Yokosuka Summer Camp - Continued

 Week Two

Practicing running bases

This was Mackenzie's second week of summer camp.  Sport on deck:  Softball!!  I was afraid that the longer into summer we went, the hotter and more miserable the two hours of sports would be for us.  But, this week turned out to be quite a nice week.  It was partly sunny all week, except Thursday was mostly cloudy, and I think we had a slight breeze all week, which made it much easier to be out there.

We saw this Marine and about
20 of his closest friends
walking down our street
when we were leaving
Monday morning.

Playing with Play-Do while watching Sis

Anywho....Mackenzie was quite excited to find out she would have all the same coaches for softball that she did in soccer.  We arrived a few minutes before 9 Monday and the coaches unlocked the gate to let everyone onto the field.  (The coaches didn't seem to be as excited to be there before camp started as they were the very first week of camps, two weeks ago.  Maybe it was the heat...maybe it was because they were just as uneasy about coaching some of the wild kids they'd seen over and over, and had to chase all over the field over and over, maybe it was the tantrums they could expect...aahh...kids!).


So, after a 25 minute warm up the huge group of 40 kids broke up into five smaller groups and then headed off to their designated stations.  Mackenzie's first station was running the bases.  They learned to run through first base and that they had to stay on the base at second.  They ran around those bases for thirty minutes!  They really seemed to love playing cat and mouse....a group of four kids (mice) would start at home and run the bases.  When they got halfway between home and first the cat would start running and the cat would try to tag all the mice before they got to home plate.

Burying Iron Man and Spiderman in the volleyball sand

The second station was catching a ball and throwing it back.  The coach would roll the ball to the kids and they tossed it back.  Mackenzie kept throwing underhanded, so that night we worked on an overhand throw.  The final station was hitting a ball on a T.  I took a few pictures here and then Garytt was begging me to take a walk.  I think the last forty-five minutes or so of this day they spent playing games.

We were lucky enough to get an awesome view of a USAF helicopter flying over the field to land over by Daddy's work.  Garytt said this was the coolest moment of the day.

 After practice we ran down to our park and had a good game of ball in the yard.  We all ended up with a million bug bites, but had a LOT of fun!

Day three...Daddy was able to take a little time off work and watch.  She was so excited!  He got to watch her play a little game for about thirty minutes.

While she played Tuesday and Wednesday, Garytt put in a lot of scooter practice.  He's getting pretty fast on that thing now....needs to get better at using the brake (and might need new shoes with more rubber on the toe and heel now).

Our final day was moved out to Briggs Bay ball fields because another group had reserved the other ball field a few weeks ago.  Since I knew Garytt and I might have this huge field to ourselves, I packed up or sports bag with stuff for Garytt and I to do while Mackenzie played.  First, we hit balls off the T.  Then we practiced throwing the baseball.  Then, we practiced throwing a football.  I kicked the ball way up into the air for Garytt to chase down.  We played soccer.  We practiced kicking goals.  Just a fun time for just the two of us!  :)

 That took about an hour and then he was ready to take a walk.  Where we met some spectators to the softball training....eek!  about 11 seahawks hanging out on the fence.  At the end of our walk, Garytt found his friend Aiya.  They ran around in the weeds with a net and butterfly box. They caught two butterflies.

 This was another successful week of sports for Miss Mackenzie!  Her coaches were awesome again! I give them five stars for being able to put up with all of the chaos that goes along with 5-8 year old kids.

Next week....Art camp.  That will be our last week of camp until VBS in August.