The Last Day

Today is it.  The last day of my official summer.  Tomorrow the kids go back to school and this household will resume something that resembles a routine.  There are both good and bad aspects of this annual occasion.

The Good:                                                      The Bad:
Up at 6 every morning.                                    Up at 6 every morning.

Structure to the day.                                         A little less structure never
                                                                        killed anybody.  ; )

Kids will be with friends.                                  I'll miss having them at
                                                                       home. 

More time for me to write.                               *No bad side to this!

For now I'm going to leave you with a few of my favorite shots from this summer.  And I'm going to go and enjoy this last day and try to not think about the fact that it is, in fact, the last day of Summer 2011. 

Morning on Myrtle.  

Don't know the person in this shot...I just loved the way the light 

was reaching down through the clouds.  

Beautiful.  

Tucker's first experience with All Stars.  : )  

He was so thrilled to be chosen and had such a good time.

A boy and his fishin' pole.

My Tucker Man does love to go fishin'.

Any day spent in the ballpark is a good day.

Any day spent watching my Yankees is an excellent day!

The peaceful beauty of Amish Country.

Wow.

Planking Perri.

No, I don't get the appeal of it.

No, I don't know why it became THE thing to do.

Yes, I find it slightly amusing.

Her gymnastics muscles sure paid off in this one.

I'm outta here.

I have ONE LAST DAY of summer to enjoy.

Darn Near Perfect

That's the best way I can describe my day today. 
I spent it here:

Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Reds territory.

And I wore this:

(That's my Tucker Man, also wearing his Yankees garb.)

And you know what?

All was well because Cincy is a classy baseball city.

There were no rude remarks or gestures

and no dirty looks from the locals.

As a matter of fact, people were friendly,

polite and eager to be of assistance...

much like the last time we visited this city

for a Yankees game in 2003.

I gotta say, 

we have visited other baseball cities 

to watch my boys play 

and I can't say the experiences were quite as nice.

Thank you, Cincy, for being such a gracious host.

I know that most of you probably don't give a hoot about baseball,

but I just gotta share a few pics.  

Bear with me.  ; )

Stretchin' before the game.

Can you say 'flexible'? 

The men in black.

These dudes can make it or break it.

This man has struck fear into the hearts of many a batter.
It is always a thrill for a Yankees fan
to watch him take the mound.
Mariano Rivera
aka:  'Mo'

And this, my friends, was the final pitch of the game.

Yeah, we won!  : )

 And my boy gets to tell his kids and his grandkids

that he got to see,

live and in person,

the GREATEST CLOSER in

all of baseball.

Darn near perfect, I tell ya.  : )

But I guess you're wondering

since the threatening rain held off

and we had decent weather

and we got to see Mo

and we won the game...

why wasn't it perfect?

Well, someone didn't give 

the powers that be at 

Great American Ballpark

the memo regarding Cracker Jack and baseball.

You know, they just go together!

It seems the folks in Cincy prefer this:

And that, my friends, is just not perfect.

Take Me Out...

...to the ballgame!

We left Tuesday morning for Cleveland to watch a match-up between

and

Tucker and I dressed accordingly.
Perri doesn't get as 'into it' as we do,
plus she was mortified at the thought of us all being dressed alike.
(The stuff of a 12 year old's nightmares, ya know.)
So she wore her Little League jersey.

We got there in time to watch batting practice

and the pitchers loosening up.

Got to see Joba and Girardi sharing a quiet moment before the game began.

We weren't allowed into the area where our seats were located until 6:00 p.m.

And THAT'S when the good stuff started. :)

Here are Nick Swisher and Derek Jeter chatting while walking across the field.

And sharing a laugh before they had to get down to business.

If you know me at all, you know that these pics THRILL ME to NO END!!! :) I've been a Jeter fan since he broke into the majors and Swish is a local boy who played high school ball just 30 minutes or so from here. When he joined the Yankees, he brought an energy and a new level of cool to the Yankees dugout at a time when they needed a boost in spirit. This boy has FUN earning his paycheck!


And this is Damaso Marte. Not a fave of mine but I thought the pic turned out pretty good. ;)

Tuesday was Alex Rodriguez's birthday. And he just happened to be going for the 600th homerun of his career. So every time he was at bat, the cameras were going wild! Including mine.

Lucky for me he didn't get it because I never did get a decent pic of him. ;)

Four (more) Fabulous Facts on Friday

Since I rather enjoyed my Four Fabulous Facts on Friday last week, I thought I'd just do it again this week! After all, who doesn't enjoy a little fabulosity every now and then?


Fabulous Fact #1:
Only NINE DAYS until the Yankees' Season Opener!!!

Man oh man, I SO love that game! The Hubster is sweet enough to subscribe to the MLB Season Ticket on our DirecTV so that I don't have to miss a game!




Fabulous Fact #2:
I made a dozen pints of strawberry freezer jam yesterday and the day before!

(This isn't mine...just a pic I found online. But I did use the same kind of containers!)

I still have lots of strawberries left so I'll be making more jam, a pie and probably some strawberry shortcake, too.

Fabulous Fact #3:
I don't think I've already blogged about this, but if I have, please bear with me. I'm a proud Momma, ya know?

Perri modeled some hats for a local photography studio, A+ Photography. Tabi and Angela, the ladies who own and operate this place, do some FABULOUS work!

Well, we got some of Perri's pics and they are just incredible!






And here is ZBELLE HATS where these cute little creations are being sold.

The best part? She had a BLAST!

Fabulous Fact #4:
Tomorrow is Ripley's Third Annual Chocolate Festival!
For those of you who are not aware, this:

and this:

make me do this:


I LOVE me some chocolate!

And as you can tell in this pic, so does Tucker:

HERE is a link to more info on the festival. Pretty cool for such a small town.