4 Bell Boys: Lamar Baseball Camp

We spent the weekend celebrating the special guys in our life! We visited Grandpa on Saturday afternoon and enjoyed a tasty lunch fresh from the grill! It was a nice afternoon with our McClenan family.

We headed home to spend the evening and then Father's Day with our Daddy! We spent Sunday at home with our favorite guy watching movies, playing homerun derby, and going for a swim at the end of the hot summer day... it was a great day with our great Dad!! We miss our Paw Paw every day, but especially on Father's Day! We were so blessed to know such an amazing man.... we just wish that we would have had the opportunity to share more of our life with him.

On Monday morning we popped out of bed up bright and early to get ready for Lamar Cardinal Baseball Camp! We were super excited to play ball at Vincent-Beck Stadium... Daddy's college field!!

We paraded into the locker room to get our camp shirts...

...and then headed into the stands to await our group assignments!

On the second day of camp, Aunt Allie had an early morning doctor's appointment so Sawyer rode with Mommy to drop us off at camp! We were happy to give Sawyer her very first glimpse of Lamar University!!

We were divided into our camp teams before we headed to the field for a camp picture! Peyton and Wilson were happy to hear their names called to be on the Astros team, Dylan was a part of the Cardinals team, and I was chosen to be on the Rangers.

Peyton was fired up to step on the field for this base running drill!

Peyton played with the big boys at camp, but he wasn't afraid to suck his thumb in between activities! After Peyton finished his turn around the bases, he stood by his big brother until it was Wilson's turn to run the bases!

While doing drills on the field, Peyton drifted over to the pitcher's mound every chance he got!

Whew... what a workout... time to move to the batting cage!!

After spending time in the cage, the Astros came out to the field for their final game. Peyton is standing on the left side of the backstop watching Fletcher at bat. He is wearing someone else's batting helmet, but he assured us that his new friend Rylan didn't mind!

On deck and in the hole, Peyton and Wilson, were preparing to hit BIG!

Wilson called his shot when he stepped up to the plate!

He was a beast behind the plate, but Wilson took it easy when he played an inning in the outfield! I guess he was conserving his energy!!

While the little boys were playing their game, Dylan's team took the field for infield drills!

After that, Dylan's team headed to the outfield for their final scrimmage. By the look of the smile on Dylan's face, I think it is safe to assume that he had a blast!

My favorite part of camp were the games that we played! I enjoyed the hitting and pitching, the fielding and base running drills, but the games were my favorite by far!!

Our final activity was a base running drill... ball on the mound and base runner has a lead off of first. As the base runner, we would watch the pitcher's initial motion to determine if he was going to pitch the ball (in that instance we would steal second) or whether the pitcher was going to pick off (then we would stay safe by running back to first). Base runners were eliminated as they made the wrong decision...

...I lasted until the end! I was happy to play until the last possible minute!! After that, it was time to head to the dugout for team introductions and camp awards!

The Astros team was the last to finish up. Those little guys loved every minute!! I noticed that Peyton was strutting casually across the field with no baseball bag in hand, while the little boy in the front of the group (Peyton's new buddy Rylan) carried his own bat bag AND pulled Peyton's along behind him. That crazy boy is working the system at a very young age!!

This has been such a fun week! We were hot and sweaty, but we had a blast playing the sport that we love on the same field that our Daddy played on as a Lamar Cardinal!!