Go Camels!

Last Wednesday was Everett's first tee-ball game.  Mike is the coach.  He has 8 kids on his team, ranging in age form 3 to 6.  About half are Western and half are Saudi.  About none of them know what they are doing.  It's very funny! 

It's very informal - there are no outs, and no one keeps score.  An inning consists of letting everyone bat one time.  After every batter, the fielders all rotate to a new position, like volleyball.  There are just about as many dads and coaches on the field as players.  It's designed to be fun and let the kids get exposed to the game.  And Mike is a great coach!

Here are some videos from the game.  The people are a bit hard to see, so I will try to identify them for you:  Everett was wearing a white shirt and khaki shorts (no uniforms yet).  Mike has on a blue shirt and a white hat.  This first video is of Everett's attempt at fielding.  He spent the entire inning sitting and building castles in the dirt with his back to the batter.  (We found out later that he did not want to touch the ball because he was afraid of being tagged out.)  Notice on the second hit how ALL the other kids go chasing after the ball except for Everett.  He was deserted on the field.  We're working on getting him to pay better attention to the game (or at least looking at it).  Poor Lawrence was SO bored the ENTIRE game, and he kept wanting to go to Daddy and see what Daddy and Everett were doing.  (It's going to be a long season.)  And then Catherine is getting new teeth.  (Again, a long season.)  But hey, if I can make it on a 30 hour plane trip with all three in tow, surely I can get two of them through an hour long baseball game, right?

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The second video is of Everett's attempt at batting.  This is his first at-bat ever!  He did great, and he knew what to do.  Apparently this is much more fun that fielding.

At the end of the second practice, the it was time to name the team.  The current name of the team was Team 1.  When asked what the kids wanted for a new name, Everett shouts out "Team 3!"  Very original, son.  Then Everett wanted "Little Critters" (very cute, and we are pretty sure that he came up with this on his own.)  Apparently, it was a little too cute for everyone else.  Most of the players wanted Cheetahs, but that was already taken by another team, and Mike's suggestion of Wolverines was deemed too long.  Then Everett wanted Giraffes, but the consensus was Camels.  Perfect!  So Lawrence, Catherine, and I will be cheering on the Camels for the rest of the season.  Go Camels!  (The jury is still out on whether we are Bactrian or Dromedary.)