Princess Olivia



Olivia & Daniella



I have mentioned before what an amazing aunt Dan's sister Nicole is, and I really truly mean it. She has kids and family of her very own and yet she still thinks of all of her nieces and nephews too! I love my nieces and nephews as well, but I am really bad about having them all over for a play date or movie night or whatever. I always feel like a crappy aunt whenever Aunt Coco is in the vicinity! Seriously though, she is awesome. On January 17th she took Olivia and her daughter Daniella to Disney on Ice.

My grandma was so kind, she bought Liv a princess (Rapunzel) dress to wear to the show. I thought she looked beautiful. ....she thought she look beautiful too!

Daniella is several years older than Olivia but they still get along pretty well, Olivia gets along with everyone and Daniella is a go-with-the-flow kinda gal.  Nicole was not the only adult to go - she talked Dan's other sister Kaela to tag along, and so did Dan's mom (little gramma) and grandma (grandma kaye). So it was just a fun little girls night for them all.  

Nicole, Danielle, Olivia, Kaela

 Olivia even managed to come home with Mickey ears and a princess cup.

Here  is a little video of the dancing brooms from Fantasia:

In the Club

2010 has started off with a bang! We are busy - as usual, but we are actually unusually busy! At the beginning of the month Spencer was invited to be on a newly formed club baseball team, called the Raptors. When we asked Spencer if it was something he wanted to be able to do - he could hardly contain his excitement. So we threw some club baseball into the mix of weekly activities in the Linn household.

The club atmosphere has been a pretty huge adjustment for Spencer. There are so  many new rules and exciting things in club that are not allowed in Little League. It has been an adjustment to have pitchers really launching the ball, catchers being able to pick a player off, balks, big-barrel bats, and all around amazing talent - everywhere!  Not to mention a practice or two a week and a weekend or two of games a month. It is a full schedule for a kid - that is for sure.

One week, instead of a regular practice, the team went to a baseball clinic was was put on by professional players Ian Kennedy, Russ Ortiz, Ted Barrett, Barry Enright, Matt Cain and Mark Reynolds. It was Spencer's first encounter with a "celebrity" and he was pretty star-struck. I managed to get a few pictures of him getting some autographs at the end:

Mark Reynolds

Matt Cain

This last weekend (January 22 & 23) was the teams first tournament.  I think it was a bit of a shock for the boys. They were caught a little off guard by how good these teams are! We pretty much got beat down, however as the weekend progressed we got better. I really have high hopes for the team. I think we can really have a great team some day in the near future. We have another tournament this weekend (in Anthem - yikes) and I am hoping that we will be that much better!

 The team itself has been together practicing since the Fall, so they have all had a chance to play together for a while and the coaches know the players pretty well. Spencer has only had a couple of weeks with the team, so he has not had much of an opprotunity to proove himself. The coach only lets him play a couple of innings a game right now, which is frustrating him - a lot, but at this point it is for the better. His fielding is good - he is not lacking in that department, and coach has been putting him at 2nd base, and he has really taken to it. His bats - however - are what is keeping him on the bench. These kids pitch at about double the speed of regular little league and when he gets up to bat he freezes! Hopefully that will get better soon too! We will just keep practicing.

Family

For most people Christmas is a two week block of festivities. Which is totally exhausting! This year we were lucky enough to have a FULL MONTH of festivities!

 ...I am still exhausted...

The second week of December Dan's dad and step-mom came to town for a little visit. We had a lot of fun, but it was pretty hectic since the kids were still in school and Dan and myself were in the middle of finals for school. Then they left the day before winter vacation started - and then the two weeks of parties began - then as life is returning to normal Dan's little brother Cory, and his wife and two boys came into town (they are stationed in Italy for the Air Force) and so we partied it up with them for about 10 days. At some point during their stay one person had a full days rest, since we were passing around the flu.

We really had SO MUCH FUN (other than the flu part) but man oh man - I am tired and FULL! Why do we feel the need to eat so much when we are with family???

When Cory & Hayley was here we were able to get a picture of all the grand kids on the Linn side. It is pretty rare to have everyone together!