Sidewalk Chalk Sunday

Sunday was one of those days that seemed to drag on forever.  I woke up before the boys, fixed them breakfast and began to do some housework while I waited for them to stir from their warm beds.  The weather was gloomy and a bit cool but no where near as cold as the rest of the country…  It was a blah day nonetheless. It’s tough when J is out of town.  It’s especially bad when he’s gone over a weekend.  Time seems to creep.  I managed to get a lot of things done but every time I glanced at the clock it seemed so early.

Eventually, I suggested that we go outside to play with some sidewalk chalk and ride bikes.  The cousins were outside too and wanted to join in.  We had fun covering our entire driveway with a colorful assortment of sketches.

Even Big Red got in on some of the action.

It was a good way to spend the afternoon.  When the boys were sufficiently coated in chalk dust, I had them all jump in the hot tub to clean off.  Crazy kids.  I love it!

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Family Tennis Outing

Our family rode bikes over to the local tennis courts to practice hitting against the wall on Sunday afternoon.  The boys each received tennis rackets for their birthdays from J’s mom and wanted to try them out.  There’s a small fee to play on the actual courts but it’s free to practice on the wall of the racquetball building.  Since our boys have never really hit tennis balls before, we figured we’d save playing on an actual court (and bothering the serious players) for another day.

The racquetball building did a great job of blocking the wind.  But as you can see from my hair in the above photo that it was still a little gusty.

J’s bike had a flat tire so he ended up riding his skateboard over.  I didn’t realized he’d also stashed a banana with our gear 🙂  He’d forgotten to eat breakfast, apparently.

The boys did surprisingly well hitting the tennis balls.  They were able to hit them when we dropped them.  It was so cute to watch them run to hit the rebound.  Wildman and Cutie Pie also made excellent ball boys.  It saved J and I few trips around the building to pick up our Wilson 4’s…

J used to be on the tennis team in high school.  He still has it!

Wildman found the dart guns at the bottom of Cutie Pie’s backpack and decided those would be much more fun.  🙂

We went by the shallow canal near the tennis courts to see if the manatees were there.  Indeed, the canal was thick with them.  Poor things don’t do well in the cold weather.  We’ve been have some very cold nights (for us) lately that dip into the 20s… I really hope they all survive.

We ended up hitting tennis balls for close to two hours.  I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it.  J and I used to play every night in college, especially in the winter time.  It brought back fond memories and a sore right shoulder on Monday morning 🙂

Sunday

Sunday was gorgeous!  It really could not have been lovelier weather.  We filled the hours from sun up to sunset with practical things like bleeding the truck breaks, laundry and running cables in the attic.  But we also saw to doing a few fun things with our precious time in the sun.  Things like tossing the football around, throwing boomerangs (something I haven’t done since college!) and having lunch then ice cream with friends.

The picture above was taken on our way to our favorite local pizza place.  Everything seemed like it was in Technicolor.  Vibrant.  Beautiful.  It was one of those afternoons that made it easy to forget whatever was weighing you down.  For a while I could simply be.

I need more times like this.  To just be… happy.