Kindergarten, T-ball and a visit from Florida


A couple weeks ago, Ellie had to take an entrance test for kindergarten at St. Justin’s. She’s pretty good with her letters, numbers, shapes, all the things that they say kids need to know going into kindergarten, but you never know when it actually comes to taking a test. So Steph took her in the afternoon one day and Ellie went into the classroom with a few other kids. They were in there for about an hour and then came out.

Steph wasn’t able to get much out of Ellie, so when I got home I asked her about it. I said, “I heard you had a test today. What was on it?” She was kind of quiet. So I prompted her, “Did you do letters, number?” And here is what she said, “Yeah, we did letters and numbers, but I didn’t do them all because I was tired.”

Which made me half shake-my-head, half laugh. So we had no idea if she was going to get in, but a letter came this weekend and it was an acceptance letter. So we’ll put that letter into her memory box, her first acceptance letter. So she’ll be heading to St. Justin’s kindergarten in the fall.

Also this weekend, Ellie had her first t-ball game. It was an adventure! This team is for 4 and 5-year-olds, but our team has ten 4-year-olds and only two 5-year-olds, so it’s a young team. And Ellie is the 2nd youngest kid on the team. Needless to say, a lot of patience is needed. But they seemed to have fun, at least for the most part.

The games are an hour long, everyone bats, everyone moves one base at a time until the last batter when they run all the way around the bases, it’s really an hour of semi-organized play. But at about the 40 minute mark we had kids sitting down in the field, playing with dirt, picking the grass, all kinds of things. Which wasn’t too bad because the ball rarely went anywhere besides right to the pitcher. Ellie wasn’t one of those sitting on the ground, but about 50 minutes in, she wanted to leave. Steph’s cousin Kristy and her husband Joel, along with their two boys were visiting and Ellie wanted to go play with them.

 











As for a game recap, Ellie played left field, shortstop and third base. In the field she made the best “real” baseball play of the game. She was at shortstop and the ball was hit her way. She moved in a couple steps, put her glove down and fielded the ball. Not bad. And she batted 2nd. She got 2 at-bats and hit both of them really well. The first one went to the third baseman and the second went into leftfield between 3rd and short. The one bad thing about batting, she hasn’t really grasped the concept of running after she hits it. So she’ll hit the ball then stand and watch it. Then when everyone starts yelling “run, Elizabeth! Run!” she starts moving towards first.

Here is a little video of the first batter of the game. This is called "Team Defense."
 

We got a chance to try out the new sofa bed. Well, not so much me, but our guests. Steph’s cousin Christy (Kristy?) and her husband Joel came out from Florida for a West Coast visit and stayed with us for a couple days. They have two boy, Kai and Reyn, around Ellie’s age. So all the kids had a lot of fun, including a visit down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and a night of Star Wars and ice cream.

It was nice to visit with them and catch-up a bit. It’s been years since we last saw them. I guess that’s the problem with living in California and Florida. Hopefully we can cut down the number of years between visits. Perhaps we’ll need a visit to Disney World? Or how about a cruise out of Florida? Mmmm, that sounds good!

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