The Ripken Experience!
CAL RIPKEN, front and center! Graeme's baseball team took a week-long trip to The Ripken Experience in Myrtle Beach, SC to play in the Beach Blast tournament the last week of June. They were lucky enough to meet Cal himself, who only spends a couple of weeks a year at the complex. Cal was awesome and answered lots of questions and gave great advice in an informal Q&A session with six teams at a a time before posing for photos with all the teams.
And, of course, the boys played a lot of baseball and had so much fun at the premier facility with all turf fields, scoreboards, loudspeaker announcers for every game and professional photographers!!! Roll some of the great shots they took of Graeme making awesome plays at second base/shortstop....
The team played very well, going 2-3-2 on the week and qualifying to play in the championship bracket as 6th seed of 15 teams (very important because you got a medal to bring home if you made it that far!) Graeme really had an amazing experience. My favorite memories of him during the week were the giant smiles running on and off the field between innings with the music playing, and the day he asked me if he could bring one of the dugout paper Gatorade cups (like the real big leaguers use!) home for a souvenir.
Throughout the very HOT week, Connor and Pierce were all star fans for Graeme and the rest of the Astros. When they weren't playing games, the boys had unlimited passes to a water park, a go cart raceway, miniature golf, laser tag and of course, the beach.
We were lucky enough to share a condo with two great family friends and had an awesome time. Special thanks and thanks again to the Roz family and the Cunninghams!
... and to the Asian pedicure ladies! After a week of stomping through nonstop baseball in our flip flops, the girls decided we'd earned a pedicure (my first)!
What a week... twelve years old and in baseball heaven at the beach!
