Vegas Baby!!!

Jamie and I booked a very impromptu trip to Vegas about 2 weeks ago. Our friends Candace and Jeremy called and said they'd booked a 3 bedroom suite and asked if we'd like to join them. We couldn't pass up such a great offer of a free room in Vegas with good friends! Another fun couple will also be joining us. It will be a nice, adult getaway this summer. I love it when nice surprises like this come up! Candace shares my love of shopping, and we are planning to get tickets to see O. I'm so excited, because the last time Jamie and I were in Vegas, O was blacked out. I've heard it's a fabulous show, so we feel lucky that we'll get to see it this time.

Happy Mother's Day!

My day is off to a wonderful start so far. Elise slept in until after 9:00 this morning, which is VERY rare! She must have known it was my special day. Jamie got me Starbucks and we've been relaxing all morning. My parents and in-laws are coming over this afternoon for desserts and coffee/tea. We thought it would be nice to do that instead of a big meal so that none of the mommies have to cook today. The guys will get us some take-out at mealtime. Plus, wouldn't we all rather eat dessert anyway!? Mom has some chocolate covered strawberries, and I ordered some of our favorite shortbread cookies from The Cake Lady. I think I may pick up one more thing - maybe a chocolate pie or cheesecake. YUM!

Jamie got gift certificates for my mom and I to have a spa day together. He and my dad have volunteered to keep Elise for a day while we go enjoy ourselves. What an awesome gift!

I hope all my mom friends are having a wonderful day too.

And here are all my favorite moms (and one future mommy). This is our four generation photo (me, my mom, my grandmother, and Elise):

The hottest 4A team in the Houston area!

A popular 5A baseball website wrote an article about our team that was very flattering! Here is the text of the article:

Wednesday, May 7, Stang Gang As Hot as You Can Get

By Randy Byers © Houston5ABaseball.com

Heading into their area round play-off series with Galena Park, the Friendswood Mustangs are quite possibly the hottest team in all of high school baseball here in the Houston area.

A nine game winning streak where the Mustangs have outpaced their opponents by a whopping (76-14) in offense and along the way, clinching their first district title since 2002, has the boys in blue chomping at the bit to get back on the field and keep the streak going.

The Mustangs have been knocking on the door of great things since 2002 when they were District Champions and Area Finalists and 2003 where they were Area Finalist again. In 2004 they took another huge step finishing as a Region Finalist but fell back a step in 2005 when they were a Region Semi-Finalist. A disappointing 2006 season found the Mustangs on the outside looking in hoping for better things in 2007. That season marked a noticeable improvement when Friendswood grabbed a second place (10-2) finish in district but were quickly shown the door in the play-offs.

The 2008 Mustangs might be on the verge of something big. A 23-4A District Championship and an impressive (12-2) record where they dominated the last two thirds of district play. All this in quite possibly the toughest (4A) district in all of Region III has the Friendswood faithful giddy. You have to go all the way back to March 25 to find the last blemish on their schedule when they dropped a (5-3) decision to Angleton. Since then, they have been nearly unbeatable playing their closest contests, a (5-3) victory over the upstart Manvel Mavericks, and a (6-4) victory over Texas City in their last nine games.

The secrets to their success you ask? The answer, pitching, pitching, and more pitching. The Mustangs are blessed with three of the best arms in the district and all of 4A for that matter. Senior Andrew Beasley (San Jac signee), senior Stephan Myers (Alvin signee), junior Kevin Thornton, and junior Kyle Burris are leading the charge for Friendswood. Beasley, the first of the seniors to sign, posted an impressive (.88) ERA with (57) strike outs in (55.6) innings pitched. Myers has been an impressive addition to the varsity pitching staff posting (66) strike outs in just (49.3) innings pitched. Thornton has picked up a (5-0) record in just (19.3) innings pitched. Toss in (28.3) innings and a (3-0) record from Burris and the Mustangs have the makings of a pitching staff that could find them in Austin in a few weeks.

At the plate, the hard charging Mustangs are lead by senior Stephan Myers who has posted a very impressive (.439) batting average with (2) home runs, (5) doubles, and (24) RBI. Senior outfielder Matt McLaren stand in at (.356) while junior Cody Bergeson banged out a (.348) average with (2) home runs, a triple, and (5) doubles while driving in (15). Junior Austin Fitzpatrick added (20) RBI, with a home run and (6) doubles and junior Alex Anastas cracked out (4) home runs while driving in (21).
The Mustangs are firing on all cylinders ending up the regular season at (19-8/12-2) and can only hope they haven't cooled off while awaiting their area round opponent.

The web address is here, but the article is about half way down the page and a little tricky to find.

It has been a very exciting few weeks for our team! We defeated Galena Park in the 2nd round of the playoffs and advanced to the 3rd round. We won last Thursday and Friday evenings in that series. Friday's game was awesome, with the Mustangs hitting 3 home runs and winning by a solid score of 11-2. I had so much fun watching!

Yesterday we went to scout Barbers Hill vs Bay City, because we will play the winner in the 3rd round. Bay City surprised us by defeating Barber's Hill. They are a good team, and it should be a competitive series this coming week. The game times, dates, and locations are not set just yet, but hopefully we'll know something by tomorrow afternoon. It will most likely be Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Hopefully we will keep the playoff run alive.

Here are a few pictures from our Friday night victory against Galena Park. It's pretty ironic, because my main goal was to get a good photo of Jamie, and his face kept getting blocked by the bar in front of the stands! Oh well, at least I'll have at least another 2 or 3 games to attempt to get a good one. The first 2 pictures are Scott, Charlie, and Jamie (the coaches). The last picture is the team celebrating the win! In the first picture, Jamie is the one standing with his hands on his hips. In the second picture, he's the one in the middle with his face blocked (darnit!).

Some recent pictures

Elise is really enjoying her big girl bed. She is so cute when she's sleeping. I have to go in every night and just watch her for a little while.

I see you! This is Elise playing in Mary's back yard during Mark & Erin's baby shower.

The proud expectant parents - our friends Mark & Erin, and their son (and Elise's friend) Ethan.

The guys!

My love and I at the shower.

Some summer fun!

Congrats to the Mustangs!!!

I'm late in congratulating the team, but last Friday night the Friendswood Mustang baseball team won the District Championship and secured a first round bye in the playoffs. A huge congrats to the team and coaches who have worked so hard. We will be playing the winner of the Vidor/Galena Park series that will be played this weekend.

She put the "fun" in dysfunctional

So, last weekend we celebrated Jamie's birthday. He had a baseball game on Friday night (which was his actual birthday). Since it was my day off, we had a nice lunch together during his conference period. We had reservations at Benihana's on Saturday night to have a celebration with our friends. It took some planning in advance since there were 4 couples (some of us with kids which means getting sitters, etc). Everything was set and we arrived right on time for our reservation. It should have been a really nice evening.

Jamie and I have talked about this so many times since it happened, and we've come to the realization that no matter how we tell the story, we cannot do it justice. You just had to be there. I'm not even going to try to go into details about what happened at the restaurant, because it would just be inadequate no matter what I say. But I'll sum it up by saying that there was a REALLY intoxicated woman with a 2-month old baby at the grill directly across from us. She made a scene for a good hour and a half and was finally escorted out of the restaurant. Some of the highlights (or lowlights I should probably say) included her standing up and pointing and yelling at other restaurant patrons, falling down while holding her baby, accusing our whole table of being racist and personally attacking one of our guests for absolutely no reason, and having a screaming match with her husband while he kept telling her to "sit down and shut up".

Needless to say Jamie's dinner was totally ruined. I complained to the restaurant staff 3 times before they did anything about it. They told me they'd called the police, because I was VERY unsettled by the idea of her taking her baby home that night. The cops never showed up. I now question if they were ever called in the first place. If I had known, I would have called myself. I've been just sick thinking of what may happen to that baby. At the end of the night, they refused to even discount our meal. We did not leave a tip.

Luckily we had a really nice family celebration on Sunday, and I hope it made up for the disaster from the night before. I wish I had some pictures of us with our friends to share, but that whole meal was so interrupted by the drama going on in the room that I didn't even think to take one.

I'm already thinking about planning my 30th birthday party, and now I've decided that it will definitely involve a private room!