Feels like Spring

We made it down to Railroad Park on Saturday for about three hours.

It was another one of those days we've been enjoying around here lately ... not a cloud in the sky, temperature about 70 degrees.

Someone managed to find something to pout about around lunchtime; I think someone polished off his cookies while he was off playing in the grass. But have you ever seen him pout? Hard to take it seriously.

Nicholas, who's been polishing his skateboarding skills, wanted to do nothing but skate on the homemade ramps across the street.

Up and down, up and down, up and down he went. That kid could do that for hours. And I'm not even exaggerating.

Nathaniel isn't quite as comfortable on the skateboard, so we wised up and took his bike down there this time. He got pretty brave on the ramps with his bike.

He even took a pretty bad spill off the side of a ramp, but despite his skinned elbow and getting the wind knocked out of him, got right back up. I was really proud of him.

Sunday he had baseball practice, and it was another perfectly gorgeous afternoon. I elected to take him, because I'm trying to tell myself that the fresh air will help me feel better.

He started off with a little batting practice in the cage.

Next, they practiced fielding. The sun was shining so brightly that the boys had a hard time catching the pop flies the machine was spitting at them.

They were persistent, trying time after time to catch them.

Poor Nathaniel ... this one came down and smacked him on top of his head. The coach took him into the dugout to dry his tears ... and to tell him what he could have done differently to avoid getting hit in the head.

Within minutes, Nathaniel was back out on the field, ready to catch some grounders.

Finally they moved to home plate to hit pitches off the machine, and then we called it a day.

There are worse ways to spend an afternoon than with your tush parked on a bleacher, the sun at your back and a breeze in your face. I refuse to ruin it by talking about nausea today.