First Baseball Game of 2009

Today was Mark's first baseball game. He plays left field and in previous years he's batted near the end of the batting order. This year he's batting around the middle of the order. At his first at bat he hit a nice foul ball, but then ended up striking out.
Below is him retrieving a ball and throwing it in to second base. Not a great throw, but got close enough, there wasn't a play.

Below is the picture of the greatest play Mark has ever made. Pop fly is coming his way.

I didn't get a great picture of the ball in Mark's glove. But it's there and he got the out!



He even had presence of mind to throw the ball in since there were runners on base. Even the coach for the other team told Mark he made a great catch. (And was yelling how his batter was robbed!)

In case you can't see it in the above pictures... he's a close up the same shot!!


Mark's second at bat he tried to bunt and got called two strikes, so on the next pitch he hit a pop fly, which their pitcher caught. He's a great little athlete and the cousin of Mark's friend, Matt.

Unfortunately we lost 7 - 2. We have a lot of work to do this season.

4th Grade Field Trip

Today was the 4th grade field trip to the San Gabriel Mission.

It was a great trip with about 75+ kids and chaperons. The kids were great. Our guide was worried since his co-worker didn't show up and he had to take all the kids instead of dividing them into 2 groups. But he was pleasantly surprised at how well behaved they were. They did great. (At least on the tour, they went crazy at the park!)

This was one of the first opportunities to take a bunch of pictures with my camera. I look forward to figuring out all the settings. This is a fountain at the mission.

Inside the church... lots of beautiful things to take pictures of.,,

The picture behind the baptistery still used every Saturday...

A replica of the pictures painted by the local Indians, the originals are kept in the museum.

One of the many old books that are kept in the museum at the mission. No FLASH photography allowed. Fortunately, with the nikon D70 I can take really nice pictures with no flash.

I took about 250 pictures this morning. This is only a hand full. Hopefully, I'll have time to load the rest. I have to make sure to load only the ones of items and w/ my kid in them. Don't want to load other people's kids on the Internet.

Check out all the photos (or at least 96 of them)

Taking a Walk

Saturday afternoon, Mark, Leon and I took a walk around the block. I took the camera.  I haven't had a chance to use it a lot yet.  Hopefully, I'll be able to go somewhere fun, soon.

But I did take a couple of pictures that were very nice.  Some day I would love to go inside the Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox, and the Coptic churches to take pictures.  Two of the three I have contacts that can tell me if that would be OK to do. 

This is outside the Catholic Church.  Though, of course,  I can't remember who she represents.  Seems like it's for the unknown child or something.