The Key is Efficiency and Multi-Tasking

The last 48 hours have been a whirl wind. Here I go at trying to explain how to make the most of the last two days with your best friend when she is only visiting for a week (I am running on a solid 4 hours of sleep.)

Saturday morning we got up early as usual and went to eat Kings breakfast burritos because it was on V's list of things to do while here at the Ridge. Kings is right across the street from CSUN so I took the opportunity to show her the school, the softball field, and we watched Nina play a little tennis. From there, we got on the road to Beverly Hills to do some touristy stuff and be in the same neighborhood as IH's softball game.

On the way to the game, we spotted the Mormon Temple in West LA so we pulled over and toured the grounds. This temple isn't as cool as the one in San Diego, but we were still able to take some funny pictures. Above is V imitating the angle Moroni (gold thing on top of the roof) who is pointing to Salt Lake City.

From there we went to Sprinkles in Beverly Hills and grabbed some pre-game cupcakes and coffee. It was a 15 min wait in line but totally worth it.

In the Championship game of the St. Monica Invitational, Immaculate Heart faced Marlborough High School, our rival school who also plays in the Sunshine League. Let me tell you, this game was amazing.
V volunteered to keep score for my team and also volunteer to work the score board for the entire field. V really enjoyed sitting with the parents and got to know the girls during the week and I could tell she felt apart of the IH community even though she was only with us for a week. I think this shows how special Immaculate Heart is.

Anyway... about the game. WOW. IH played their hearts out, even though we lost 4-3. We were ahead the entire game 3-1 until the 5th inning when Marlborough scored 2 runs on errors. Such a bummer. The girls were hitting balls in the gaps and in our last ups as the home team, we showed our young age and tried to swing for the fence instead of swinging for base hits.

However, my catcher Maeve did hit a homerun to center field and that was incredibly exciting. I was so excited while waving her home I think I pulled a muscle in my chest because my peck has been hurting all day. Ha.
After a hard fought battle, IH came in 2nd place in the tournament. All the girls received medals and we got a trophy. They were bummed out that they lost, but then the loss didn't hurt as bad because we all knew how close the game was and how much effort they put out on the field.

Coach Brett and I were disappointed with 2nd place after the game. We thought we could have won. I have decided that I am going to bring the 2nd place trophy to every practice to remind the girls how we felt after losing in the championship and how hard we need to work to come in first next year and this year in our league.

After the game most of the team went out to dinner together. We had a good time just hanging out. On the field I am Coach Claire to my players but at dinner it was nice to have a chance to be just Claire and talk and laugh about things other than softball.

V and I left dinner a few min early because we had plans to meet Benz that night for her last night in the US. Benz is going to play softball in Holland for two months and I wanted to go to her going away party.
The girls gave V a huge group hug as we left the restaurant because they will probably not see her again this year.

We met Benz and her friends at a country bar and it was really cool because they had line dancing! Everyone knew the dances already and were totally in sync, but that didn't stop V and I from making a fool of ourselves on the dance floor.
Benz took this funny picture of us. Typical.

After getting home late on Saturday night and living through the time change, V and I woke up early to go to Bruiser practice.

Today was sliding day so I wore my softball pants and socks so I could demonstrate. The whole time I was showing how to slide feet first into the bag, I was thinking "Don't get hurt, Don't get hurt."
V took a lot of funny sliding pictures. Here is one of my favorites.

From practice we went home to shower quickly and got on the road again. Last min shopping and then we went to UCLA and the Westwood area. We kind of stumbled across the La Brea Tar Pits so we got out of the car and had an "educational experience" of the week.

The tar pit smelled and I was surprised that it is still bubbling!

The tar pits are right next to the LA County Art Museum (LACMA). LACMA is a cool place for picture taking. Below we are posed in front of a piece of the Berlin Wall... kind of confusing considering we are in LA....
Our maturity level is high in this picture.

In front of the museum are a famous patch of lamp posts. I had seen them many times in movies and I was excited to get to take pictures there too, finally!

Great week. Tons of fun in between tons of softball, but the balance was awesome and I officially need to catch up on sleep. V and I figured we would sleep when we die though, right? I don't want her to leave! Tomorrow we will officially have to say "see you later" but both of us are definitely not ready.