professional camper.

Dear Zach,

You are my professional camper. Here are the camps you went to this summer:

- Bellarmine basketball
- Ballard soccer
- back to Bellarmine basketball
- Rondo Basketball
- Bellarmine soccer

- back to Rondo basketball

(took a break for Florida vacation!!)
- Uof L soccer  (the picture on the right - you loved this camp!)

Whenever someone hears about all the camps you go to, they can't believe it and assume you must be so tired. But you love it! And you don't want to go to summer camp at SMA - so these sports camps are great. And you really have a good time, you are such a hard worker and really good at meeting people and making new friends. Watching you walk off to the field or court when you don't know anyone always makes me a little nervous, but it's also a pretty cool feeling because I always know you will make new friends and have a great time!

On the last day of Rondo camp, I got off early to come pick you up and we went to the mall and had some quality time together... I can't remember the exact reason we went to the mall, but we stopped by the cookie store.. and you bought a "pizza cookie" - chocolate chip with icing like a pizza slice. We sat down to eat and took this last picture!

I love you potamus.. and am so proud of you!!!

Love, Mom

injury prone.

Dear Nick,

We are calling this the "summer of noodle injuries"...
even though you've only had 2, we think it's appropriate.

Your first incident happened the week you were "supposed" to go to soccer camp. You were going home with the Vaughns and on Tuesday you guys went over to the next door neighbors house where you decided it would be a good idea to walk on their treadmill. Unfortunately, the neighbors had a 4 year old boy who decided to hop on and turn up the speed, causing you to completely wipe out! When I picked you up I could not believe how bad it was! Your knees were all ripped up and so were the tops of your feet. I immediately knew you would not be finishing soccer camp, which bummed me out because you were having a great time... and I knew you wouldn't be wearing tennis shoes for a while. 

Once your knees and feet healed up, and you resumed our workouts at North Oldham I was relieved.. but that did not last long...

You and Janie decided to go play on the jungle gym and I heard you crying... a sound I automatically knew was real pain... you had fallen and busted your lip on a bar. I'm just so glad you didn't hurt your teeth. After some ice and a few days though, you were back to your usual handsome self.

And we've managed to get by without any more injuries. Thank goodness!!

Love, Mom

major momemt.

Dear Zach,

What a 9th Birthday celebration you had! You picked going to Slugger Field to watch baseball because all your buddies play baseball - I thought that was so nice! You all had a blast - everyone got to go on the field, and you got to throw out the first pitch! You even had your name on the big screen wishing you Happy Birthday throughout the game.

(I have an associate producer who's dad is the GM of the Bats :)

But the big surprise of the night was having a limo pick us up and take everyone home.. it took much longer than I thought but it was SOOO worth it. You had a ball!!

Happy Birthday!

Love,
Mom