He is Risen!

Easter Edition!

I feel like with baseball and the birthday Easter kind of snuck up on me. When I woke up on Good Friday I just laid in bed taking advantage of being off work. It then hit me how important this time of year was for me and how significant this day was. My savior, Jesus Christ, had died on the cross for me this day. I then had a little convo with God thanking him for all my blessings, but just hours later I was swept away in the activities that came along with Easter weekend. I did a little shopping for myself -you just have to get that perfect Easter outfit, right?- and I prepared for fun times with the nieces and nephew. Riley and Ava both got to stay the night with us Friday night and we had a blast. These children are wild when they’re together, but oh so much fun to watch. Being the cool, most awesome aunt there is I gave them chickens for Easter-hehehe- jokes on me though because I’m the one cleaning up after them! When we were younger every year for Easter my Grandpa would get us chickens. It is such a fun memory to have so I wanted to make sure even though he’s gone that the Easter chicken legacy still lived on in our family. They were a bit standoffish at first but soon fell in love with them. Riley came up with the clever names of Blueberry and Strawberry for them (they are pink and blue). Saturday was full of coloring eggs, hiding/hunting eggs, blowing bubbles and of course checking on ‘Strawburry’ and ‘Booburry’ periodically. 

Blueberry & Strawberry :)

Coloring their Easter eggs

It wasn’t until Easter Sunday of this three day weekend that it hit me how meaningful this holiday was to me. Not just because of its religious significance which is huge itself, but because this was one of my Grandpa’s favorite holidays; being with his family and watching his grands and great-grands having so much fun. After church we meet up for a family lunch then have a big Easter egg hunt. Once the hunt is over and the kids are counting their eggs and what not the older men (my grandpa and his brothers, mainly) would sit around and eat on the eggs that they could bribe away from the kids. My grandpa never had to do much bribing with us though; his grandkids always seemed to shower him with eggs to eat. On the way to our Easter gathering it finally sunk in how much I would miss him this day and my excitement kind of faded into sadness. It was still a fun day watching the kids chase after their eggs, but it was so tough not seeing my Grandpa sitting at the table eating eggs after it was over. Heartbreaking :(

Riley hunting eggs

Ava looked to be on a real mission!

Even baby Sadie got in on the fun!

 

Checking out their finds!

Back to my birthday. It didn't turn out as planned because I had an awful stomach virus (worse than any flu I've ever had) a few days before and ended up with a kidney infection so there was no big celebration that I had hoped for. I had to get myself healthy again. I did meet up with my friend, Sarah Beth, and her husband for a birthday dinner and we saw a band play afterwards. The following weekend was Super Bulldog Weekend so I got to see a lot of my friends there, which was nice. My coast friends say we can celebrate when I come down to visit them...bet! 

One reason I had been in the mood to do a big celebration is because I had just been having this feeling that something wasn't quite right and I wanted to have a fun time before whatever this feeling was happened. Me and my 'feelings'...ugh, they're usually not far from reality. The Monday after SBW I had my 6 month checkup. As usual I was pretty nervous, it seems the more time that goes on I get more and more nervous over these checkups. Well that 'feeling' I had reared it's ugly head. The doctor thought he felt something and assured me he thinks it's fine, BUT wants to do biopsies just to double check everything. Biopsy...one of the most hated words in my vocabulary. An EMC biopsy is one of the most painful things I've had done to me and I can assure you I am not looking forward to it plus the 'normal' biopsy he wants to do. I am grateful my doctor is on top of his game and wants to check everything. He said we have to be aggressive with my case, and that we are. All that being said I'm sure I'm fine, but your gracious prayers would be appreciated until I get the final word back :)

-Casey

America's Pastime :)

Welllll it's FINALLY here! Baseball is Back!

Umm yeaahhhhh

Still on the high of coming off such an amazing season last year, College World Series Finalist, it was hard not to be itching to be back at Dudy Noble come Opening Day. As most people know I LOVE baseball. With the recent move I don't get to enjoy Dudy Noble as much as I would like, but I am there for every home weekend series. 

My friend Darnell is lucky enough to have his birthday opening weekend for college baseball each year...almost as lucky as I am to have a birthday on opening weekend for the Atlanta Braves each year (even though they are away this year *tear*). So that's how we brought in opening weekend this year. Dudy Noble (LFL-Left Field Lounge) Friday night, more LFL Saturday and then helped Darnell celebrate his birthday. Followed by even more LFL Sunday :). That my friends is a perfect weekend. And I have to say last year was COLD....I'm talking there was snow, sleet and temps below 30 degrees all in the first month. This year so far has not brought any of that. Granted this has been the hardest, coldest winter in a long time LFL has not been unbearable so when I hear people complaining about how cold it is out there I have to bite my tongue from saying "And just where were you last year? Ugh rookies" :p

The view from LFL at night

Getting to see these faces makes these weekends even better!

Oh, how we love the LFL!

That sums it up ;)

Crawfish, baseball and beer...you can't get much better than that!

Ben makes LFL so much fun!

Enjoying a Sunday in LFL

Since I'm an awful blogger and have been sitting on this post for about 2 months now I'm going to go ahead and do one big baseball blog. The above pictures were from February and these next ones are from Super Bulldog Weekend. It is our big annual spring event that is a weekend full of all sorts of sports and events held on and around campus. This year's was kind of a big deal because we hosted our in state rival TSUN (The School Up North aka Ole Miss). We lost game 1 and game 2 was electrifying...one could say they've never experienced so many ups and downs in one game in their life, but I cannot say this because I am a Braves/MSU fan ;). I must say by the end of the game the fans seemed as exhausted as the players, as if we had been dueling on the field for 10 straight innings. We were tied at 2 by the bottom of the 9th, which meant free baseball for the record crowd on hand! Then TSUN crushed us one last time in the game with a 10th inning 2 run homer off of our star closer and went onto score a 3rd run for a 5-2 lead. Bottom of the 10th........wooooo. We got back to back doubles and a sac fly; the score at 5-4 with Big Poppa at the plate. Wes, who has been in a slump as of late and everyone had dogged all weekend long (probably more than they normally would have, but with him being my FAV why not rub it in even more to me, right?!) What did Big Poppa do?? TIED the game up with a DOUBLE. I cannot come close to describing the atmosphere at this point. Literally minutes ago we were all depressed about probably losing the series to our arch rivals and THIS happens. And as a storybook ending would go a freshman came up and delivered a walk-off single! Electrifying...I cannot come up with a better word for that moment and experience. Though we went onto lose game 3  the next day we'll never forget that game 2. We set a new attendance record of 15,586 which made the victory even sweeter.

It was a tough day haha

One of my favorite coasties

Everyone HAS to have a friend like Zack!

Some of the group playing around on the field after the amazing comeback win!

After the game was over on Saturday our crew hung around and grilled where we usually sit for the games. A big props to our beloved DX friends who are kind enough to share their establishment with us out in LFL. Most of us became friends during college and we have never lost touch. A few of the alumni hold a special place in my heart and I consider them and their families part of my own...kind of a running trend here at MSU if you haven't noticed. As the afternoon went on and the sunshine faded into darkness we were still there, basking in the glory of what had went on that day. People were randomly scattered at different rigs throughout the outfield socializing, eating, drinking and so forth. It was starting to get late and we knew we eventually had to leave so we started cleaning up. This is when I heard one of the DX alumni yell out "Hey y'all get some food". When I looked over I noticed two guys who were cleaning up the trash from the day's events stop and look surprised and excited all at the same time. Brian had offered them the rest of our AMAZING food and they quickly took some and thanked him. I looked at Brian with the biggest, cheesiest smile and said, "Doesn't that just make your heart happy?" He replied, "That's what it's all about".  And it is...these are just a few reasons I bleed Maroon and White. We are family. We experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows together and no matter what we are still there, back for more every year. There goes that big cheesy smile again ;). With only 2 more home series left I feel like the season is drawing to a close, which seems really weird after last year's season seemed to go on and on (no complaints at all). Hopefully our season will last just as long as last years, but with us as the champs instead of finalist this go around!

That's all for this one folks...more posts to come and more frequently too! Get excited...

Oooooh ONE more VERY exciting thing that happened today. Eeekkkkkkkk! To my Braves fans out there, do you remember Mark Wohlers!? I know right, how could you not! Wellll check this out:

 You can't see the blue check from that screen, but that's HIM! :)

-Casey