The Adventures of the Summer of 2013

The Shave

   

     The summer of 2013 started out with the biggest decision of my life......To shave or not to shave? I had grown my beard for 7 months and it was like trying to part with one of my own children...haha...no seriously! We had 3 or 4 days of above 30 degree weather and in a rash quick decision I decided to shave. This decision was quickly regretted, but nothing could be done to change the fact that I had parted with a piece of Kent Wynder history. 

     The CRAZY thing is that Kristi loves the beard and wants me to grow it back again. I have my theories as to why she likes me to have such a burley beard! She wants me to look as ugly as I can to the opposite sex, and that way no one will ever flirt with me when she is not around. She says she likes the way it looks, but I have my doubts.

     So the beard is on its way back. I have a ways to go before it will be back to the "Bushy"ness that it was at, but I will take it one beard growing day at a time.

Travis's Wedding

     Travis and Joanne got married this summer, yes Travis got married again. Hopefully 3rd time is a charm for travis!! haha We all went up to Edmonton because they were getting married in Legal, which is about 15 min out of St. Albert. 

     We all stayed in this sketchy little motel which was right beside a nice Holiday Inn which had a waterside. It was one of those motels that once you were in your room at night you didn't dare come out of the room.

     All of the brothers and Wyatt and Brad were groomsmen for the wedding. We were all in the wedding line with Travis and got to wear some wicked tuxes! 

     It was great to see Travis so happy. Keirsten and Haley were there as well and it was good to see them with their dad having a great time. Joanne has 3 daughters herself, so Travis is surrounded by women all the time...thats a lot of estrogen in the house.

Grinners

     My missionary buddy Paul Grinceri and his family came to visit us while they were driving home from their trip up to Northern BC. It was great to see them again. We tried to give them the great tour of Cardston by taking them to the Remington Carriage Museum. haha. I have lived in Cardston since I was 14 years old and I have never set foot in the museum before so it was going to be a treat for myself as well.   

  The museum ended up being better than I expected. they had some fun activities for the kids and the history of the carriages was kind of cool. after the tour was done we went on a carriage ride with all the kids and they loved it.

Blackfalds Tourney

     We played in a softball tourney in Blackfalds which is just north of Red Deer. Ryan Harris plays on a team in Edmonton and they play in this tourney every year. This year the team decided not to play so me and Ryan decided to get our own team and put it in the tourney. We struggled getting people to play  right up until about a day before the tourney. But we pulled through and assembled a team we thought would do well in the tourney.

     Ryan and Brandi pulled there trailer to the diamonds so we just camped with them. Tim Williams, Mike Quinton, and Rylan Schaffer also camped so we had a lot of fun away from the games. 

     We had a great tourney with some close games. One game we went into the bottom of the 7th down 3 runs and we came back to win the game. The final game was against the team who was killing everyone during the tourney. They had all matching uniforms and looked the part. Us, on the other hand looked like we had been just thrown together. You could tell at the start of the game, the other team thought we were going to be an easy win. We went into the bottom of the 7th up 1 run and they had there big hitters up. The first girl went out. Then they had a guy double to right field. The next guy up thought he could win the game with one swing and swung as hard as he could and missed the ball completely. The best part was that a girl was behind him so after he had one strike we just walked him on purpose. The next 2 guys popped up to the outfield and we won the game. It was a great tourney we won all 6 games that we played and I hit 12 home runs, 2 in the final. 

     Our Prizes were some long sleeve NSA shirts and a case of beer. Of course all of us on the team and members and don't drink except 3 people, so those 3 got to split the prize. Its just funny to look at our winning picture and see a trophy sitting on top of a case of beer that none of us would drink. 

Haydn's Busy Summer

     Well most of this summer was based around what Haydn was doing. It started off with a baseball camp in Magrath. Haydn had a week long baseball camp put on by Jordan Brame. The camp was fun and helped keep his skills sharp for summer baseball. The camp was important because it helped Haydn get ready to try out for the Minor South Chief All-Star team. The team would play all through the summer and have the chance to compete in the "Prairie" tournament in August. Haydn was really nervous about trying out because he really wanted to play. He ended up having a great try-out and made the team. He was so happy.

     This was the start of a lot of traveling during the summer. Haydn had practice in Raymond once or twice  a week, and then games in Raymond and Lethbridge once or twice a week as well. I was happy to do all this driving to and from Raymond and Lethbridge for Haydn because I love baseball and I loved watching him get better everyday. Kristi and the family came to every game to support Haydn and his team. We quickly realized that the team Haydn was on was a really good team. We won every game we played except one.

     We won all our exhibition games except one and won all the tourneys we played in. We won the SW Lethbridge tourney with out even having one close game. Haydn improved so much this summer in baseball. He became a better hitter and fielder. He had a great year at the plate. Haydn Hardly struck out the whole summer, which means he was seeing the ball well. He either was getting a hit or at least hitting the ball and getting thrown out on a play. It was good for him to be pushed by the other kids that were good on the team. He had to play well and fight his way to play in the infield and that was good in making him better.

     The big tourney of the year was in Edmonton in August. It was the Alberta Prairies Minors "AA" Tourney. The kids were so excited to play in the big city of Edmonton.  All the boys families were staying in the same hotel, so the boys had a blast hitting the water slides between games. It was so fun to see Haydn become friends with the boys from the other towns. They had a big opening ceremonies where all the kids and teams marched on to the field behind a person playing the bagpipes. The boys played 5 games, and in the 5 games they outscored the other teams 75-15. The final game the boys played in the championship they won 15-3. Haydn had a great tourney and played well. He had a bases loaded double in the championship game and made a great catch. So tourney made them the best "AA" Minor team in the province. 

Haydn also had a basketball camp during this time as well. He went to the Danny Balderson basketball camp in Magrath. He was there with his cousin Jake. So between baseball camps, basketball camps, and summer baseball...Haydn was a busy boy.

Camping in Wasa

     Last year we missed going to Was a because our trailer had been pummeled  by the hail and I had no truck to pull the trailer with. This is one of the best times of the summer so we were looking forward to going. We decided to go for almost 2 weeks this time to make up for lost time last year. This was the best decision, in fact we could have stayed another week and been just as happy. It is such a great place to go. The kids just play and the beach and ride their bikes all day. The only time that they are on their "devices" is at night right before bed. 

     Justin and Jeff and their families came after we had been at the campground for a few days. It is fun to hang out with my brothers and just relax together. Ryan and Brandi came with their family and that was fun for our kids to have some younger kids to play with. Had a great time fishing in the lake as well. Haydn made a fishing rod with a old stick and some line and he caught fish after fish. We went to the cliffs and after 5 years of chickening out I finally did a back flip off the top of the cliff. Actually I did a back flip with a twist (unintentional). 

NSA Worlds

     We played in the NSA World Series of softball in Calgary again this year. It is one of the funnest tourneys of the year and we loved to go and play and watch some of the great ball being played. We were moved up a division this year because we placed in the top 10 in our division last year so we knew we were going to have a tougher year. We lost our first 2 games by 1 run and then got blown out our 3rd game so we unded up in the intermediate "C" division. We played well in the playoffs winning our first 2 play off games and loosing a heartbreaker in the last inning to get eliminated.

     We were all staying in the same hotel, which had a small water slide. Lets just say that the hotel was not ready for 6 grown men to be water sliding at the same time. We had a blast riding the slide and making fools of ourselves by forming a "man-train" and going down the slide together. 

     One of the games we played out in Okotoks and by one of the diamonds was a huge ditch that was filled with standing water. Im talking sick garbage dirty ditch water. As we were walking past we noticed a kid swimming in the ditch and we couldn't believe it. This kid was as happy as could be swimming in this water that I would not touch even if I had to. We had to get a picture of it so we could remember how happy the kid was.

Other Pics of the Summer