"When Life Throw You Lemons, Make Lemonade"

The Lemons:

Well i'm sad to report that Ryder and I are still in Cape Cod, and Derrik is still out in Arizona rehabbing. When Ryder and I left over a month ago we never anticipated that we would be apart for this long. The time frame we were given, after Derrik's surgery, for Derrik to be back with a team was the beginning of May until the end of June. We waited until he started throwing in games again to make sure he felt fine, and then packed our bags and headed to my parents with the anticipation that a move would be made in days or at the most a few weeks. I've learned in the baseball world to never anticipate anything!!! As I write this today I have not seen my husband in a month and two days.

Ryder and I are truly enjoying ourselves with my family, but that doesn't matter because we miss our hubby and daddy so so much! Derrik on the other hand is at the baseball field every day, dealing with temperatures well above one hundred degrees, and had to move AGAIN! The owner of the house the guys he moved in with wouldn't renew the lease after the first of this month. Thank God Derrik had been doing baseball lessons for a boy with a really sweet family who has taken him and all our stuff in until he is with a team again.

Derrik's arm feels great. He threw back to back days this week for the first time, and did amazing in both games. We were beyond fustrated that he was still in rehab, and were not getting any answers as to when he would be sent with a team or what he needed to do different. Finally on Friday we got some answers and are trying to feel at peace with them. The Reds have basically said that have not put Derrik on the back burner. They have told us they value him as a player very highly and want to protect him until they feel he is at the best of his ability so he can do good things for them in the future. His velocity when he started pitching in games was the low 80s, for the past two weeks hes been steady at 85, and just Friday hit 86! Only a little further to go and he'll be back where he was, but they don't want Derrik to push himself so that takes time. That still leaves our family on seperate sides of the country with an indefinate timeline on when we will be together again.

The Lemonade:

With the minor league draft coming up the rehab and extended spring training guys out in Arizona get next Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off! Yes, you heard me right... FOUR FULL DAYS OFF! We bought Derrik a ticket to fly out Wednesday afternoon, and he is with us until Sunday afternoon. I seriously feel like Christmas is coming this week!!! By the time Derrik gets here this week I will have not seen him for five weeks and one days which beats our all time high of five weeks apart when we first meet and were dating. To say I am excited to see Derrik doesn't even do it justice!

We live on Cape Cod, which is known for it's amazing beaches and amazing summers! Unfortunately whenever we are here as a family it is freezing and snow is on the ground. The only time we've ever been able to spend summer time together was the amazing summer we met... seriously amazing enough I feel like you could write a movie! It was the best summer of my life! This week we will get to share that again... with Ryder! We are going to soak up all the family-time-on-Cape-Cod-Mini-Vacation time we can this week!!!

"When life throws you lemons, make lemonade"