Pictures

The pictures of the boys over the whiteboard were getting pretty out of date, so Mom took the boys to get some updated pictures. They came back with 88 pictures. So I figure, 4 minutes per picture, including tantrums and outtakes, they must have been at that place for about 6 hours.

Learning

Who said nothing gets taught in the public schools?

On Friday, Pete taught Mrs. LaFrankie's husband how to solve a Rubik's Cube in under 5 minutes.

Foster's

Pete and Sam occasionally have dinner at Foster's Grille on Thursday nights. This is the night that kids eat free (including drinks) - a pretty good deal. The whole family can eat for about $18. In the summer, they sit outside. One night in July, they even saw Brandon there. This is one of the few places where Sam will eat grilled cheese. Recently, he even started eating the cheeseburger there, and some fries.

The last trip to Foster's was an especially good one. First, Sam actually played the dinosaur rock-paper-scissors game without getting upset. Then Sam and Pete both won dogs from the crane game. Sam's dog said "Bark Off" on his shirt, and Pete's said "Beware of Me". Pete also worked on his sentences for homework and solved his Rubik's Cube a few times.

Upon returning home, it was time to have some Halloween candy for dessert.

Youtube

Sam has been making a splash on Youtube. You can click here to see his channel and watch some of his videos. So far he has been focusing on a series of instructional videos for his Tech Deck finger skateboards. He created and customized the whole page, including a custom background that he created in MS Paint (this was originally Pete's idea). He even has some comments from his friends.

Make sure you subscribe to Sam's channel and leave lots of comments!

Box

What is the significance of this box on the floor of Pete's room? Only that Sam is sleeping under it with a small blue pillow and his hedgehog, Steve.

Upon Closer Inspection

They may look like best friends, but if you look more carefully you will see that just moments earlier, in a fit of rage, Pete bit off a chunk of Sam's tongue, which he still has stuck between his teeth.

Head Up

Sam -

Whatever you do in life, never stop jumping and never look down. You are going to change the world.

Merrywood Zoo Trip

One day last August, Dad took Pete and Sam to the National Zoo, along with the moms and other kids on the street. It was very hot. As far as the kids were concerned, they needed to traverse up and enough hills such that their obligation was satisfied and they could get some Dippin' Dots.

The group:

Brain sizes represented in the primate house:

Lunch (all the way back at the lower parking lot):

The mist areas provided some fleeting relief:

Finally, some Dippin ' Dots:

Husky Helper

Pete has been leaving early for school so he can catch the first bus and perform his duties as a Husky Helper. He walks by himself down to the bus stop at the top of Rosetta. We took this picture one mid-October morning of Pete walking by himself down the street, just as the sun was rising over Eastern Virginia and Washington DC.

That Explains It

Dad had been wondering about the mysterious damage to the recycling bin. Until he found this video one day on the digital camera.

Surely these videos will come in handy one day to show to the doctors so they can re-construct, for example, how Pete got impaled on the mailbox post.

Missing

The summer of 2010 had a few ups and downs for Sam. Including one day when all of a sudden he found himself to be missing a tooth and 2 fingers.

Sam actually walked around with his tooth all day after it came out. (Against the repeated advice of Dad). Sure enough, that evening he lost the tooth somewhere in Corey's yard during an aggressive football game. The good news is that the Tooth Fairy must have found it there because the next day she had left a dollar in the same spot.

Pi

Pete downloaded an app that displays a few thousand digits of Pi. Somehow he and Sam started memorizing Pi and that was the big thing for 3-4 days. They got up to about 40-50 digits at one point. The video below is just Pete reciting some digits in Pi, but there is something else about it (if you watch carefully) that actually makes it one of my favorite Pete/Sam videos ever.

In the interest of equal time, here is a video of Sam doing Pi:

Sam's video has fewer digits, but that's only because I recorded it a day earlier than the Pete video and they were learning about 10-12 extra digits per day.

Halloween 2010

Pete and Sam decided not to wear their costumes to the Monster Mash school dance on Friday, so they got to wear them for the first time on Halloween. It fell on a Sunday night this year, with no school on Monday and Tuesday, so there was even more than the usual amount of sugar-drenched revelry.

Pictured above (l-r) are (I think) Sam, Pete, Corey, Mason, and Pickle.

After taking the above pictures, Pete and Sam walked around the neighborhood where they went door to door convincing people to give them free candy for no reason. This proved to be highly successful, as evidenced by the candy feast they subsequently enjoyed in Mason's garage: