Chance's tennis tournament yesterday

Yesterday Chance played in his first tennis tournament over at Windward. There are very few tennis tournaments for 8 & under, but we were lucky that the Windward tennis center had one only a few miles away. The USTA is rolling out a program called QuickStart for younger kids that shrinks the court and makes the game more enjoyable to learn. There is actually some debate about it from parents with a more traditional background in tennis, but the reality is that kids in the USA have a lot of choices in activities and a game that is difficult to learn is not going to be something that grows in interest for kids. Chance is kind of stuck in the middle of the situation because his pre-academy program uses the regular balls on the full size courts, even though USTA looks like they are going to mandate the QuickStart program for 8 & under and 10&under ages. The good thing is that he learned on the slower bounce balls and it is generally easier to flip back to the slower, smaller stuff. His comments about it in the video really do seem to back up what USTA pushes.

I was a bit disappointed that Windward didn't promote the program more, but do realize that they already have established a great program for young kids with their clinics and pre-academy so they have to walk a delicate balance. The director said he talked it up to the parents but the pre-academy didn't promote anything aobut it - I just stumbled across the tournament on the USTA site. Anyway, 6 kids were in the "tournament". The format was round robin and the only awards were certificates of participation. The idea is to make it fun and not send anyone home in the first round - you get 3 matches minimum. They play best 2 out of 3 sets, but a set consist of 7 points with 6-all = sudden death point. I was surprised that they didn't use the regular courts since you rotate the back portion of one side of a regular court by 90 degrees in order to make the smaller court for 8 & under. They striped off a flat section of the parking lot with green lines that are hard to see on the video, so the actual situation was better than it looked. They let the kids play with the larger size racquests than 23in so with allowing serves anywhere in the court this gave some perhaps unreasonable advantage that kept the points short sometimes, but overall it stil worked out well enough. Of course, I didn't have the camera rolling during the best points, but got about 8 minutes of highlights pulled together including a pre- and post- interview. I really liked his comments at the end about sportsmanship and it was interesting that he really enjoyed the different more kid-friendly environment. Here it is - what do you think?

Fun day with the kids

I'll add more about the tennis later. Here are a couple of pictures taken. The movie file highlights are still processing.

We also met up with Sara and her friend Laurie at Touch-a-truck and the boys enjoyed seeing the huge trucks, sitting in them, and honking their horns.




It was mid-to upper 80's today so the squirt guns came out and kids in the neighborhood took to hand-to-hand combat. But kids, don't mess with Mr. Whitney...




Here is a short clip just before I took a shot right in the face with the water spray...

Learning how to parent - the sleeping challenge

Well, most of you know 4yr old Jack and his amazing, unique personality. This boy requires a 180 degrees different parenting approach. Last night when we were at small group (actually, Sara was at a special dinner with her mom at our old church), I got a text from the babysitter saying that Jack refuses to go to sleep and what to do. I texted that she should just relax and have fun with him and just mention that she would be telling his parents. So we get home and Jack refuses to go to sleep. Now the direct approach with Jack is like hitting a brick wall. He will show you who can be stubborn. (this may be passed down trait from his dad's grandmother - not me of course ;-) We'll, I figure maybe the 2 hour naps at school are just plenty of sleep so let's let him stay up. At 11 we explain to him we are going to be but he will need to stay in his room, the house alarm will be on, and not to bother us since we are going to bed. This was the first time we tried this approach, figuring maybe he can just learn the hard way. A friend of mine said this worked with his kids, so why not try it? We don't know what time Jack went to bed, but this morning I must admit some sad delight in waking Jack up to go to school. Most of you know that if Jack is not sound asleep, he is moving around everywhere - a bottle of energy. We'll as the boys sat at the bar for breakfast, Jack decided to use his time there to try to catch up on whatever sleep he could reach for. So unlike the time when I grew up, the convenience of a flip video camera is just too tempting not to use in hopes that somehow at some point - probably not right now - that showing him the video may actually teach him. (of course, why shouldn't it also teach his dad and we know I don't practice what I preach sometimes.) So here is the video - Chance sure didn't want to spit his answer out to start. Ok, any opinions/advice on this are more than welcome and no offense taken. Did we screw it up last night?

A huge day on the flats...

well, with basketball over and football long gone, today was a rare spring day to get a taste of the Ga Tech world with the pi mile 3.14 road race and annual T-day spring football game. First, today marks the retirement of Chance from being eligible to be pushed in the baby jogger. Even with the settings as loose as could be, he wasn't even close to fitting in there with the straps on. Both he and Jack had to ride without seatbelt straps. Second, the added weight (and he's small size for his age) was a huge difference compared to past days of doing this. So with that he can run himself next year. Here are some videos. (the whistle blowing and race start is a Facebook exclusive though.)

Here are some pictures of a few of the top players on the Tech team. All of the players were great and very nice to oblige folks who wanted autographs and pictures: (Chance's picture with Tech QB Josh Nesbitt is on Facebook.)

Safety - Morgan Burnett

Quarterback Jaybo Shaw (very nice, polite kid):

Running back Jonathan Dwyer

Rob and West Laurens High School (Dublin, GA) product - wide receiver Demarious "Bay Bay" Thomas. Very nice kids with a huge Jesus tatoo on his left arm. West Laurens was in Vidalia High School's subregion.

Chance and BayBay

Also, I toured the Tech Campus Recreation Center (CRC) for the first time today with the boys and was most impressed. Here are several video shots of the place. Maybe kind of boring but this Flip Video thing is just too convenient not to.

Late picture addition - Jack & Rob at Tanglewood farms for birthday

Picture of the birthday party courtesy of Jim Knight. Didn't realize my supposed beard was getting distinctively grey :-( But at least Jack is looking happy :-)

Easter 2009 short videos

Eating some great cooking from Grandma Betty...


An Easter egg hunt...


And the day would not be complete without the classic kids Easter picture...

Jack Easter party at school

Here are a couple pictures from Jack's new school Easter party last Friday. The school is working out pretty well and his new teacher is absolutely great!

Chance and the easter chick

Our friends Rob & Jan MacGregor and their girls decided to come to Roswell today for a free giveaway of baby chicks. So I took Chance and helped out with getting some extra ones for their new flock. Here is a brief video of Chance with one of the chicks. We got 90% of the fun from them with only 10% of the effort - although it was tempting to bring one home just to see the look on the neighbors and Sara's face.

Better videos of the performance last night posted on YouTube

Here are better videos taken by folks with closer seats:
Jesus Messiah


I Will Rise in HD

Other things to do with boys during the rain

Take them to the mall and get a nice Easter picture. The Easter Bunny was a bit too pricey this time so we did the cheap option and came up with a highly accurate set of photos to reflect life with a 6 and 4 yr old...

Indoor tennis to find some outdoor time

With the near constant rains over the last several weeks - good for the lake - we finally came up with the concept of an indoor tennis court with the sponge tennis ball.

Jack's "new" leapster

Apparently Chance may have come close to outgrowing the Leapster so in some sort of switch trick he has a new device while Jack has unknowingly received a "new" leapster for his birthday. Here is a nice clip of Chance trying to help Jack out...

Tennis with Chance

I shot some video of Chance working on his serve the other day. Maybe Grandpa Phillips can offer some tips as a virtual coach...

Kids - go ahead - make his day

Chance's soccer team - first game

Last year Chance ended up playing baseball so he is now getting back to soccer after a 2 year break. Fortunately, his friend Thomas' dad Craig is a great soccer coach that can give him great direction and has returned a veteran team. Unfortunately, the video camera locked up during the 1st game sequence and I couldn't get anything else to record except the pre-game pictures and interview with the coach. But the coaching tendem of Craig and Beth turned in great 1st game results - congratulations to them! (Coach Craig is also a long time friend so he tends to be an especially good sport when I flip it to him.)
Team picture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or6yvhOuX3U
Coach Craig - post-team picture and pre-game interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXjSD9K6v0k

March 21 - Jack's birthday weekend - trip to Tanglewood farms

About 30 minutes away there is an animal farm that does a great job of putting on birthday parties for kids. Jack had his 4th birthday party there this past weekend.
With the Flip Video recorder, here are several videos taken with a short label for any of you who may be looking for your kid in particular and want to avoid wading through all of them.

Kelvin's family interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOxo4K7rERg

Jack pre-party interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWmORqzY7I

Birthday party getting started - Rachel enjoying interview with Matthew and Andrew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX0SO1yHi4w

Kickoff with the birthday boy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0odhqIr_cmY

Here is Jack with the cowbell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PK6vF_sQGo

To let the kids know that it was time to move on to the next section of the farm, they rang a cowbell. Of course, sometimes the kids were not responsive enough so what did they need to do? We need more cowbell...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn7giLS52I8
In case you don't get it, here is a YouTube clip of the famous SNL skit on Don't Fear the Reaper where they need more cowbell. Copyright police have yanked the full version unfortunately.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mie9hhQTUM

Here are the kids with the sheep:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBHsJ-P3OAM

Here cousin Callie enjoys meeting the llama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Ppo8KuQVk

Here are the kids with the minature Jersey cows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90BSYIVdkE

Here is Carter's mom sporting her nice matching jacket to go with the farm scenery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc0bSKjSlEU

Sam Kinney and Jackson "Beckham" Morgan ride the pony:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOrvnHCaLPU

Jack P. refuses to ride the pony (since his parents asked him)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWMYtNdBlRU

Matthew Bak and Chance ride the pony:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujAaFinnNPc

Thanks to Laurie, Jack agrees to ride the pony with Andrew Bak:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9p2VB2M3TE

The cake & happy birthday Jack video link is posted exclusively on Facebook.

GA 529 plan for kids college savings

Somehow I missed the fact that in 2007 governor Sonny Perdue changed the income restrictions on getting a tax deduction for 529 plan contributions in Georgia. It is actually still possible to make a contribution now for tax year 2008 if you haven't already filed your taxes. You can deduct up to $2,000 per contribution per beneficiary from Ga taxes. Here is the web site, but if you want to do the 2008 contribution it says you need to call them at the phone # listed.

Jack learns to spell Daddy and sings Baby Beluga

A little bit more facetime for Jack...

Here is Jack learning to spell Daddy and demonstrating his chalkboard writing technique...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWzYRKrGJEY

Now Jack learns to spell the word Help from a bedtime story book...



Jack sings Baby Beluga without realizing he has an audience...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGplI9t3KIE

More snow tubing trip videos

Here are the rest of the videos. If you have enough bandwidth to prevent it from freezing, you can click the HD link at the bottom right (after first expanding to full screen) to watch it in high definition streaming.


st6 after mining kids interview


learning about gems


eating boiled peanuts


waterfall - part 1


waterfall part 2 - Chance shows up but still no Jack


watching return of the jedi


trying to find snow tubing somewhere


first run


jack's first run


mar mar's first run - interview


Jack interview on conveyor belt


Chance goes down


Gray post-wipeout interview


meg's family goes down


Chance & Sara "lost" interview


Note: "You can get one more run" is posted on Facebook separately

trip videos from snow tubing, etc

last night I uploaded a clip from the snow tubing to facebook. here is the full set of videos taken for those who actually have time to go through. actually, the multi-upload plug in with gears on youtube didn't work, so there is the standard upload which you can queue with up to 10 videos so you can leave the PC to take care of the uploading. Here is the pre-snow tubing video set:

(Warning - unless you are the actual participants in the video or their grandparents, you will probably not want to go through all these.)

Mcdonalds


Carolina basketball fanatic taunts Tech fans watching their basketball victory yesterday ... reminder that Tyler Hansborough is a senior...


Getting ready to go to the gem mining:


Since sara and meg missed this event, here is some extra mining footage:


and more gem mining footage:


More to come, but the browser was accidently closed on upload.