What is w00t anyway? I don’t really know but I’ve picked it up as some sort of internet term clearly signifying something utterly awesome. A cheer and a congratulations all rolled into one I guess. But, I digress.

First, HAH! I remembered my camera! However, I did *not* leave home early enough to pull over and take pictures and initially I was very bummed because it was all cloudy out as we made our way north whereas yesterday the skies were clear. Without sunlight the pretty hillsides just would not stand out. But, as we pushed on past Oceanside and into Camp Pendelton territory, the sun started breaking through. So I did a very safe thing and took out my camera and shot pics out the window as I drove along at, oh, perhaps 70mph (iow, I slowed down!) Ahem. Anyhoo, here you go. Pretty green hills with splashes of mustard yellow:

On to the baseball. They won the semi-final game 10-5 after falling behind in the first inning 0-4. Always encouraging to see them comeback from a deficit and not get down on themselves. I was a little worried because SportsBoy jammed his knee diving back to first base on one play and even though he advanced to third pretty easily later on, he came back into the dugout limping when the inning was over and pulled himself from playing second base because it hurt. So, after assessing it and seeing that he really could put weight on it fine and run smoothly I used a classic mommy trick and gave him one ibuprofen telling him that should take care of the soreness within about 20 mins and he should be good to go. Otherwise I think he would have focused on the knee too much the rest of the way. Sure enough, the psychological tactic worked we never heard of the knee again. In fact, in the championship game, he ended up in the middle of one of the funniest plays we’ve ever seen. He was on second and got caught in a pickle between 2nd and 3rd. A rundown. The defensive players are supposed to trap the runner in an ever tightened line between the bases until one of them gets close enough with the ball to tag him out. This usually involves one or two throws from one side to the other. In this case though, the defense forgot to tighten it up, and Sportsboy became a football player with these fantastic stops and quick starts so that he forced not 2 or 3, but, we *think* at least 10 throws back and forth. It was as if he was a ping pong ball getting bounced back and forth. Inevitably someone finally flubbed a throw and he was able to dash safely to third with all of us at that point just in the throes of laughter. It truly looked like a keystone cops routine!! Thankfully after all that effort he was driven home to score safely and here’s a shot of him collapsed on the bench in exhaustion:

The end result was their first tournament championship this year!!! We (the parents) froze our butts off but it was worth it. That field location is less than a mile from the ocean and for some reason the wind in Huntington Beach is brutally bitingly cold! I’m home now after a celebratory dinner and I’m still shivering! Even with a cat on my lap Anyway, here’s to the champions!