Tennis Time for Lauren!

As soon as Lauren turned 3 years old, I began looking into tennis lessons.  Our local Parks and Recreation Department has a tennis class for children ages 3-5, so I signed her up!

But this class was not Lauren's first experience with tennis.  Grandpa, Aunt B and I took her out to the courts when she was 18 months old.  She was more interested in running around the courts, but she did attempt to pick up a racket and give it a swing!

                     

Also, Grandpa, Mee-maw, Aunt B, Kevin and I recently took her out a few months ago.  Once again, she was more interested in running around, and she made a great ball girl!  She was also a great cheerleader as she watched the rest of us play.  It had been a while since I played tennis (last time was when we took her out around 18 months old).  I strapped Charlie into the Bjorn, picked up my racket and had a great time.  It truly is a sport you can pick up and play after a long break!

Eventually we wore her out.  She tried to go to sleep on the side of the tennis court and we knew it was time to go home.

                     

On July 1st, Lauren had her first tennis class.  Chad ended up taking her because I had court and they started off indoors.  They met in the racquetball court at the local parks and rec department, did agility skills and learned how to swing the racket.

After two classes, we moved outside to the tennis courts.  This was a class that involved parent participation, so I had to strap Charlie into the Bjorn (again) and help Lauren go through the drills.  She always did really good the first half of the class, but fizzled out the second half.  She would usually get hot and just wanted to sit down in the shade.

Last week, I had a little help when Grumpa, Grammy and Chad came along to watch.  Chad and Grumpa took turns going through the drills with Lauren.  I am so happy I captured these photos for two reasons.  First, I captured the moment when Lauren was hot and done with the class.  Second, I have a photo of Grumpa on the tennis court and he is NOT playing full contact tennis!!  =)

I know this post is about Lauren's tennis lessons, but I also wanted to briefly talk about the following photo.  Charlie has been a bystander through all of his big sister's classes and I really wanted to try to get a photo of him hanging out in his carseat on the side of the court.  One of my favorite baby photos, of me, is when I was hanging out on the side of a tennis court while my parents played tennis.  Actually, many of my favorite childhood memories come from playing around tennis courts while my parents played.  So I thought it would be cute to try to recreate my baby photo.  Charlie did not agree.

I guess I will just have to wait a few years, capture photos of Charlie at his first tennis lesson and compare them to Lauren!  And I cannot wait!!

2014 Getting Summered Beach Trip

Once again, we planned a long weekend in July to meet up with our friends for our annual beach trip.  This year we were joined by the Shafers, the Levys and John Albers.  This trip is something we look forward to all year and we keep adding more and more children!  Soon they are going to out number the adults!!

This year, we met in Ocean City, from July 4 - July 7, in the Sunset Island community.  We actually rented the exact same house from last year and settled in pretty quickly.  Chad, Lauren, Charlie and I shared the master bedroom.  Lauren had a great little cot and sleeping bag and Charlie slept in a pack n play in the large walk in closet.  It was perfect because we could shut the door to give him some more peace and quiet.

We love this community because it has nice rental houses, a large pool, a private bayside beach area, drink service, and it is still in walking distance to shops, grocery stores and the beach.  Plus, there was a Sweet Frog Frozen Yogurt shop right outside the gated entrance.

And it is always a sign of an awesome trip when your 3 year old is ready for bed around 5:30 every evening.  The first night, Lauren did not even want to eat dinner.  All she wanted to do was head upstairs and go to bed in her new cot/sleeping bag.

This year, we tried to get in some good beach time.  Charlie is still too young to spend much time out in the sun (can't wear sunscreen yet), so we had to keep him under the shade of an umbrella.  I sat next to him, on the beach, and Chad spent most of his time in the water with Lauren.  She enjoyed playing with her beach toys, tried balancing on her boogie board, and went for a little ride with E, on the paddle board.  

We did get a few family photos and Charlie even got to dip his toes in the water.  He got hot easily and soon the crankiness set in.  Cooling off in the water seemed to calm him down.

The rest of the time, we hung out at the rental house.  The kids had fun playing on the big porch on the front of the house and everyone loved spending time with Charlie, when he wasn't crying.  Lauren did not eat her dinner, on July 5th, so she did not get to go down to the beach to watch the fireworks.  But, we allowed her to eat by herself and she got to watch some of the fireworks from the front porch with Chad, Roy, John and I.  

                               

Lauren continued to pass out every evening around 5:30 pm.  The sun and fun really seemed to wear her out, and she was always happy for a little family sleep/cuddle time the next morning.  

On our last morning at the rental house, we made sure to capture a photo of all of the kiddos together.  It will be a lot of fun to watch them get older through the years, and yes I hope to continue this photo tradition until they are adults!!  

We capped off our trip with a group stroll along the boardwalk.  It was not very crowded at 10 am, and I enjoyed showing Lauren the candy store where I worked one summer in college.  Getting to stock up on chocolate covered pretzels and fudge was an added bonus!

The Levys are soon expecting twins, which will put the total count at adults - approx. 6 or 7/kids - 7.  It is officially time to upgrade to a larger rental house and hopefully to a longer period of vacation time.  Once we move in everything we need for ourselves and all of the kids, it makes sense to stay a little while.  Here is hoping we can swing a week in the Outer Banks next year.