yesterday's tubing and Sara's teeth

Here are a few pictures and video from the annual tubing adventure to Helen, GA. Also, check out Sara's new teeth without braces! They look great!

Jack "working out" at the Touch Air gym

Picture of Jack from field trip on Friday - he told me how he was working out like dad does

Chance comes off the plane video

Disadvantages of using the carry on suitcase as a child transport method through the airport

Jack had about enough of walking through the airport to pick up Chance today, so an attempted compromise was to let him "ride" on the carry on suitcase while rolled back through the terminal. Doesn't always work so well...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrGQ6_NwJo8

other things not to let your kid do - running down the moving sidewalk...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqLhf2Qv1T8

the kid just went nuts there with all the open space. Just to note, we have adjusted Jack's understanding of what is acceptable at the airport.

Chance postcard from DC trip

the picture...

courtesy of Uncle Marc

and the video...

Chance takes off for DC

a week with Aunt Sara and her family for Chance's world tour...

Chance plays QuickStart on clay

Chance got to try playing on clay last week in another Quickstart tournament. Here is one of the best points from it.

Big Canoe Concert last night with Sara's family

Nice concert event at Big Canoe

A few catch up videos / pictures

Summer is here and sailing is great

Chance's posted scores from Monday's tournament

I knew he was in the hunt for each of the matches, but since I court monitored other kids matches did not realize just how close. The first match score actually was 6-6 in the 3rd. Congratulations to Chance even though the final points didn't fall for him this time:

Co-ed 8 Singles
RR daniel thorne d. Kyle Phillips 7-1; 5-7; 7-5
RR Robert Bauer d. Kyle Phillips 7-6; 5-7; 7-6
RR Rachel Korn d. Kyle Phillips 6-7; 7-5; 7-6

Saturday sailing - 1st sail of 2009

Saturday marked the first time we sailed with Jack and Chance now 4 & 6 yrs old respectively. This was by far the easiest, most relaxing sail that we've had with the boys as they now are able to do a lot of their own things and also even help with some of the work that needs to be done. See Facebook for some still photos.

Chance tennis tournament at RCOS

Another QuickStart tournament for Chance today and this was a very well run event. They actually have dedicated 36' courts just for the 8 & under group. Here is one of just a couple clips that I took today. Chance took a game in each of his 3 matches (they play best 2 out of 3 7-point games) It was a round robin format which was a good thing and I agreed to be a parent monitor of other kids matches during the event so missed a good bit of Chances. I'll let you see if you can figure out from the video what the issue here is. (I let it go.)

Last day of school water ambush

Here are a few pictures. For the 2 minute video, you will need to go to the Park Brooke group on Facebook or go to my profile on Facebook.

Tennis rally

Just stumbled across this but worth watching a great tennis rally...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8396692247382607460&hl=en


and while I'm at it, for some humor here is the classic Allen Iverson press conference talking about practice...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUYjD7A75HQ

End of Windward's Pre-Academy tennis spring season

Here is a brief clip from the last session.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpWjUNqDi_4

Also, since we got rained out most of the weekend, here is a clip from the indoor court...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emCWaYU8Zx4

Another jam packed Saturday

Craziness today - packed stuff for garage sale at our friends house in Windward. Sara made some good money but a lot didn't sell that we had hoped to get rid of - she nixed my suggestion to donate; oh well, we'll do something with it. Chance had his last soccer game of the season and here are some pics /videos, including the team party. Then on to his friend Britton's Star Wars party at his house. The surprise for me was that I could drop him off and come back and pick him up. That's a great thing now to have 2 unplanned hours open up with no kid responsibilities. So called Aunt Helen to catch up and went to Publix. Then a 20 minute power rest and it was time to pick him up. He had a blast at the party and we talked about how short sighted he had been with his comments going over there. Next we had Jackson and Brooke's party which was at a jumping place, so he got to get worn out there. Anyway, congratulations to Coach Craig who did a great job with the team this season and also Chance who made great improvements after staying out of soccer for a couple years.






Hayden's goal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPcLxv96tug

Chance's soccer playing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vstNU-Kn_FY

Coach Craig interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vstNU-Kn_FY

Interview of Thomas and Chance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXs6WQBy0pU

Chance's pre-academy program

Chance attends Windwards pre-academy tennis program every Friday from 4:30 - 6:30. I'm actually amazed that after a grueling week of school and other activities, he is able to focus even as well as he has at it - certainly he gets distracted by caterpillers and previously hit balls and friends clowing around. But overall he does pretty well, especially when they split the groups into a competition. So today they split the 2 youngest groups of kids up against each other. Now one thing about a 2 hour tennis session is that it is pretty grueling to watch even for the most die hard parents. So sara drops Chance off and I pick him up, getting there early when I can. But I don't think I can watch 2 hours straight. The blackberry helps. Anyway, another fun toy is the flip video so since I'm watching I find it entertaining to pull it out and film. I was really pleased to watch Chance's play today and he is really enjoying it still. Here are some videos:
Forehand/backhand point team competition:


Here is the volley points - you may notice that there is another 6 yr old in the near court named Julia who can really hit the ball:



Overheads: - the thing that seems to really help Chance is he has good court movement to adjust to where the ball is.



Serves: - this is hard to follow since you can't see where the balls are landing, but Chance caught fire on his serves today.



And finally, they always close by running the sprint contest - now if he can only get some longer legs...

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?