Laura Vegas

going into blog journal mode for today's post. joe has been umpiring now for 3 years … or maybe it's 4 years. one or the other. and yet i've never taken a photo of him or seen him in action. it's a big part of who he is … and yet i've never really documented it.

he works the high school baseball games in the area for their season … usually about 3-4 games a week. and then he works some of the other babe ruth leaques after that. for the first few years, he did all JV games. which he loved. those are just one umpire … so he was all on his own. this year he started doing varisty games more. so he teams up with another umpire. he gets in touch with whoever else was assigned to the game … and they would coordinate who was going to cover the bases and who would do the plate. they also would coordinate what color shirt they were going to wear. which for some reason, i find ammusing. "what are YOU going to wear?". lol!

they also required very shiny shoes … or least, joe does. which is why these 2 pairs of shoes have been on the floor in the garage for the last few months. he shines them after every single game. guess it makes them look more professional. but then they go out on the field and they get dirty again. but for a few minutes before the game … they're as shiny as can be!

i kept telling him that i needed a picture of him in all his gear. he never puts it on at the house … he does it at the field when he gets to the games. most of the games are close by … so i'm not sure why we never have gone to watch him in action. last weekend, sarah and i were out running some errands and were in the area … so we stopped to find him. we were actually parked out on the street, trying to determine which of the two fields he was on. in all the gear, facemask, etc … it's sort of hard to tell. the game ended a few minutes after we got there … so we only got to see him for about an inning. i actually took this picture really quick when he walked out to the street … just took it out the car window. wish i had gotten one of him actually working homeplate.

i'm glad he has something like this that he loves to do … and is good at. and it's a nice side-job to make some extra cash, which is always nice. i have my scrapbooking side-job … and he has his umpiring. and just a totally random fact that i thought of. between the two of us, and all the extra cash we made on both our side-jobs last month … all the money ended up going towards our old car. it was in the shop twice. so we worked all month to pay for the car. hate that. anyways, i digress. i know keeping this schedule is tiring for him too. he works nights … and then comes home to sleep. gets up early and goes to umpire. and then comes home, eats, and takes a short nap. before doing it all again.

and during these few months … these golf clubs end up getting sadly neglected. lol! that's another thing he tells me i need to get photos of … him on the golf course. i really doubt you're going to find me walking 18 holes just to get a few pictures. lol! i'll leave that to him and my brother to take care of :)