Tunnel Cache

Pete, Sam, and Dad found a fun cache in Sterling last weekend. It was a large ammo can located in a drainage tunnel. They proceeded to the playground near Horse Pen Run for a spirited game of "find the stick" and a walk around the local neighborhood.

Subtraction

Mom: Sam, are you ready to work on your subtraction work?

Sam: I'd prefer to put it in the sub-trash-can.

Freedom Fest

During Grandma and Grandpa's visit over the weekend, we decided to go to Brambleton Town Center. After dinner at Scotto's, we went to Freedom Fest and Pete and Sam went on most of the rides.

The high point was when Pete went on Spider Webs. This is where you put on a velcro suit and try to jump and stick your self to a velcro wall. Based on a suggestion from Dad, Pete executed a front flip and attached himself to the wall completely upside down. Stunned by this achievement, the crowd of parents and children waiting in line broke out into cheers and applause.

Bermuda Cruise

Pete and Sam had a great time on our first ever family cruise to Bermuda. To see lots of pictures and descriptions of the trip, click here.

Bike Day

Sam enjoyed "bike day" at school.  He was one of only 2 people in his class who didn't have training wheels.  The pink line is the line they got to ride around on in the parking lot.  Sam is a free spirit, so for him the line is more of a recommendation.

Sam's Art Show

Sam shared his art from school with everyone at his art show last week.  He emulated the styles of four artists:

Van Gogh:

Matisse:

Pollock:

Women of Ndebele tribe in South Africa:

Pete Seeks the Key

Looks like we will have to find another place to hide the bathroom key.  (Click for video)

Spelling Bee 2009

Pete had fun again this year at the local spelling bee for grades K-4.  The whole family stayed this time, including Sam, even though it ran from about 9:30 - 6:00.  Pete's friend Niloy also participated this year.

Pete correctly spelled the words funny, traffic, sudden, abide, and ceremony.  He went out on the word rhinoceros.  He finished 13th out of approximately 200 entrants, roughly the same as last year.

Pete and Niloy waiting to take the written test to qualify for the oral round:

The list was finally posted around 1:30, with Pete qualifying for the finals:

Pete still had a little energy after 8+ hours of sitting around on a Saturday:

Sitting in the audience, Sam wrote the words in a notebook as they were called out during the oral rounds.  Looks like he is ready to enter next year:

Easter 2009

Pete and Sam had a fun Spring Break week and Easter at home this year.  On Saturday night, they dyed some eggs:

On Sunday, the family went to sanctuary together in the morning.  Pete and Sam then jumped  on the trampoline for a while with 5 friends, and then hunted for eggs with the other kids on the street:

Preparaciones

Last night at dinner, Pete helped Dad get ready for his trip to Chile.  Dad asked Pete how to say some things in Spanish, and Pete told him what to say.

Note, Pete told Dad how to say "pants" but Pete didn't know the word for "underpants".  But hopefully this should not come up in conversation anyway.

Shamrock Shakes

Pete said he had never tried a shamrock shake, so we stopped at McDonalds. The problem is that it was the day after St. Patrick's Day. Mom came back to the car, empty-handed. Pete was not happy.

Pete: I'll NEVER get to try a Shamrock shake.

Mom: Pete, you're 8 years old - you have your entire life ahead of you.

Sam: And I have even longer than you.

Diorama

Above is the diorama Pete made for school.  It is for the book "The Kid Who Ran For President".  He did a speech also to present the diorama to the class.  He got a score of "1".  Don't worry, apparently nowadays that is a good grade.

Ants

Sam: I made a little hill with the white stuff in my Oreo.

Dad: Maybe an ant can go sledding on there.  He can use a piece of a leaf for a sled.  Except ants never have fun.  They are always working, like me.

Pete: Actually, those are the parent ants you're seeing.  The ant kids are off somewhere playing.

Quick!

Sam: Quick, someone grab me a piece of paper!

Mom: Why?

Sam: I just found a pen here on the floor!

Pinewood Derby 2009

Pete and Sam had fun at this year's Pinewood Derby.  Dad helped set up the track, and get the cars weighed in.  Pete's car weighed in exactly at 5.0, so no adjustments were needed.  

Below are the cars in Pete's group.  Pete's is the orange one at the top:

Pete's basketball game was over just in time for him to watch the races for his Bear Den.

Sam also got to race in the sibling race.  His is pictured below - it has the same orange color as Pete's.  Note his name on the projection in the background.

Special Delivery

Above is apparently what happens when you leave a used FedEx box lying around in the same room as a plastic pointing finger and Sam.

Christian The Bear

Christian is a bear. Children take turns bringing him home for a week at a time from Sam's pre-school. Sam brought him home last week.

Christian likes to brush his teeth and read a poem called "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear". He also enjoyed meeting Billy, a bear that Sam got from Grandmom who looks a lot like Christian.

Dad created a webpage for Christian. Hopefully the other kids in Sam's class will enjoy looking at the page. More importantly, Dad hopes that the boys can use this as a general web site template for future uses and for learning about HTML and building basic web pages.

Museum of Odd Chicken Nuggets

When Sam grows up, if his first business idea doesn't work out perhaps he can open a Museum of Odd Chicken Nuggets.  His latest additions are the state of Virginia and the Millenium Falcon.  And don't forget devil chicken from last year.

Special Person Night

Sam invited Dad to "Special Person Night" at Celebration Pre-School. They had a good time.

Dad got to wear a tie that Sam made for him.

Then Dad and Sam worked on a gingerbread house. Dad worked on the foundation, while Sam worked on eating a lot of candy. If you look at the picture of the finished house, you may observe a problematic situation that occurred:

As you can see, the candy cane back door of the house was left open, which allowed the Mike & Ike burglar to gain entry. The police marshmallows arrived with skittles guns drawn, so we were hopeful that they would bring the entire situation to a peaceful resolution. The good news is that, by the next day, Sam had eaten away the problem.

Bear Badge

Congratulations to Pete for achieving his Bear badge last night at cub scouts.  This means that he has completed all of the required achievements for year 3 of cub scouting.  He can still continue to do more achievements through the remainder of the school year to attain belt loops or beads for his uniform.

After his meeting last night, Pete also attended an optional basketball practice.  He is glad he attended, since he got a good workout.  The other two people at the practice were the two coaches sons.  So Pete got a lot of good practice and coaching.  Also, his team is currently undefeated at 6-0.

Pete Learning About Programming #2

Pete was reading in his Guinness Book of World Records about a guy who typed the numbers from 1 to 1,000,000 (with one finger!).  Pete asked Dad what the guy was holding in the picture.  It was a manual typewriter.  Pete asked Dad why he didn't use a computer.  Dad told Pete that anyone could use a computer to type the numbers from 1 to 1,000,000 in a matter of seconds.  Pete asked Dad to tell him how to make a computer do that.  They discussed that there are several ways to do it.

You can click here to see a sample page Dad created to show to Pete.  Warning: depending on the speed of your computer, it might take a few seconds to a minute for the page to display the numbers.  Let Pete know if you see any mistakes in the numbers on the page.

The PTA at Pete's school is doing a program this year called After-school Enrichment.  Pete was going to sign up for the computer class, but it is geared more for the younger kids.  He decided to sign up for the Chess and JumpRopeTricks sessions, both of which are starting soon.

Pete Learning About Programming #1

Pete asked Dad if he could show him how to edit his Blogger template to show his favorite posts.  Dad said it involved directly editing some complicated HTML, but Pete said he wanted to learn so Dad showed Pete how to do it.  Since then, Pete has made several edits to his template.

You can see the sidebar, including Pete's favorite posts section, here.

Ice Skating

Pete and Sam had a fun family outing on Sunday, when the family went skating at the Ashburn Ice House.  It was essentially the first time ice skating for both Pete and Sam.  Pete did really well.  Sam counted a few times while Pete and Dad raced around the rink.  Pete also went "inside the cones" and learned some jumps and spins.  Sam also was able to skate by himself, without too much trouble.

After skating, everyone had some pizza at Pomodoro's and watched Spongebob.

The family decided not to bring the camera, so here is a random picture from Google of a family ice skating:

Except Sam didn't have a walker, and of course Pete and Sam were not wearing any gloves or jackets.

Cash Box

Pete and Sam each got a different cash box last week from Dad.  These were among the ancient treasures discovered as the basement organization project continues.

Above is Sam with his cash box.  He likes to open and close it a lot.  For a few hours it had a 2-dollar bill in it, which Sam declared ownership of after finding it.  ("It's mine because I licked it.")  But he later gave the Bill to Pete for a piece of gum.

Night Out

Mom and Dad took a rare dinner out in January.  

One should not be surprised to see Pete wearing his basketball uniform and Sam with his recorder.

Scrabble

We had a spirited 4-player game of Scrabble on Sunday evening.

On Sam's final turn, he had the letters O-S and was determined to make a 4-letter word.  Examine the board and see if you can figure out the two illegal things he did to make his word.

White Board

Sometimes Sam will disappear for a few minutes and later mysterious activities will show up on the family white board.  Looks like Saturday will be game night!

Sauna

The sauna is the place that Pete and Dad go to get away and focus on an important activity, such as completing a cub scout achievement.

Eventually, Sam finds them in there and chaos resumes.   Hopefully they have completed their work before then.

Favorite Movie

What is Sam's favorite movie in the world?

a. Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace

b. Pete's Dragon

c. Big Top Pee-Wee

d. Generally, the last movie he has seen (which at the moment is "RV")

Clothing Quiz

Which item of clothing will you rarely see on Sam?

a) Socks

b) Jeans

c) Shoelaces

d) Jacket

e) All of the above

(Hint: answer is the same if you replace "Sam" with "the monkey")

Making Movies

Click here to watch a movie that Pete made on xtranormal.com, with some help from Sam and Dad.  It is called "Pete and Sam's Trip to Busch Gardens".

Also, click here to see the first movie in the series, that Dad made a few weeks ago.  It is called "Sam Wants To Play DS"

Christmas Presents

Pictured above are a few of Pete and Sam's Christmas presents.

1. Eagles shirts from Grandma

2. Snap Circuits Jr.

3. green Puzzle cube

By the way, the Eagles will be in the Super Bowl this year if they can defeat the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.

More of the Same

Here is how Pete and Sam spent most of the day on Christmas.

Spongebob Sweatshirts

Pete and Sam like their Spongebob hooded sweatshirts that they got for Christmas.

Spongebob Party - Activities

See if you can match the following activities from Sam's Spongebob party to the pictures below.

Activities

Pin the Tie on Spongebob

Krabby Patty Race

Beanbag Toss

Eating Spongebob Cake

Jellyfishing

Coloring

Hot Potato

Pictures:

Nothing To Worry About

Dad: What does that "T" mean on the outside of the Guitar Hero box?

Pete: Don't worry, that just means it's rated "T" for "Toddler"

New Year's Eve

Dad got a call at 12:01 AM from Sam.  He had stayed up until midnight with Pete and Sarah in Virginia Beach.  Sam was insisting that it was not midnight yet, so Mom rewound the TV to show the ball drop again.  Pete said their plan was to stay up a bit longer, then sleep until 11 PM.