Tennis, Anyone?

This past month, we started Elina in tennis.  B and I both LOVE tennis so we need our children to enjoy tennis and to learn how to play it.  When we first got married we would play tennis after dinner all the time.  I played tennis until I was 8 months pregnant with Elina back in the day.  Fun times!  

We started Elina in Pee Wee Tennis once a week, just to see if she even enjoyed tennis.  It turned out she really liked playing.  So we decided to sign her up for a week-long tennis camp.  This week she played tennis every day from 9am-12pm.  It's HOT here, but she still liked being out there on the courts.  We were really proud of her...not complaining too much about the heat and just being a good sport about learning a new sport during this brutal summer weather.  

After a week of playing, her backhand is actually quite impressive...her forehand is definitely so-so.  She doesn't like to turn her body, so her forehand is all over the place.  But she just started this month, so we're really proud of all she's accomplished.

Here is when she started working on her backhand--

This is a far away shot of her backhand (great follow-through)--

For her last day of camp, they gave each kid a certificate and she was awarded the Best Attitude.  I told her that's a good one to get because she doesn't get down about things.  She was pretty happy to know that she had a good attitude.

One evening, the stars aligned and we actually managed to all go to the tennis courts nearby to play some tennis.  (Side note..."stars aligned" = Eli took a nap in the afternoon and Evie took a late nap)  We made Eli the ball runner, which he absolutely loved.  We thought he would get tired of it quickly and want to go home, but he was a great sport about it.  He worked up a sweat and took a few water breaks, but he chased down every single ball like a champ.  He was a great ball runner!  Eli also wanted to be like his big sis and hit a few balls.  It was so cute because Elina was trying to teach him and gave him a few pointers.  Now we have to get Eli some real sneakers and a racquet.

We didn't know what to do with Evie, so we simply brought our walker to the courts.  Since no one really uses them, we just let Evie roam free in her walker.  It's sad that she still only walks backwards in the walker, but she managed to have lots of fun.  She thought it was the coolest thing!  And we loved watching her have so much fun.  I mean, look at her face!!

I think we will try to put Elina in tennis lessons this fall.  We are all for it as long as she enjoys it.  Tennis camp was fun, but I did not enjoy getting her to camp on time by 9am all week.  This is summer break after all!!  But we'll definitely be taking the kids to the courts ourselves more often now.  We are all having so much fun with tennis! It's a dream come true!