While the Cat's Away

by Guest Blogger :: Bill

Oh, how the menfolk played. With Lexy, Avery, Linah, and Mamar off in France, we men had the run of the place(s). We spent most of these dog days of summer swimming at Mamar's. We also mixed in the final two baseball tournaments and a few select outings. It was truly a fantastic time. Most mornings we would get up and chat with Lex and Ava (sometimes Mamar and Linah as well) over the internet on our webcams. It was pretty awesome to get to chat with the whole crew as they traveled thousands of miles from us. It was so hard to be without them, but it was great to see them and it helped soften the distance for sure. I took the majority of the time off, but did have to work some here and there. Between our great friends and some Nonnie time, the boys had a blast every single day.


We'll start with baseball. Rhys played for the aptly named Heat. My God, the Heat and the ragged clothing. It was brutal out there those last 2 tournaments with temps that reached up over 110+ on the field both weekends. Griffin stayed with Leigh and Bob and I'm pretty sure they had so much fun with him that they wanted to keep him. He felt the same way. Rhys turned in an MVP performance in the Georgetown Tournament, which the Heat won. The following week they made it to the Tournament Finals but lost by a run. It was a great season though. He learned so much and had a great time.









The first post-baseball weekend, Rhys, Griffin, and I headed to Main Event. They had a 4th of July weekend special and we jumped in with both feet. Getting there just as they opened, we bowled for a couple of hours before the crowds hit. Once they did we turned our attention to the video games, which we played until our eyes nearly fell out of our heads. It was a good time.

Griffin agreed that the only place to spend the hottest summer in the history of Austin was in the pool. With Mamar away we spent most of the entire two weeks at her house mixing the pool, the dogs, baseball, junk food, the old XBOX, and the Texas Rangers in pretty equal doses.







Griffin says to Rhys, "You're going down!"



The 4th of July was a beautiful night. We watched the Rangers while swimming. (Rhys would always get out to watch Ian Kinsler's at bats).



We got some sparklers, which the boys were fairly scared of, and later in the evening we drove out to the lake and sat on a hill watching three different fireworks displays across the horizon while listening to Harry Potter on CD.



We men partied into the night every night until sleep overtook us.