This Is It

We are in full countdown mode here for Kevin and Christopher to depart for Australia early tomorrow morning.  Lots of planning, organizing and packing!  Since I am not going, I am trying to prepare for every possible situation that they might find themselves in and pack accordingly.  Christopher's team had their last practice yesterday afternoon and everyone looks good. There are three Bangkok teams going - a Minors Team (13 & Under), a Majors Team (15 & Under) and a Seniors Team (18 and Under). The tournament is called the SouthEast Asia Youth Baseball Softball Tournament (SEAYBST) and our teams will be competing against teams from Singapore, Australia, Jakarta and Manila. There have been some scouting reports emailed back and forth between our coaches but I don't think our teams will really know for sure what they are up against until the games actually begin.  And, even then, the competition can change so quickly from game to game.  It is the baseball version of "any given Sunday".  The boys have been practicing together since before Christmas and work well together as a team.  We have 4 very good pitchers, 4 good pitchers and almost everyone hits very well.  Hopefully, everyone will have their game on this week and the team will do well!  (P.S.  It is no coincidence that Christopher and Eli Manning share the same jersey #.  That is what happens when you let your mom do the picking!).

Caitlynne and I will have a few quiet days while the boys are away.  Her school softball team has two away games this week and she also has a babysitting job one evening.  I have a lot of errands to run and am going to try and visit Say Jon (more on that below) on Wednesday as I will be unable to go on Friday.  

We FINALLY have a new laptop so I will set that up (without plugging it into the wall socket!) and have the recovered files from the "exploded" computer transferred over.  I ordered the laptop from Dell the first week in February but, unbeknownst to us, products with batteries cannot be sent via APO/diplomatic pouch.  However, no one bothered to tell us that our laptop was received by the APO/diplomatic pouch but was then sent back to Dell because of the battery issue. So, we were waiting (rather impatiently) for almost 7 weeks for something that was never going to arrive.  Last week, we finally figured out that the laptop wasn't coming and confirmed the refund to our credit card.  Fortunately, Kevin was in Japan on travel and saw the same laptop I originally ordered - but for $300 less! Obviously, he bought it and it was in our home Friday morning.  Yay!  I hope all of the recovered data and files will transfer over to the new laptop and I can pick up where I left off (blog, photos, music, etc.). The exploded computer used "Vista" which frustrated the heck out of me at least once every day (The.Worst.Program.Ever.).  Vista is incompatible with pretty much every program out there and it was a nightmare for me to send/receive files. The new laptop has Windows 10 and, since I have had an increase consulting work & projects over the last 6-8 weeks, it will be nice to have a system that I am familiar with and that is easy to use.  

I was assigned a new baby to care for this morning at the Babies Home.  I had planned to look after another volunteer's baby girl for two weeks but a lot of the children (and she was one) received vaccines yesterday and were off limits today. Since she was unavailable, the coordinator took me to meet my new baby.  

His name is Say Jon and he was born on November 14, 2011 so definitely still a baby (and I confirmed early on that he was indeed a he).  He had very little head control and is a couple of months  away from being able to sit up by himself.  He was very serious for the first 45 minutes we were together and just looked at me with these big brown eyes. He wanted to cuddle a bit and then we played "So Big" and "Airplane" and he began to smile. He even made a few little squeals when I held him up over my head. By the time I took him back to the nursery, he would smile whenever I touched his cheek or smiled at him.  All of our playing tired him out and he took a snooze on my lap.

So cute!  I hope this little guy is around for a while!

Have a great Monday!