Mother's Day and Softball

 Last weekend was Mother's Day.  Alaina's team won the rec softball championship in a nail-biter with extra innings and an international tiebreaker game on Sunday afternoon.  It was actually a lot of fun and such a treat after her 2nd place finish last year.

This has been a great softball season for Alaina--she has really developed incredibly as a player in the past year.   She set the goal of being the starting first baseman (woman?) last summer and has been working really hard to improve her play with weekly lessons and practices.

A few weekends ago, her travel team had their first tournament of the season, and not only was she the starting first baseman, but she also had some of the best hitting on the team.   As a parent, it has been amazing to watch how much skill and confidence she has developed.   And it certainly makes the games much more interesting when your kid is actually playing in the infield!

This weekend, Alaina competed in the Marin All-Star Tournament--each town in Marin County fielded a team with their best rec players.   This was her second year doing the 10U all-stars--last year, again, they had a second-place finish.

On Saturday, her teams easily won their 3 games and landed as the number 1 seed for Sunday.   Alaina even had a home run--her third in rec ball!

Turns out the all-star championship game on Sunday was a much easier win than the team championship, with our girls winning 9-3 pretty easily.   

I am proud of her and all of the work she has put into the sport.

David Sedaris

 On Tuesday this week, Jason and I went to see the author David Sedaris.   David Sedaris has long been one of my favorite authors--his essays are so witty and poignant.  He can make simple stories fascinating and has strong opinions, which in my opinion, are often spot on.   

Jason bought me tickets to the show, which was in Santa Rosa for Valentine's day.   We stopped for a quick dinner at a recommended Mexican restaurant right near the show, which was great.   

The show itself did not disappoint, with David wearing some of his signature culottes.   He read several new essays.   The first focused on his dislike of dogs and their recent entitlement in society--a perfect piece for me!  The others were equally wonderful.   I wish I could write like he can!   So impressive.

Belated Passover Dinner

 This weekend, we had a belated Passover dinner.   We were super busy with a softball tournament last weekend, so we couldn't quite make it happen DURING Passover.   But better late than never, I suppose.

We made some of the traditional dishes including a fantastic Matzoh ball soup, which we had to make the traditional way after a small incident with our instapot.  

I also make some charotzet and matzoh meal muffins.   For the main course we had some chicken, which we tried to make on the grill, but due to a very late-season rain storm, we transitioned it to the oven instead.

  

Marcy and Alexandra joined, along with my Dad and Marilynn, and it was nice to share a meal.   It had been since September since Marcy had seen Ethan, so she hardly recognized him, with as much as he had grown.

Ethan the Lifeguard

We have been nagging Ethan for a while that he needs to find a summer job.  He mostly ignored us, but finally with some extra nudging he decided he was interested in following in Jason's footsteps looked into becoming a lifeguard.   

A local pool had an ad out on Craig's List which he responded to, and he signed up for a lifeguarding class that was all day Saturday and Sunday last weekend.

Apparently, there is a very strong need for lifeguards, because the pool hired him, sight unseen without his certification even complete!

Luckily, he passed the class easily and is now a Red Cross certified lifeguard.

His first shift at the pool will be May 11.

I am proud of him, and happy that he will stay busy this summer, and earn some money for his upcoming car insurance payments (!).

Hope he likes his new gig!