There’s something about water – I can’t quite put my finger on it, yet every time I walk by a pool, a fountain, a lake, a pond - I am tempted to at the very least, dip my toes and avail myself of its calm, soothing affects on the soul. I’m not surprised the U.S. crop of Olympic swimmers come off as very calm and cool under immense pressure.

I have been glued to the TV the last few nights, watching the swimming finals - and was thrilled to see Lake Forest’s Matt Grevers pull out the silver behind Aaron Piersol last night. Even my kids have become enamored with the sport, as I am sure a lot of little kids do every four years. the next thing on their to-do list is to figure out underwater turns.

Out of curiosity, I was poking around on the Internet for local swim teams (of which there are many!) and found this, from the New Trier Swim Club site:

NTSC Team Tryouts
New Trier Swim Club will be holding tryouts for its Short Course season. Tryouts will be held at the Northfield Campus of New Trier High School on August 26 & 27 and September 2 from 7:00-8:30 pm. The Northfield Campus of New Trier High School is located at 7 Happ Road, Northfield, IL 60093
In order to tryout, a swimmer must be six years old by April 1, 2009. Swimmers should bring a suit, towel and goggles to tryouts. All swimmers must be able to swim 25 yards Freestyle and 25 yards Backstroke. Prior registration is not required to tryout, and a swimmer need only come on one of the listed tryout days. Membership to NTSC will be offered on a space available basis. Priority is given to any swimmer living in the New Trier High School District. Please call the NTSC Hotline at 847-784-6399 with any questions.

Technorati Tags: Matt Grevers, North Shore Chicago swim teams, swim team tryouts, New Trier Swim Club

Summer is synonymous with camp, right? Day camp, overnight camp, sports camp, band camp, you name it. Our kids are still on the young side of overnight camp, and because I’m home, it’s never made a lot of sense (depending on the day you ask me!) to send them off to day camp. But sports camp? That’s our obsession. We’d heard a lot of really nice things said about Willowhill Golf Camp, and after years of 1/2 hour lesson times and driving ranges, we thought we’d give our boys an extended amount of time practicing one of their favorite summer sports.

We chose a 1/2 day option for a week, and color me impressed - the kids had a great time, and learned A LOT. They’ve always had a knack for the game, so the instructors were able to spend a significant amount of time working on individual quirks - grip correction, body form, reading greens, etc. And bonus for me - they fed them lunch, so they also had time to socialize with new friends.

It was crazy convenient to where we live, but Willowhill is convenient to just about anywhere on the North Shore - just about 1/2 a mile down from the Willow and Waukegan intersection in Northbrook/Glenview. The kids gave it a big thumbs up, and they’re still sporting their ball caps around and asking when they get to go back - which, funny they should ask…

Willowhill has a fall and winter golf program - it’s for boys and girls, ages 8 - 13, and is designed to help improve golfers that look to move forward competitively. Want more information? Visit their web site! See you on the links!

Technorati Tags: North Shore Chicago kids golf programs, Willowhill Golf course, golf sports camps, Northbrook sports activities, Glenview sports activities, Chicago area golf

It only takes a sideways glance at our family dry-erase board calendar (which is color-coded for every member the family - I’m purple!) to see that our summers are no less busy than the school year. What’s up with that? (AND….why is there nothing purple on the calendar? Gah!)

The July culprit? Summer baseball. Here’s the sticky widget - it’s summer. It’s baseball. It’s heresy not to sign the kids up. On one hand, I love to watch my kids play anything. They could be watching paint dry, and I would love to watch them watching paint. And baseball is outdoors, which is always therapeutic to someone who loathes cold weather. And really, it’s just a few short weeks, right?

On the other hand, games can go on for-EVAH. My general rule of thumb is that the game should be over when it’s officially gone on longer than a college football game. And what of some of these coaches that treat summer ball like it’s the freakin’ World Series? Sir, your team is up by 15 runs over my boys’ team. I think you’ve got it won. So you can sit your ringer for the next inning, OK?

So would I rather be at the pool? Yeah, maybe. But the boys love playing, it keeps them active, around kids their age, and for us, an empty dry-erase board calendar is a sad dry-erase board calendar. So bring on the rest of the season! Go Blue Jays!

What do you think about summertime sports and house leagues? Talk back with a comment or two - use the reply box below!

Technorati Tags: Summer baseball, Glenview youth baseball, North Shore Chicago kids activities