Cooperstown!

Parker went with his 12U baseball team to Cooperstown, NY for a 6 night tournament!  I didn't know much about Cooperstown, only having heard about it from friends.  Each week in the summer, 12U teams from around the country (and Canada!) come to play in Cooperstown.  Each week, there are about 104 teams that will participate.  Only boys who are 12 (or turned 13 no sooner than May 1) are eligible to play.  This camp has everything completely streamlined and organized, so it wasn't as chaotic as I thought it would be!

Parents don't stay with their sons, but they stay nearby so they can come and watch the boys play.  They are guaranteed 6 games that week, and there is a bracket that will end with the top 2 teams playing for the championship.  Taylor had a basketball tourney in Louisville, KY the same week, so Stephen and I had to divide and conquer.  

Day 1: Parker and I flew to Buffalo, NY Sunday morning and made the 3.5 hour drive to Cooperstown and got him checked in and settled!  That night, they took team and individual photos in their Cooperstown uniforms.

It is beautiful in this part of NY!

Parker's team's bunk.  Their two coaches stayed with them, too!

Day 2: All the parents came back to the park for the Opening Ceremonies, which occurred at 9:30 AM.  They called out all 104 teams.  There were even some Canadian teams that had come!  After the opening ceremony, they did 4 competitions.  One of them Parker was chosen to do, as he is the fastest runner of the bases on his team.  We then had a big gap between the end of the ceremony and their 7:30 PM game, so we all checked our boys out for the day and went to downtown Cooperstown for lunch and hanging out.  They played their first game that night against a team from San Diego, and lost 6-4! We totally could've won that, but the other team hit a 2 run homer that we couldn't catch up on.  It started raining that night, but the game went on!

On the way to breakfast

Getting ready to march

Some of the parents in the stands

In line for the "road runner" competition!  Parker was in the top 20 out of the 104 kids.

Card shop in downtown Cooperstown

Wax Museum

Day 3: Parker's team played their first game of two games at 9 AM.  I watched half of it before taking off on a little road trip (more on that later).  I also missed Day 4, where they played two more games, but got some pictures from the Cooperstown app and some of the moms!  They lost 3 out of the 4 games. :(  (Note: their team isn't a real travel team, as most kids have different "main" sports and can't commit to full travel baseball.  So, it's a team of good athletes who don't do much extra outside of practice (versus true year-round travel teams), so we didn't think we'd end up with a very good record ;)  I was able to watch most of his games on the live feed, which was cool!

Hanging outside this great brewery place, it had a huge field for the kids to play!

Day 5: I left from where I was in Connecticut at 5:30 AM to make it back for their 9 AM bracket play game.  It was SO CLOSE, but we lost 12-9.  We were up most of the game, but had one inning where they scored 7 runs.  Dang!  That meant we were now out of the tournament, in terms of playing games.  We spent the rest of the day in downtown Cooperstown, and eating dinner at the brewery.

Day 6: We had the whole day (this was the last full day at the tournament) so we went to the Baseball Hall of Fame as a team, and ate lunch together.  We walked around and shopped, got ice cream, etc.  That night, I checked Parker out for good from the camp and he stayed with me in the hotel.  (most kids did this, as check out would've been at 6 am Saturday morning)

Last breakfast!

We had a send-off from a rainbow

It was an amazing week!!

4th of July!

 Our 4th of July was a little different this year!  For the actual 4th of July (Friday), Sydney had gone up to the mountain house with my mom, so she was up there.  Taylor went to a friend's house to attend an evening party, and then was dropped off in our neighborhood for its firework show.  Parker ran around all day (and evening) long, so we only saw him when he would pop in.  Stephen and I spent the evening at our friends' house, heading back to the house during the fireworks show.  For the 4th weekend, Stephen took Taylor and her friend up to the mountain house the next morning (Saturday), while Parker and I stayed back (we were leaving town Sunday).  

I didn't take or get many pictures, but here are the ones I have!

June!

 June flew by, and we kept busy with doctor's/dentist appointments (trying to do them while not in school!), baseball, high school basketball, cross country, Mission Camp, and more.  Here are some of the things we did in June!

Mission Camp:

Parker and Sydney went to Mission Camp for about a week up at Western Carolina University, which happens to be where my niece graduated from.  It was a nice surprise when Madeline went up there to see her friends and got to meet up with Sydney! (Parker didn't get their phone calls until it was too late ;) They had a blast, but Parker came home sick and ended up getting Covid.  Ugh.

High School Basketball:

Every weekday in June, Taylor had basketball conditioning at the high school.  They had practice, they went to a day camp, and they scrimmaged several other high schools.

Pool days with work friends:

Random fun:

Card shop!

Top Golf with Taylor (while the other 2 were at Mission Camp)

Father's Day Fun at Wall Ball!

Sydney got lifeguard of the week!  So proud of her!

Taste testing hot sauces

Dave Matthews Band!

It started monsooning 15 minutes in...

But, we got to move up under the cover and then didn't leave ;)