Buzz

Sam was taking a bath. Dad had a new washcloth for him, with a picture of Buzz Lightyear on it and the word "BUZZ".

Sam: That washcloth is for washing butts. It says it right on there.

Dad: I only see "BUZZ"

Sam: The "ZZ" is pronounced like in "pizza"

Oatlands

Sam's Cub Scout Den had a fun "go-see-it" excursion in November to the Oatlands plantation near Leesburg. The boys in Sam's Den are Sam, Alex, William, Ethan, Dominic, and Dylan. Dylan dropped out about half way through the year.

Last Day of School

Of course, no last day of school would be complete without a school bus silly string attack, followed by an ice cream sundae table.

Unexpected Consequences

We had a feeling that there could be some downside to buying Toy Story themed washcloths for the boys.

One such issue became apparent when Dad hung up the above washcloth after Sam's shower.

"No! Rex afraid of heights!"

5th Grade Carnival

The PTA at Pete's school sponsors a 5th grade carnival. This is a small event where a committe of a dozen people quit their jobs for 3 months and canvas parents and local businesses to get donations for moonbounces, games, and novelty machines.

Above you can see Pete enjoying his last day of Elementary School. If you want to see more pictures, there are 540 of them on the Carnival photo website.

Floor After Target

Pictured above is what the family room floor looks like moments after the boys return home from a trip to Target.

Name Tag

Dad wrote his name on his name tag for Pete's awards assembly, with some "help" from Sam. See if you can guess which part Sam helped him with.

5th Grade Awards Assembly

Pete had his awards assembly at 9:00am on the day before the last day of school. (Of course the last day of school is reserved for the epic Bacchanalia known as "The Carnival")

Mom and Dad pulled Sam out of class and they sat together in the bleachers. Congratulations to Pete for winning the following awards:

• Continental Math Exam - 2nd Place
• All A's and B's Award (Presidential Level - Academic All-Star)
• Class Math Award (for best Math student in his class)
• Perfect Attendance
• National Fitness
• Spelling Bee Participant
• School Store Worker
• Husky Helper
• Chorus Participant
• Morning Broadcast Participant
• Graduation Award

Apparently everyone in the room qualified for that last award. However, there were actually a handful of kids who did not win the "All A's and B's" award.

The final award was the "Sitting Quietly in Your Seat for 90 Minutes" award, which everyone also should have received for enduring the ceremony.

Another Contraption

Pete built another contraption, this time with Corey (and some help from Sam). This one is called Contraption to Pop the Balloon. The construction on this one took place over the course of several days, but the good news is that they finally cleaned up the basement about a week later. More good news is that they were able to build this one without any help from Mom and Dad.

Contraption Show and Tell

Pete's class was doing a unit where they teamed up to build contraptions. To introduce the unit, Pete's teacher (Mrs. Robin LaFrankie) allowed him to play one of his YouTube videos for the class on the Promethean board. It was the video he did of his New Year's Day contraption.

Pete re-recorded the video to make it "school-appropriate" and also add some new features. The new version that he played in class can be seen here. There are two funny parts if you make it through towards the end.

Sam's Class

Above is a picture that Mom took in Sam's 1st grade class on the last day of school. Below are the names of the people in the picture:

Row 1 (l-r):

Dylan Gonzales

Kelsea Rapp

Maria Kaffes

Row 2 (l-r):

Christina Yang

Jett Rapp

Sam Berman

Gabriella Diaz

William Hammann

Row 3 (l-r):

Moksh Shah

Jackson Myers

Nick Baker

Yvonne Lee

Bryan Landaverde-Ventura

Row 4 (l-r):

Christell Alvarez

Naila Corum

Grace Ngodoki

Row 5 "kids in chairs" (l-r):

Jaylan Alvarez

Kimberly Arias

Ainsley Allred

Aubrey Burgan

Kathy Castro

Payton Thomas

Shreya Munjeti

Kalombo Mbala

Yankees

Congratulations to Pete and the Yankees for winning their division and making it to the World Series this year. The championship game went to an extra 7th inning, tied 14-14, before the Yankees lost to the Diamondbacks 19-14.

Pictured (l-r, b-f) are Pete, Coach Chip, Craig, Jordan, Ayush, DrewA, DrewT, Coach Joe, Jim, Colin, Quinn, Coach Paul Stromberg, Ben, Christian, and Evan.

Below, Pete collects his trophy in front of his coaches.

He still has a big wad of his secret weapon (Big League Chew) which led to his hitting prowess during the second half of the season. Pete played mostly shortstop, third base, and right-center field.

Pittsburgh Trip - Baseball

After the tailgate, it was time for the Phillies-Pirates game at lovely PNC Park.

The boys were beginning to believe Dad's claim from the previous night that Pittsburgh has more bridges than any other city in the world.

The field featured a nice view of downtown Pittsburgh over right field.

Pete and Sam took advantage of every opportunity to heckle the Pirate players. The picture below was taken just before they switched to their "rally caps" for the 8th and 9th innings.

Although the Phillies lost, the game was capped off by a very nice fireworks display.

Of course, when they got back to Charlie and Colin's house, they went straight to bed:

Well, eventually they went to bed.

Pittsburgh Trip - Museum

Before the Phillies/Pirates game, Pete and Sam stopped at Pamela's for breakfast with Thad, Kristin, Charlie, and Colin:

Apparently this is the restaurant where President Obama ate when he visited Pittsburgh.

Then they headed off to the Children's Museum:

Finally, they walked over to the stadium for some tailgating with Gabe and Sloaka.

Pittsburgh Trip - Tailgate

Last weekend was the big trip to Pittsburgh. Pete and Sam enjoyed spending some quality time with Charlie and Colin, while Mom and Dad caught up with Thad and Kristin. Gabe and Andy also made the drive out from Philadelphia, to make it 10 people in all.

Below are some photos from Pete and Sam's first official tailgate:

As you can see, they got to play some cornhole ("Baggo"), ladder golf, and beer pong (the non-paddle version). Also, there were very few Pirates fans to be found anywhere. Although there were a few spotted later inside the stadium.

Dad also enjoyed the break after having already walked across the Clemente bridge 3 times, back and forth to the museum and parking lot with various accoutrements for the tailgate.

Thanks to Gabe and Andy for cooking up burgers and dogs for everyone.

ASEP

This Spring, Pete and Sam once again took classes in the Dominion Trail After School Enrichment Program (ASEP).

They both took the Science Experimentation class, taught by Mom. Classes were every Tuesday after school, and included all sorts of fun Science experiments.

Sam also enjoyed taking the cooking class. Below are some pictures from the class. Check out the awesome hat!