Kieran's ComboBall

ComboBall wrapped up last night, starting in mid-May and lasting until the end of July, it was time.  ComboBall is for boys and girls going into second or third grade.  Kids get three pitches or strikes from a pitching machine and if they do not hit the ball, they use the batting tee.  Most of the major rules of baseball are used, except everyone on the team bats every inning, though if three outs are recorded the bases are cleared.  I helped coach the team again this year, we'll see about next year (though the free activity pass to Central High School Athletics is enticing).

Unfortunately, because I was busy coaching, I don't have a lot of pictures.  Here's the individual picture of Kieran and team photo that we took in mid-May.

Knowing I didn't have any pictures, last night we went to the field early so I could get some video of Kieran batting off the machine.

That hum you're hearing is the machine going at a mean 34-35 miles per hour.

Well.....you can't hit them all....

The best hit that I captured on video is below (I hope all the videos are visible, I know the quality goes down quite a bit when compared to my computer)....

Luke's Summer School

Luke has been going to summer school two times a week for the month of July.  This is his last week of school until September, when he begins his second year of preschool (he was born 4 days after Minnesota's cutoff date for Kindergarten).

All smiles waiting for the bus

 Compare the picture above from this morning to the picture from his first day of preschool last fall below.....

Little bit of a difference.....he's also been attending school with his cousin Henry, they get on/off the bus together at our house.  

Luke and Henry looking for the bus

Video from this morning of them getting on the bus, may you can see Luke waving from the window on the bus....

Kieran's Bike Riding

Alright, I've got pictures and posts that are piling up.  It's been a busy summer and I haven't gotten around to posting them like I should have, but here we go.....

Kieran finally dropped the training wheels and is riding his bike on two wheels.  A few weeks back (when it was 90+ degrees), Lex and I were walking and Luke/Kieran were riding down to the lake.  I told Kieran that 'today is the day we ride without training wheels', we work on it as soon as we got back home.  Kieran was worried about what would happen if he fell, I told him he would just fall and have to get up.  It didn't take long for him to figure it out....

There he goes....

 We started in the backyard, on the grass.  We moved to the road fairly quickly because I said it would be easier to pedal on the road.  He worried more about falling on the road....

Here's the video of him coming back:

He only fell once that morning.  He had done a nice job riding and decided to stop.  He stopped like he always had on training wheels, turned to the side and pick his feet up while sitting on the seat.  Well....gravity dropped the whole thing on it's side and the crash shattered one of his pedals.  Kieran rode the bike to the ground and never made contact with the street.

He is pretty proud of himself

He gets a little tippy every now and then.....

He's had one major (in his mind) crash since.  He fell on the path by the lake in Cologne.  There was screaming and writhing in pain, all from what amounts to blood smaller than the diameter of a period on this page.  I didn't give him much time to think about it when we got up to him, I put him on the bike crying and said get going.  Hey, he stopped crying and started riding....

Kieran riding off into the sunset (actually, sunrise - but whatever)

There should be more posts coming from May/June/July soon.  They won't come in order, but hopefully you'll see them showing up soon.