Tennis

Shyla recently began taking tennis lessons and, so far, she is loving them.  She has an adorable Dora the Explorer racquet and has exclaimed on multiple occasions, "I can't wait to play tennis!"  Tennis could be a good sport for her - there's plenty of excitement to keep it interesting, she has great hand-eye coordination, and she loves skirts.

Her lessons were through Parks & Rec and were twice each week during my summer break.  There were just a total of three kids in the lessons which was great!

The most challenging aspect for me was keeping Harper off the court and out of the way of swinging racquets.  Luckily, the father of the two other kids in the lessons was amazing with Harper and played with her everyday!  We are going to miss them!

The twice-weekly lessons culminated with a Tennis Bonanza for everyone playing Parks & Rec tennis (i.e. A LOT of kids of all ages and abilities) and the very best part - their siblings as well!  This was a 2-hour evening event that was SO MUCH fun!  We all went, including Grandpa Steve and Harper, of course, was in heaven getting to play with the big kids!

This next picture is of one of the funniest things I have ever seen.  In fact, it still makes me literally laugh out loud to think about it.  Unfortunately, you kinda had-to-be-there to really get it, but I will do my best to explain:  the coaches had all the kids lined up on the far side of the court.  They were explaining that they were the sharks and the goal of the game was the make it across the court without being tagged by a shark.  Obviously, the kids were supposed to wait for them to say "Go!" but Harper heard the goal and decided it was her chance!  She took off while they were still explaining the rules, with a clear look of determination on her face.  She was going to make it to the other side.  And she did.  But the hilarious thing was that after she took off, while the coaches were still talking, she started a wave of all the other kids sprinting across and around the court.  All because a little munchkin wanted to win.

Shyla won the Most Improved Trophy for all kids taking lessons at her location.  Guess what!  Not everyone got a trophy and no one (to my knowledge) died as a result of it.  But, we are proud of her nonetheless.  She also randomly won a raffle prize consisting of a tennis bag, balls, water bottle, and t-shirt.

And, finally, here are the 3 kids from her lessons.  She is now taking weekly lessons one evening each week and still doing great!  It's even a bit better - there are more kids and a wider age-range but the 45 minute lesson runs really smoothly and they are actively engaged the whole time.

I, however, am still looking for ways to keep Harper occupied and out of the way.