All Stars

Bryson just wrapped up his All Star season of baseball. Austin tried out for his age group, and didn't make it. His size has always been an influencing factor, and there are some politics involved with who the coaches choose to be on the team. Matt watched the try-outs and there were kids who made the All Star team that had a worse try-out than Austin who fielded all his balls well and hit 3 for 3 on the batting portion. Austin is also such a smart base runner and fast. I think that he needs to work on being a stand-out pitcher and then the coaches can't ignore him.

I don't agree with some of the kids who made Bryson's team. 😆 All Stars is nice because you don't have to follow minimum play rules, so you can play your best players in whatever positions all the time. (There is a pitch limit for pitchers.) Bryson played shortstop 70% of the time and catcher for the other 30%. Every player on the team does bat, however, so there were some players that really held back the team because they couldn't read a change-up pitch or didn't have smart base running or ran very slow. Their team lost both games, but we were so proud of how Bryson played and how he cheered on his team. He batted a total of 6 times, got on base every time, and scored a run each time. (4 hits, 2 walks) His team lost 10-6 in the last game, so Bryson represented 3 of those runs. He had no errors in the field--lots of balls came his direction--and did a great job catching. We are definitely biased, but we thought he was the best player on the team! He did come in as a relief pitcher to finish out an inning as well.

Matt was an assistant coach

 

20th Anniversary

Our anniversary fell on a Tuesday night, and we planned to celebrate at the weekend since Bryson had baseball practice. When his baseball practice got rained out, we threw something together last-minute and went to Perry's Steakhouse for dinner and then planned on a movie. We didn't buy movie tickets ahead of time, and the movie we wanted to see ended up being sold out, so we watched a movie at home together instead! The Saturday before our anniversary, we did some sealings in the temple. The word that stood out to me from the sealing ordinance this time is the word "receive," and the importance of choosing your spouse every single day. We definitely have had our struggles throughout the years--there are some things that I would love for Matt to work on and change, and I know he feels the same about me! Reading The Let Them Theory helped me put it in perspective. I loved the ABC loop idea:

A - Apologize
B - Back off, observe their behavior
C - Celebrate any progress
Give them 3-6 months without any negative energy. "Let them be."

D- Decide if it's a deal breaker
E- End the complaining or end the relationship

To end your complaining you have to love someone as they are, accept them, let go of expectations, focusing more on the 80% he's doing well instead of the 20% where he falters.

Matt doesn't normally buy me flowers because he knows I'm not a fan of the price tag, but he bought some in honor of a big milestone. The yellow sunflowers are in memory of our first date where he brought me a sunflower (and I thought it was weird). 

One of our favorite things to do together is play pickleball!