All Star News & Pictures ...

Matthew Catching

Matthew on the Pitcher's Mound

Matthew at 1st Base

Above: Matthew in the Dugout, Team Rally

Matthew's Team WON the All Star Series! It was a VERY exciting game ... The Red Raptor's took the win at the bottom of the 6th inning by ONE POINT! I wish I could have gotten a picture of the boys running out onto the field. The smiles on their faces were absolutely priceless. Matthew played a fantastic game with great batting and fielding and we are very proud of him. Mikey worked hard as the team's Bat Boy and even received an All Star Gold Medal with the rest of the team (thank you Coach Frank!) After the game was over we took the boys to Bruster's ... they had ice cream for dinner!

All Stars!

Matthew made the All Star team and is having a blast and he is playing SO well! We are very proud of him and so happy that he is having so much fun. Mikey has gotten in on the action as well ... he suits up for every practice and every game and gets right in there with the rest of the team. Coach Frank has been so sweet to Mikey, letting him practice and even letting him be the Bat Boy during games. We have been absolutely thrilled with Matthew's coach - he is very positive and the boys are learning a lot from him. He's a super nice guy and his wife is very sweet as well. Scott, of course, is coaching too. There are only 2 more games left in the series. It's "best of 5" but they are going to play all five games regardless. Right now we have lost one and won two! Coach John (our good friend and Matthew's team manager/coach since he started playing baseball) and his wife Annette and their son Ryan have even come to a couple of the games... Matthew loves that!

Matthew is also participating in the Pope High School Baseball Camp this week. The first day out they separated the kids by age. Matthew was in the 8 and under group (he JUST turned 8). Apparently the 10 year old group was short one guy so they pulled Matthew over to play with the 10 year olds and that is where he has stayed the entire time! He even won a throwing/catching contest yesterday!

Next week both Matthew & Mikey go to the Sandy Plains Baseball Camp ... it's just a 1/2 day but I think they will LOVE it! Two of Matthew's best buddies from this season are also going and he's really happy about that! After that we go to the beach and I get to see my nieces and my brother and Laurie! Hopefully we will have nice weather ... we are all really looking forward to it!

Stents & Stuff

GOOD news! Last Friday I had a bunch of CT Scans ... my kidneys, ureter and bladder are all healing just fine. I've been having a lot of pain and Dr. M thought maybe I had a "stricture" in my ureter which would have meant surgery followed by another stent. The thought of another stent made me want to cry. So after the scans were done he sat me down to talk to me about what he found and that all was well in kidney land! There is the one stone still in my kidney but he doesn't want to mess with it right now. It's relatively small. I'm cool with that. So then he tells me that although kidney stuff is great ... uterus and ovaries are not so much. Apparently I have a bunch of fibroids in my uterus and a decent sized cyst on my right ovary. Still, I was grinning ear to ear (because I knew I was now at no risk of needed a dreaded stent). He said "I've never given somebody such bad news and had them be so happy"! haha! So I'm going to my OB/GYN next Tuesday and we'll take it from there. I'll be really glad to not have this lower pain anymore - I'm looking forward to a permanent solution!