they learned that the BIG swirly lollipops really are too big to finish in one go (especially after you just ate an ice cream cone!)