Minute To Win It

The family decided not to go anywhere for Spring Break this year. But after a quick dinner at Wendy's, they had a lot of fun at the "Minute To Win It" event at the library.

Mom was the best at the dice balancing:

Pete was good at the pasta pickup:

Pete trying the slinky headband game:

 Sam was the best at the tissue box ping-pong ball twerking:

Mom and Sam doing the toilet paper snap toss:

Dad was probably the best at the balloon balancing:

Other games included the Smarties with straws and marble rolling on to tape (that Sam was quite good at).

It was a fun way to spend about an hour on a Monday night.

Dad Class Presentation

Dad had the distinct pleasure of teaching a lesson in Sam's class on Thursday. He asked Mrs. Lindenfeldar if he could speak for about 30 minutes about some of his adventures in traveling across the USA.

Dad covered the following topics:
- Baseball Stadiums
- State welcome signs and capitals
- Pictures and stories from 1998 trip (more info available here)

If you would like to see the slides from the presentation, they are available here (at least for a little while).

Science Project

Sam’s class did a mandatory science project this year for the Science fair. Sam had some trouble choosing a project. His first idea was to see if video could be used to determine the speed of light. Dad’s friend Brian (the laser scientist) had a few suggestions for this, but fortunately Sam eventually realized that this might not be the best choice. He ended up doing “What Liquid Evaporates the Fastest”.

For a few weeks, there were tubes of water, salt water, and vinegar in the dining room.

Here is Sam’s poster. The project was not his best effort, but he got it done and turned in on time:

Dad enjoyed going to the Science Fair and looking at all of the posters for the other students’ projects. A lot of study is apparently being done these days on Mentos in coke and microwave popcorn. There were some really funny ones too, like this one by Sean Sullivan:

Scout Badge

Here is Sam earning his Scout Badge. He skipped the first campout, so he’s a little behind on his Tenderfoot and First Class achievements. But he doesn’t seem to be too concerned about that.

Donuts With Dad

Sam and Dad woke up early for their final “Donuts with Dad” at Dominion Trail. Sam put on a nice shirt and his ubiquitous orange sweatshirt, and they were off to school. They parked in Dad’s secret spot in the local neighborhood and got a nice seat near William and his Dad.

Hopefully they can continue this tradition next year in Middle School.

Munzee Trail

Dad convinced Pete one Saturday to join him a new type of Munzee called a “Munzee Trail”. They went up to Lansdowne and had an enjoyable 3-mile hike up and down the Potomac River.

The first location was a bit dicey with some bees’ nests:

Pete did some community service by raking a bunker on the golf course:

And Pete found a decent stick that he carried for a while:

They released the stick in the river and rooted for it to wend its way through some shoreline thicket and outu toward the waterfall.

Pete’s phone actually did a better job locating most of the Munzee’s than Dad’s, so it was good that he came along. They eventually found all of the Munzees and completed the trail.

Miracle Take-out

One night Dad and Pete went to Chipotle in Broadlands to get take out. When they arrived, there was no line. They thought maybe they were closed or something, but they placed their order and got their food. It was truly a magical night.

Sam 5th Grade Basketball FSBL

Sam played on Anthony's team again this year for FSBL. They were the Celtics. Anthony's Mom (Jen) and Dad (Dennis) were the coaches again.

Pictured above are:Tyler Provencal, Anirudh  Addepalli or Nihar Kandarpa, Ben Yan, Austin Ashley, Sam, Dominic Del Rosso, Alex Ashley, and Anthony Gonzalez.

County Spelling Bee

Sam represented Dominion Trail at the Loudoun County Spelling Bee at Stone Bridge High School.

He got the first right, but went out on his second word (cacao). He was a bit upset, since Dad had always told him to ask for a sentence, which he did, but then the pronouncer blundered and gave him the definition of the word instead of using it in a sentence. This seemed to throw Sam off of his game and he did not spell the word correctly.

He had a nice receptioin the next day at school, being on the morning announcements and a general celebrity for the day.

The Sea The Sea

Dad and Pete went to a local micro-concert in Sterling with Brian and Patti. They saw a group called “The Sea The Sea”. They both really enjoyed the concert. Dad has been listening to their songs since then on Spotify. It was a very small concert. There were about a dozen people in attendance. One of which was an annoying girl who asked the artists after the concert to buy a box of Girl Scout Cookies.

Snow Shoveling

We had some good ice storms and snow storms this winter. The boys missed quite a bit of school. The good news is that Pete is old enough to help now with the shoveling. Here is a picture Dad took about 30 minutes after Pete went out to “shovel”:

It took a while, but eventually the job got done.