Softball (with photos!)

OK, at long last, we have a few photos! All of the kids at Abbie's school are required to enroll in three sports seasons - fall, winter, and spring. Abbie did ballet for all three last year, and ballet for fall and winter this year. However, we requested that she try something different for the spring session. She chose softball (despite having never played before) because one of her friends was doing it. I was excited because I always liked softball as a kid. 

So far, it has been really, really great. She always comes home energized and I think she enjoys being outside in the fresh air. She started from square one, so Chad has been playing catch with her to help her get better at throwing the ball and using her glove. She has learned a ton from that and from the games. So far they have won four and lost one - not bad!

Having some time away from ballet has been good, too. The culture in the ballet crowd is far different than in the softball crowd, so being away has given her some perspective. I am not always able to attend her games, but I caught part of a game on Thursday this week and it was fun to see them "doing their thing."

As for Abbie's spring break this year, she did indeed spend a couple of nights with Eleanor and had fun there. When she came home, she had many opportunities to make extra cash. She babysat for us and also did some cat sitting for a neighbor. All of these opportunities provided her with enough money to finally buy herself a high-quality camera. She had been saving and saving for months and these extra jobs finally put her over the top. She bought the camera last weekend and has been so excited about it. I am also really impressed with the photo quality and the zoom that she can achieve with her lens. She says that so far, these are her two favorite photos (I made her choose one still life and one animal life):

Pretty kitty (at the zoo)

In bloom

Photography is something that she has been interested in for a long time and there is a photography class that she can take in high school, so I think that she is looking forward to that. It will be a cool class. We spoke with the teacher when we first toured the school and she has them do cool things like build a camera and learn how to develop film.

In the near-term, however, we are gearing up for the home stretch. The next couple of months will be filled with parent-teacher conferences, standardized testing, class trips, service projects, softball games, orchestra concerts, group projects, etc.