I just stole a few photos from my friends facebook. This is the boys walking into opening ceremonies. I thought it was so cute!
This was the Tiger's Barracks. They all thought it was cool that they had #4, Lou Gehrig!
One of my favorite thing about the vacation was that my mom and dad were able to come with us and stay at our house. It was awesome! The kids don't get to spend as much time as they would like with their grandma and grandpa due to our crazy schedules. I love these guys.
I would get the boys ready in the morning and then set them loose outside. We had a big yard and grandma and grandpa were roped into playing wiffle ball EVERY morning.
We were right on Goodyear lake so one morning they walked the boys down to the lake.
Gma and the boys. I love this picture.
I told Murphy to smile for the camera and he wasn't too excited about it!
So the funny thing about the team BBQ was every house that was rented had big neon signs that said "NO TEAM PARTY"S." Cute Sharese decided that if anyone were to get kicked out of their house it was just the 2 of them so she had us all over after games one day. I have to apologize because all my pictures run together and so I have to stop with blogging by day. So here is my blog on the team BBQ. Above is the ladies club (lol).
Blake Smith! He's my boys punching bag I swear. What a great boy to take it and I actually think, enjoy it, most of the time!
Just a pic of all the families sitting around visiting.
And wait... are these boys really STILL playing wiffle ball?
I love these ladies. They are both such wonderful woman and super fab friends! Aren't they cute?
We woke up that morning and just hung out. We got ready to go and headed to down town Cooperstown. Oh.... the shopping... did I ever love the shopping!!! And the Hall of Fame! This was the ONLY time I was a little sad all the little boys were there. They weren't a big fan of either. Above is my beautiful friend Jess with Murphy! He decided he loved her ALOT that week!
We were basically killing time down town. Everyone was anxiously awaiting opening ceremonies. The boys had spent their first night in the barracks and I sooooo wanted to visit with Mick and see how things went. We drove over to the park at 4 o'clock to get a good seat. Opening Ceremonies was scheduled to start at 5. Unfortunately the rain was scheduled to down pour at that time also. Cute Gwy in his rain gear and umbrella!
Opening ceremonies was so awesome! A couple times I wanted to tear up! It was seriously a cool thing. 1000 some odd boys! Murphy got a little tired waiting for the show to begin!
They had each team walk in and if you can look close you can see the teams holding their banners around the warning track. In Cooperstown part of our fees were to pay for uniforms. All the teams wear the same thing. They get 1 red game jersey and 1 blue. They get the socks and pull-overs and undershirts. We had to bring 2 pair of white pants and shoes. The reason behind this being patriotic (that's what the owner said). He believes baseball is America's game and hence proudly wants them to wear the red, white and blue.
Maddog and Murphy having a ball! Cooperstown was so interesting. They are very strict with the boys. Their was one player that got a 2 day suspension for wearing his baseball cap backwards. It was pretty awesome to know that the boys were going to behave themselves or else...
These are the barracks. Each team had one of these structures. Their were bunk beds and Mick couldn't have had a better time. If you can see off to the right there are boys outside playing wiffle ball. It makes me laugh that they would play 2 games a day and still want to be out playing wiffle ball non-stop. The boys were required to bring locks to lock their personals up and swim suits to shower with! I can't explain how beautiful and amazing these facilities were!
We started the morning off by waking up and going down to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. It was a little rainy. Knowing we would be there all day, we made a pricey umbrella purchase (which has totally paid off) and away we went.
My boys were more interested in holding the umbrellas than the sites. It was gorgeous down there.
We walked around the Harbor for an hour looking at boats, ships, submarines. Everyone thought it was fabulous!
And then... off to get in line at 4:30 to get into the ball game for BP at 5. We entered the gates and found that BP had been cancelled! Major bummer.... But I do have a fabulous story...
Sabathia started the game. Mick's FAVORITE Yankee starter. We were once again, right next to the bullpen. The nice lady from the night before told us that if we sat in a certain place on the fence (there was about a 2 foot opening) we might get a ball from the bullpen catcher. Well...
He continues to bring over 1 by one every other inning or so. Chamberlain warms up and pitches the 8th inning. Mick loves Jaba.
Here comes Rivera out to the bullpen. Mick and Eric are dying! Easily, their favorite Yankee pitcher! As he walks to the bullpen from the dugout Mick is just so excited to be able to get a few close pics. He starts his stretching....
So that is why Mariano gets such a tribute on this blog post! He made this vacation (up to this point).
Pic of me and the boys. Sad that BP was cancelled.
The kiddos by Cal Ripkens #! One of Mick's favorite all-time short-stops. So that night, we go home, and go to bed! Knowing we shall leave early the next day!
Our drive from Baltimore to Palmyra said 300 miles. So in my head, I do 300/80... okay... this should take us about 4 hrs. Boy was I wrong! The highways and roads are nothing like Utah. The only similarity is that there is construction EVERYWHERE! So, it did end up taking us almost 7 hrs from start to finish. We weren't in a hurry and made several potty breaks and just scenic stops. One of the favorite being in Williamsport where they hold the Little League World Series. This is a picture of the park that is played on. When we were gong through Pennsylvania we drove through an Amish community. Horse and buggies.... everything. We passed one buggy that had 4 women. Mick asked,
This day was a pretty awesome day for our family! We will fast forward a bit due to the pictures not wanting to move. This is a picture (above) from the printing press in Palmyra. We did a tour there and I cannot express how phenomenal it was. It was amazing to me the process that went through printing the first Book of Mormom. Taking each letter and arranging it in this... whatever its called... the ink, the printing, the hanging, the binding... It took 7 months from start to finish to print 1 book (60 pages at the time) of the Book of Mormom. My pictures in the press, didn't turn out but Mick and Broc were able to fold one of the pages and seriously... it is so hard to explain... the only thing that comes to my mind is absolutely amazing. 
We had earlier checked out of the hotel and walked through the Sacred Grove with our kiddos. We were so worried that they would be loud but McGwire kept saying he wanted to go and find Jesus. It was so cute. The kids were awesome. I loved this picture of Eric, Mays and Gwy walking into the Sacred Grove.
Eric and Murphy walking through the barn.
One of the bedrooms. All the old stuff was so cool!
Okay.... so now the greatest photos. Eric and I knew that we wouldn't be able to spend the time we wanted walking through the grove with the kids so we told Mick the night before that if he woke up and the kids had woke up to call us. We set our alarms for 5:30 and walked over to the sacred grove... just the 2 of us.
It was about 1/2 a mile and it was beautiful. The sun was just coming up... which makes the pictures that much more amazing.
We spent over an hour just walking through the grove. We saw a red fox... I was nervous... Eric just laughed.
It was beautiful, amazing, spiritual!!! Cannot explain! Definitely a highlight of our trip. I have to get the rest of the pics of the camera and hope to update soon. After the sites, we drove to Cooperstown and checked into our home. It was only a 2 hr drive... thank goodness... the older boys were so excited they couldn't stand it! Mick is having the time of his life and we are just taking it all in. The boys are currently 4-0! They are playing awesome. They have played teams from Texas, North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. After 2 days of play we are ranked 6th of 104 teams! Pretty cool! At the end of the day we hit the beds with our eyes closed. Making memories to last a lifetime.....
Goodnight and Sweet Dreams!
