Seven years after Kate led the Vermont All Stars to Delaware for the Eastern Regionals of the Little League World Series, Kater's young protege Dakota Raleigh and her Northwest teammates earned the right to represent Vermont in the Eastern Regionals, this year in Albany. Naturally, Camp Billings sent a delegation to root them on!

We saw the opening game, as the Vermont Champions took on the Rhode Island All-Stars and played them tighter than the 8-0 score indicates ... Dakota pitched well -- striking out about 10 (five in the first two innings) and only walking a few ... Vermont was a couple fielding plays from a 4-0 deficit and probably two hits away from a 4-3 final ... The Vermont girls did a lot of good things out there (Laura had a great steal, Molly threw out a runner, Summer made a great stretch for an out at 1st, etc) and their approach to the game made Vermont proud. Nice job ladies (and coaches)!

We had to "swing by UConn" to pick up Kate from her synthetic organic chemistry lab "on our way" to Albany -- but had a ball with the 15 hour, 850 mile roundtrip ... The malted milkshake was particularly sweet ... Life is good.