It's over :(

This day must inevitably come...the day our player leaves us to head home. It's a sad day for us, we lose a friend, a roommate, plus the entire baseball life. It doesn't help that we didn't know for sure that it would be today until the beginning of the game last night. I think we "knew" but it's not any easier. So, Eric finished loading up his truck this morning around 8:30 and as much as I tried to contain myself, I just couldn't. After helping him (a bit) get a few things packed up and taken down, he started to pack his cooler and as I brought some drinks in from the fridge, I dropped one and that was enough to push me over the edge and start the crying. What a wimp I am! Just the thought of him leaving was too much and I tried to stop but poor Eric had to put up with my crying as he got ready to leave. Eriq had to head to work before Eric got up, so he wasn't there to say goodbye either so I wished him a teary goodbye by myself and he headed for the bank and then hit the road. So far, looks like the only thing he left was a travel alarm clock, not bad for living here for a few months and packing in less than a day!
I miss you already Eric!

Last game

Today we got to go out to lunch at Sweetwater with Eric and JJ and Erin. Then it was time for our final regular season game in Mineral Wells. The Outlaws took it to the end...a McKinney loss and a Denton win tonight would have put us in playoffs but McKinney eased our minds by winning their game right before we started ours. The pressure was off, although the beginning of the game was filled with the sadness that this was the last game I will see these guys play. But on the plus side, tonight, the guys had some fun:
Thomas (SS) played right field while Tyler L (2B-3B) played at SS, Kevin (C) pitched and Kyle (P) caught for his warm up, Trevor and Caleb (pitchers) batted and played left field, Eric hit his 3rd homerun in the last week, all starting hitters had at least one good hit and we played extra innings! Tell me that's not an interesting and entertaining night! I visited with several Outlaws fans, employees, and family at the game and got a video of E's homerun.
Also, Eric was wonderful (as always) and offered to ride home with me after the game. Of course, we hit the McDonald's drive through, but it was packed after the game. We finally got through it with Eric's chicken nuggets, our fries and a coke and dr pepper of course. It's a fairly long drive so we got to have a nice long visit one last time. Then I dropped him off at the field to turn in his gear and get his truck to drive home. I'm feeling the urge to cry about it being over and Eric leaving, ugh!

Double Homerun Night!!!

OK, so now you know the ending but now from the beginning. I didn't get much sleep last night so I kind of lazed around during the day. The game tonight was in Weatherford, Carolyn (Kevin's mom) was going to ride with me so she came over a bit early to look at some of my old scrapbooks just for motivation and ideas on working on one for him. We got going and then I noticed that I had to fill up with gas so we stopped on the way and continued on toward Weatherford. Even after that, we got to the field faster than expected due to minimal traffic so we stopped at *the* Taco Bueno there to get a bite to eat before heading on in to the game. Once we got to the field, we bought our tickets and headed in and got settled. Once we sat down I looked around and there was only one Weatherford player visible and none of ours. I found another Outlaws fan and asked if she knew what was going on, she had followed the bus but it took a strange exit very suddenly on the way and she continued on the way she knew how and arrived before them. I called Eric and he said they were coming and I asked him what happened and he said that Heath had some trouble and they had to pull over and take care of his blood sugar but they would arrive soon. The game was postponed for 30 minutes to allow our guys to get warmed up. Eric came out and told me some details of what had happened on the bus and then went on to finish getting ready. The game was then even more exciting as Eric made a great diving catch early in the game and then hit his first homerun of the season. The game continued on with good pitching by the Outlaws and believe it or not...Eric hit another homerun the same game. We won 6 to 1 thanks mainly to Eric's RBI totals. Carolyn and I had a nice visit on the way home and despite getting in late and being so tired to star, this was a good day!

Host Family Appreciation Night

So here we are, it's Host Family Appreciation Night. Sounds like a good thing, well, it is, but it also means it's nearly the end of the season. That also means the boys are leaving soon and if you know me, you know that makes me sad. Obviously we wouldn't keep them if we didn't love it and so the end of the season is hard because I no longer have baseball nor an extra guy around the house and then school starts. But good news for this year is that school is starting late!!! This morning we went to the gym then Eriq and I headed down to DeSoto to meet Jenny (Dan's girlfriend) and see Dan when they flew into town. I had a nice swim despite the sun and rain together. We had a nice visit with the family and also since Eriq had to cancel his first pitch for tonight, I got a call asking if I would do it. Well, there should be, but there are not any baseballs or anything like a baseball at my parents house so Dan tried to teach me how to pitch with rocks and finally the "lips" from one of those tree faces (don't ask). Then we headed back north to the game, it rained on us the whole time. We checked the field and everything was still a go, so we headed home, got our stuff together and headed to the game. Eric gave us a rose and thank you note and we got our picture taken after standing in the drizzle for a bit. Unfortunately we were playing the Roughnecks and in typical fashion they got to us early and often for another loss to them. Take away the losses to them and we have only about 1 loss per team for ALL the other teams in the league. That's the last time we will play them, in regular season anyway...

IKEA

Leave it to someone from California to drive all the way here just to take me to the IKEA over in Frisco. I'd never been and they have them at home and Eric's mom was just sure I would love it. So today is our day to shop! We all piled in Eriq's truck and headed to the store. Beryl was right, I do like it, so many ideas. It was amazing, too much but really cool. I got an idea for how to redo my office/scrapbooking/garden/guest room. (See why I need it done?) We all spread out but kept coming back together before we got too far apart. Eric looked at all the animal skin rugs, I looked at all the storage, etc. Then it was nearly 1 so we ate lunch in the restaurant on the top floor before heading down and continuing to shop. The timing was great because as we were eating it starting pouring outside. By the time we finished shopping , everything was wet but there was no more rain. All we bought were some of the wonderful cinnamon rolls and some small kitchen items. Good for us. Tonight we had an odd sort of double header, we had to finish the game from the 11th that had to be called due to passing midnight then we began a second regularly scheduled game. We finished up the first game in one inning thanks to Eric's single RBI and then him scoring to win. We won game two as well in a shutout by Posey, going all 7 innings and allowing only 2 hits the entire game while we got in 7 runs. We're making a run for the playoffs!

Road trip, well sorta

Tonight the game was in Colleyville, which is "on the road" but thankfully not more than about 35 miles from us. We took the whole gang, that is Eric's parents and Eriq and I out tonight. I let Eriq navigate while Bruce drove. We all headed down in the Oliver's car and got settled in to watch Rusty coach and hope for good pitching from the Outlaws. The pitching wasn't horrible nor great, but our hitting was off and our 7 hits only managed to score 2 runs leaving us with a loss for the evening. Eric crawled in the car with us for the ride home to make it more cozy than the ride to the game and we were all able to just chat a bit going home. I'm out of it tonight so that's about all there is for today.

Zoo Day

Eric loves animals, so we've talked about getting him down to the zoo and today was finally the day. It's an off day so that allows more time to explore. Eric's parents picked us up early and we headed down to Ft. Worth again today. We got to the zoo and it was looking to be a warm day so we stocked up on the water bottles and headed on in. The monkeys put on quite a show for us, the zoo was great and we beat the crowd but by the time we finished it was getting busy and hot. We had an ICEE to cool off before heading out. Next stop, The Ballpark in Arlington for a Rangers game. We finally got to use some of our host family tickets and got some seats for free. We got there early so we went in to Rawlings Sports Grill for some food and a/c before heading to the seats for the game. Eric and his dad had the buffet while the his mom and I just cooled off with drinks. Another fun packed, long, busy day as a tourist in my own city! I need some sleep!