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 🙂

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Too Cold for Manatees

Have you ever wondered what manatees do when it’s too cold outside?

Probably not but I’ll tell you anyway.  They seek out protected shallow canals and huddle close together.  We’re fortunate enough to live a block away from one such protected shallow canal.  From my previous post you know that it’s been darn cold around here as of late.  The little canal has been thick with manatees for over a week now.

A local news van’s antenna caught my attention when I was driving by the canal on my way to pick up the boys from preschool.  I glanced over to see a crowd of people looking into the water and taking pictures.  It looked like a good opportunity to show the kids some of the local wildlife.

On our way home, we stopped by the canal.  The boys were thrilled to see the mammals up close.  Every time a manatee came up to breathe the boys would shout, “I see a nose!!!!”

I hope the poor sea cows don’t freeze to death.  Temperatures have been in the twenties at night lately and the manatees are just not used to this kind of weather.  😦