Big Family Fun

Bay St. Louis style. The Zachary BluZe came in either 7th or 8th in the SW regional tournament. Zac pitched 2 of the 4 games and was awesome! Once you get into these older boys' leagues, the boys get used to hitting really fast balls thrown by their coaches and stud 11-12 y.o. boys. That being said, when my five-foot-nuthin', 80 lb. soaking wet boy throws butterflies down the lane, it shakes the big boys up!

The team who beat us in the first round of the elimination tournament were a bunch of boys from some distant planet recruited by local Arkansas men who need to re-live their childhood baseball disappointments. At one point, Zac was playing 2nd base and was standing next to this HUGE kid and we saw Zac talking to him. When he came in after the inning, we asked him what they were talking about. Zac said, "I said, 'Dude, just how old are you, really?' and the kid said (a bit indignantly), 'I'm just 11. My dad is really tall-he's over there; and my mom is almost as tall as my dad.'" I thought that was pretty funny.

We stayed in some condos in Diamond Head, MS which, back in the day, were all the shizz. Some of them are still pretty nice, but the one we shared with another family was stuck in the 80's. It was still waaaaay better than a hotel. We cooked at our own place, swam, had bedrooms and bathrooms. Just generally a place to be not on top of each other.

George and I had a Texas Monthly moment Saturday night. The other couple staying in the condo and us traded nights with the kids and each took a date night. George and I headed out to BSL in search of dinner. We chanced upon a cool restaurant, the Mockingbird Cafe (http://www.mockingbirdcafe.com/). Had the very best burger I've had in ages, some beer from a local brewery and listened to a local band out under the stars. There weren't any open tables, so George got our chairs from the car and we ate our burgers in our laps. A local guy came over and shared stories of hurricane Katrina and how the town is shaping back up.

BSL and Pass Christian are still very torn up. The eye of the storm passed right over that area and took out the BSL bridge connecting the two towns over the bay as well as the entire beach front developments. You can definitely tell who was properly insured by whose homes are rebuilt. There is a lot of commercial development coming along as well, but not enough that we could find a restaurant for dinner Monday evening on our way home.

The photo log of the weekend will follow since I can't figure out how to post my pix.

Oh, yea, by the way, the score of our last game was 8-4. We played Fayetteville, AR who, in their last 30 games had only given up 1 run and hadn't played an entire game because of the 10-run mercy rule!