Farewell to Caleb

The gang had a final night out to Chuck E. Cheese's in June before Caleb's move to North Carolina.

Busch Gardens

Despite the rain, Pete and Sam had a fun time at Busch Gardens. This was the first park visit where Sam was able to ride a lot of the rides.

Tub Cookies

Pete was taking too long finishing his dessert one night, so when everyone headed upstairs he had to finish his cookies and milk in the bathtub.

On The Beach

Pete and Sam played some fun games on the beach.

- Finding fiddler crabs
- Hole-digging
- "I'm not going to make it"
- Makeshift GPS hunts for buried football / frisbee
- Dive-ball
- Foot Washer
- Dig pool for Sam
- Green / Baltor / Balravia / Balraptor

Pete and Sam making sure their hole has an adequate "water exit tunnel":

Looks like they're going to need some help re-applying sunscreen:

Virginia Beach Children's Museum

We had a great time at the Children's Museum of Virginia in Norfolk. It is probably the best of the many Children's Museums we have been to.

King of Dinner

One night at dinner, Sam was wearing a crown that he made earlier that day in Vacation Bible School. We proclaimed that he was King of Dinner.

By the way, surprisingly he actually ate something that night for dinner. Although it was only Ritz crackers.

Lego Room

Everyone had fun in the Lego room at the Virginia Beach Children's Museum.

Sam built a structure he called "China":

Dad built one he called "Dexter":

And Pete and Sarah built a pyramid:

Bookmobile

After playing tennis, Dad and Pete took a quick stop at the Virginia Beach Bookmobile on the way back to the house. Pete had never heard of a Bookmobile before, and Dad hadn't been in one for about 25 years.

Pete got a book for himself (The Adventures Of Super Diaper Baby) and a book for Sam (Spider-Man Versus Doc Ock).

Vacation Tennis

Dad and Pete played tennis two times on vacation (three times, if you count stopping to go home and get a Band-aid for Pete's blister). Pete is working on extending his racquetball skills to a court with more challenging boundaries, with mixed success.

A few games they played were:

1. Mini-game - Only uses the half of the court closest to the net.

2. Dad tries to hit Pete with a forehand. (This one brought strange glances from passers-by)

3. Real game - Needs work.

Sam tried to play also, but that didn't go so well.

Lot of Bikes

We wanted to see how many bike riders out in front of the house we could get into one picture. I think the most we got in the frame at one time was 7, even though there were at least 1 or 2 more.

Note, Pete and Sam are in the foreground on either side of the fire hydrant.

Wii Miis

Pete and Sam like to play the Wii at Nana and Poppy's house. We took a picture of the Wii Miis that we have created on the system. See if you can guess who some of them are.

Hint for Sam and Pete:

Sign #382

Sign number 382 that Pete and Dad are obsessed with Guitar Hero:

When Pete asks Dad to turn on the fan in his room, he specifies whether he wants it set to "Easy, Medium, or Expert".

Virginia Beach Vacation

We had a fun vacation last week in Virginia Beach.

Sunday - Go to beach (Oceanfront)
Monday - Library / Skate Park / Geocaching / Beach (Sandbridge) / Sam's Magic Show
Tuesday - Tennis / Sailing on Poppy's boat
Wednesday - Tennis / Bookmobile / Ocean Breeze
Thursday - Children's Museum / Geocaching / Hiking at First Landing / Dinner at Bubba's
Friday - Beach (Oceanfront)

And somehow it didn't rain once the whole week.

Sam's Magic Show

August 4 was a memorable day, as Sam brought us an event remarkably similar to Pete's 2006 Dance Contest.

After an afternoon at the beach in Sandbridge, we grabbed dinner at Sonic and ice cream at Handel's. Sam didn't get any ice cream, since he had not eaten his dinner.

We proceeded to a free show down at the Oceanfront, featuring the antics of Wacky Chad and the magic of Krendl & Company. When Krendl asked for a volunteer, he said he was looking for the best dancer. Everyone in the audience started dancing, and he looked around and said "who's the boy with the white t-shirt who's jumping around without a care in the world?" Of course, it was Sam.

Sam was up on stage with Krendl for a good 10-15 minutes. They did a whole routine, including various tricks. Sam got a pink balloon dog and an autographed Krendl poster, which he will put up in his room.

Sundial

There is a cool human sundial outside of the Discovery Museum in Winchester. Here Sam is standing on "July", so his shadow is on the correct time of 2:35 (plus 1 hour for Daylight Savings Time).

Discovery Museum - Other Stuff

Here are a few other things Pete and Sam did at the Discovery Museum.

Discovery Museum - Mirrors

Discovery Museum - Rock Wall

Pete and Sam had fun climbing the rock wall at the Discovery Museum in Winchester. It was a whole room - much nicer than the one in Harrisonurg. It also had those rubber pieces on the floor, for a smooth landing. Pete and Dad also played a game of climbing "HORSE" on the wall.

Winchester - Heading to the Museum

Pete and Sam had a fun day trip to Winchester in July.

Day 1:

- Drive to Winchester

- Swim in indoor pool

- Dollar Tree

- Boomerang at local park

- Dinner at Denny's

- Watch movie in hotel room

Day 2:
- Discovery museum

- Dinner at Al's Pizza

Here is a cool alley full of murals that we found between the parking garage and Loudoun St:

Here are Pete, Sam, and Mom walking down Loudoun St. towards the museum:

How To Play with Bubbles

How To Play with Bubbles
by Pete and Sam

1. Pour bubble solution into bubble tray - 1/8 full
2. Blow bubbles until tray is empty
3. Pour additional bubble solution into bubble tray - 1/4 full
4. Blow bubbles until tray is empty
5. Pour additional bubble solution into bubble tray - completely full
6. "I'm tired of bubbles, let's go do something else"

Wordle

A new web application called Wordle will take a block of text and create a word cloud that shows graphically which words appear most often.

We submitted the history of this blog to Wordle, and it came up with this: