Woodloch Vacation - Day 5

Day 5 at Woodloch began with the Scrabble tournament. Dad was planning to go Geocaching after breakfast, but Pete convinced him to hang around for a little while.

Pete and Sam were in a heated contest at the kids table. Pete fell behind early, but made a strong comeback in Round 3. He was dealt a lot of A's, but made good use of them. It is likely that he posted the world's first board in an under 10 competition that featured the words "saga" and "anal". Sam won Round 4, leaving it for a winner-take-all final round. When the match ended, Pete and Sam both ended up scoring silver medals.

After Scrabble, Pete and Dad headed out for a few hours of Geocaching. Unfortunately, they did not pack any orange clothes, since they were in a posted hunting area. But they found several caches, and survived unscathed. Their favorite cache was one they called "Phid". Although they didn't find that one, they enjoyed climbing on some rocks looking for it. They also brought back some baby pine cones for Sam and Mom.

Pete and Dad returned to the resort just in time to enter the Shuffleboard contest. Sam and Dad played on a team, and Mom and Pete on another. Sam and Dad had a big upset victory in the first round over the Dangerfields. They lost in the second round on a controversial call, with a puck on a line that was poorly painted. This worked out ok anyhow, since Sam was probably too cold to stay outside much longer. Mom and Pete mowed through all of the competition and won the gold medal!

After shuffleboard, Pete and Dad swung by the rock wall and mini-golf, and then Pete/Dad/Sam got some Dibs and watched Despicable Me in the York room, while Mom scouted the Movie trivia game.

The show that evening was "School of Woodloch", and Pete and Sam had front and center seats with their Long Island friends and teammates from Name That Tune earlier in the week. Finally, it was time for the Farewell Dance Party, where Pete and Sam danced with the friends they had made during the week.

Woodloch Vacation - Day 4

Pete and Sam had another full day of Spring Break amusement on Wednesday at Woodloch. Activities included the following:

1. The Amazing race - This started out with just Mom and Pete, since Sam did not meet the "minimum age requirement". However, it did not take long for Dad and Sam to get roped in, and by the end of the event Sam and his young friend Shane were last seen wandering around the resort with a digital camera, dodging cars and climbing fences to get into the closed outdoor pool area to take a picture of Sam eating a Hershey bar.

2. Indoor Forest playground - Sam and Pete stopped here for a few minutes, as they did several times throughout the week. It is similar to the one they had done previously at Funland in Fredericksburg.

3. Everyone played some shuffleboard, to practice up for tomorrow's tournament. Although the court was wet, it still played pretty well.

4. Everyone headed inside to the York Room for the Family carpet Bocce Tournament. They lost to "Skillz That Killz", but did pretty well having not played the game before.

5. The rain had stopped, so they headed outside for some real Bocce and mini-golf.

6. Sam was quickly growing weary of Bocce, so Dad, Pete, and Sam played some tennis. Pete played mostly from the baseline, while Sam covered the net.

7. After last night's Karaoke, Sam was ready for bed after dinner. Dad and Pete headed out for a few additional activities, including disco Bumper Cars, running on the treadmill (until getting kicked out at closing time), and some very dark shuffleboard.

Woodloch Vacation - Day 3

Pete and Sam enjoyed the following activities on day 3 of the Woodloch vacation. This was clearly the longest and most memorable day of the trip:

1. Scavenger Hunt - Started in the North Lodge, but the team headed all around the Main Lodge searching for implements and puzzle solutions.

Below, the team presents for the judge at the end of the Scavenger Hunt:

2. In It To Win It - This included about 12 teams of 10-12 players each. The teams took turns completing the bottle toss. pin pong cup bounce/catch, M&M straw, tape measure balance, egg roll, and pencil cup bounce. This was the only event of the week where the family's team finished in last place, but a lot of fun was had by all.

Below, Sam watches and prepares for the tape measure event of In It To Win It:

3. Name That Tune - Although outnumbered by other teams, Pete and Sam's team overachieved in this event and finished tied for 4th out of about 15 teams. Pete and Sam handled all of the songs from the 2000's, while Mom and Dad helped out with the older songs.

4. Night swimming - The boys forgot their shirts at the water's edge and swam for a few hours after dinner in the large pool and indoor splash park.

5. Family Karaoke Party - This started at 10:15pm, and by the time Pete and every other kid had sung 3 songs it was close to 1am. Pete did "Tick Tock", "Hot N Cold", and "All the Right Moves". He was joined on stage by backup dancer, Sam. They were the only actual "performance" out of all the acts. Although the rules prohibited repeating the same song, Dad was gravely disappointed to realize over the course of the evening how many different Taylor Swift songs there are. Click here to see a brief clip of Pete and Sam doing karaoke: clip1; clip2

Woodloch Vacation - Day 2

After spending the night in Philadelphia, it was time to head up to the Poconos and check in to Woodloch. Breakfast at IHOP was followed by a nice 3-hour drive, using the new family GPS (which promptly got them a bit off course). They finally arrived around 2:00pm.

Although check-in was not until 3pm, Pete and Sam were allowed to participate in all of the activities. Since it was raining out, they went for some indoor family games - first Scattergories and then Tri-Bond. The family scored a gold medal in Tri-Bond, thanks to some help with their new friends and teammates on the Flaming Apples.

After dinner, Pete and Sam watched "Grown-Ups" in the York room, while Mom and Dad took a leisurely stroll around the campus.

Woodloch Vacation - Day 1

The family decided in 2011 to take their first-ever real vacation over Spring Break. They headed off for Woodloch Pines in Pennsylvania'a Pocono mountains.

On Sunday afternoon, they headed to Philadelphia to go to Nifty Fifty's for dinner and stay overnight with Grandma and Grandpa. They also stopped at Neshaminy Mall to pick up a Phillies shirt for Sam and some black socks for Pete (the kind he likes from Shoe Dept).

Familiar Picture

Sam has really been into sketching during the last few months. There are pictures of Phineas & Ferb characters all over the walls in the kitchen, for example. He and Pete have also been filling up their sketch books with "characters", presumably for some future video games that they will be developing.

Above is a picture Sam drew one day. Dad thinks it reminds him of grandma in her younger days.

Merrywood Egg Roll 2011

Above are the kids on the street, just before the Easter Egg roll. The weather was quite wonderful this year. Pete and Sam are both in the picture, although it may take you a while to locate them.

Muffin Box

As you can see, someone got into the muffin box in the pantry. The evidence is all there. It was apparently some sort of animal. We may have to go around looking for the guilty party, like in this video.

Indoor S'mores

A few weeks ago, the Cub Scout campout was cancelled (something about a slight chance of rain). So Dad invited the other boys from Sam's Tiger den over to the house for some indoor candle S'mores and games. William came over with his Dad, Greg.

Pete's shirt in the picture above is called "5-Second Rule". Notice that the pretzel has fallen on to the floor and the little germs in the background are counting "5...4...3..."

By the way, Mom and Dad are the Den leader for Sam's Tiger group this year.