Family & Baseball

We have been going nonstop since we returned from vacation. Now, I think we'll have a few days where we can finally breathe before we jump back into the chaos toward the end of the week and into the weekend. Such is life in the summertime, right?

On Wednesday, my dad got into town for a visit from Virginia. He hadn't met Hunter yet, so he came up to see his new grandson (and the rest of us, too). We hadn't seen him since our wedding last year, so it was definitely time! So, the last several days, I've been spending as much time as possible with my dad, which has also meant lots of extra time with a certain nephew that I am absolutely in love with.

My dad left to go back home around noon today, and I think he was especially sad to be leaving little Hunter. It's so hard to leave when there is a baby involved. It's heartbreaking when you know that the next time you see them, they'll have changed so much!

Yesterday, we had quite the fun family outing planned. The weather was gorgeous; we could not have asked for a more perfect Saturday.

We started off the afternoon at Trevor and Kara's house, just hanging out with my dad. Meanwhile, Hunter took a snooze:

Of course, we couldn't leave him lying in that bouncy seat for long. As his aunt, I just can't possibly pass up an opportunity for snuggling. Plus, we had pictures on the agenda.

He woke up a little bit, but was still pretty sleepy. Sweet, sweet boy.

Dad, Trevor, Hunter and me.

Dad with his grandson. Love Hunter's adorable little expression in this one.

Fathers and sons. Too bad my granddad lives so far away... we could have a photo with four generations!

Hunter's proud parents. Trevor, Kara, and the little guy.

After an hour or so, Kara's mom came to babysit Hunter while we all got out to enjoy the day. We started off by going out to dinner and enjoying a few beers, then ended up at a Triple A baseball game. We lucked out, because the weather could not have been more perfect for baseball.

Conveniently, Michael and I borrowed a telephoto lens from one of his coworkers for the weekend. We had my sister-in-law's high school graduation to go to today (a post on that to come tomorrow), and since she was valedictorian, I really wanted to be able to get some decent photos of her. Our lenses weren't going to get the job done, so it was nice we had the opportunity to use the telephoto one. Anyway, we decided to bring it to the game so I could practice with it a little bit.

Here are some of my shots:

This was funny. A player from the opposing team had a "dance off" with the rhino.

And once the player "won" by performing a backflip (which the rhino clearly wasn't going to be able to "answer"), the rhino took matters into his own hands by tackling him. It was really cute.

After the game, we were treated to an awesome fireworks show. I got to experiment a little bit taking some pics. These were a couple of the "best" ones, so clearly I have to do some more practicing.

That just about sums up our Saturday.

As an aside, I am still working on catching up on blog posts from vacation. I don't know if anyone really even gives a crap at this point, but I figured I'd point it out in case some of you haven't seen them. I am done with Seattle, and working on San Francisco. I hope to be all caught up in the next day or two, including an anniversary post!