Crawfish Boil

Everyone had a great time last weekend at the annual Merrywood Crawfish Boil. There were 4 servings of crawfish, corn, potatoes, mushrooms, and sausage, the first around 3:00pm and the last around 10:00pm.

This year, the kids each got to take 2 crawfish. Sam's "2" were Pingzing, RedClaw, and ??. They were the President, Governor, and Mayor of the Crawfish States of America. They also ended up living in our bathtub for 2 days.

Of course, everyone watched the USA / Ghana soccer game on several laptops hooked up to Sling Box.

This year, the kids also enjoyed a late-night movie on the lawn.

Apparently, a group of teenagers slept out on our trampoline. As you can see, they did not all make it through the night.

Birthday Swing

Mom was excited to see her new birthday swing under the maple tree in the backyard.

Sam and Dad assembled the swing while Mom was at school cleaning up her classroom over the weekend. Pete helped them carry the swing to its final location.

Swinger

Sam was hanging on to the doorknob of the basement door and swinging from side to side. Regarding this, he commented: "This never gets old".

Charleston Trip - Day 3

Day 3 of the Charleston trip was the big wedding day.

Dad went off to do some Geocaching and hiking all around town, while Mom and the boys went to the beach with Joey and Sarah.

Then everyone partied hard at the wedding.

Charleston Trip - Day 2

Day 2 was a busy day on the Charleston trip.

First, the boys went swimming with Joey and Sarah at the hotel pool. Here is Sam demonstrating a trick he learned on America's Funniest Videos:

Next, everyone headed off for the Children's Museum of the Low Country in downtown Charleston. Joey decided to come with Pete and Sam.

First, everyone enjoyed pizza that Dad brought back from Zappos:

Pete discovered that he's now officially tall enough for all of the rides at Busch Gardens:

Mom squeezed through the door to get in:

The boys got trapped in a series of unfortunate predicaments:

Pete did his best Jackson Pollock on the water painting area:

And the boys flooded the city of New Charleston (as well as the museum floor) quite a number of times:

Then it was off a few blocks down King St. to dinner at Jim 'n Nick's Barbecue:

Sam especially enjoyed the chocolate cake for Joey's birthday, that was apparently flown in from the Royal Palace on a very warm plane. He was also struggling to figure out the following word that Dad gave him in Hangman:

Finally, it was back to the hotel for the reception in Steve and Sabrina's Presidential Suite:

Charleston Trip - Day 1

About a month after Uncle Steve and Sabrina's Jamaica Wedding, it was time to head down to Charleston, South Carolina for the "stateside" wedding.

The drive was about 10 hours down on Thursday evening and 13 hours back on Sunday. Dad brought an MP3 player full of stories form storynory.com, and the boys each had a bag of goodies to occupy themselves on the trip. Overall, it actually went pretty smoothly.

Dad picked up Pete early from school and the Pavilion. Then Pete, Sam, and Dad grabbed some lunch and picked up Mom at school around 2:00. They stopped for dinner in North Carolina, and arrived at the hotel by around 11:00.

Fishing Trip

Pete and Dad went on an all-day fishing trip on the Chesapeake Bay, with some Dads and kids from Pete's Cub Scout group.

They went down Tuesday night and stayed here. They had dinner here.

The boat set sail from here, and they fished all around the Chesapeake, including here and here and here.

For more pictures and captions, click here.

Paper Frogs

Mom: "Sam, why do I keep finding little paper frogs and swords all over the floor?"

Sam: "It's what I do"

Ice Cream Man

The good news is that Pete planned ahead and was ready with his own money this evening when the ice cream man came down the street. The other news is that he purchased so much ice cream, the guy gave him a cardboard box to carry everything back to the house.

Halloween 2009

We thought June 2010 would be a good time to post our pictures from Halloween 2009.

Pete carved a pumpkin for his school pumpkin carving contest. His was different from the others, because he worked on it himself. You have certainly figured out that it is a dead guy with spikes in his head.

Below is Sam ready for trick-or-treating. You have certainly figured out that he is Spider Man.

Pete had a hard time deciding what costume to wear. He didn't decide until about October 17. You have certainly figured out that he is the grim reaper. The only candy he got was the Three Musketeers bar in the picture. (Plus another 12 pillow cases full.)

Here are Sam and Mason chillin' in Mason's garage. You have certainly figured out that Mason is a pirate.

In conclusion, this was a great Halloween. And if anyone wants some candy, we still have more left over.

Strikers Soccer

Sam played his second season of Ashburn Soccer in the Spring of 2010. The last game of the season was on June 5, about an hour after Pete's bloody baseball game. Sam's co-coaches were Mom and Coach William.

His teammates (see picture below) were Luca, Noah, Elijah, Miles, and Ian. Most teams had 8 players, but the Strikers only had 6 so they got a lot of playing time and exercise

The Strikers won the game 14-1. They ended up undefeated on the season, including 2 ties. The playoffs are on June 12. However, Sam will be in South Carolina for Uncle Steve's second wedding reception.

Mariners Baseball

Pete played on the Mariners in DLL Spring baseball for 2010. The team had a rough regular season, but played well in the playoffs. Both playoff games went extra innings. They defeated the Angels 11-10 in a Tuesday night game that went from 6:00-8:30. Then they lost to the Yankees 10-9 on June 5, after Pete scored the go-ahead run to go up 9-8 in the extra inning.

The picture above was taken in the dugout, exactly 6 minutes before the manager was heard yelling from right field: "Someone get a towel and some ice! Pete got hit in the mouth and he's bleeding". The game was followed by a trip to the dentist on the way home.

Talent Show

Pete was in the Dominion Trail school talent show again this year. He did a group performance with some of his friends. Pictured above are the people in the skit (l-r): Renzo, Devin, Mitchell, Ayush, Luke, Alec, Corey, Pete, Brad. They did a basketball dribbling routine.

The show is not a "talent show" in the true sense. There are no auditions. To give you some sense of the fare, roughly a dozen people each sang the timeless classic "Naturally" by Selena Gomez. The primary requirement is that you are talented enough to go to the rehearsals. I think one of these years they may change it to an "opt out" show - you are automatically entered into the show unless you get a note from your parents that you don't want to be in it.

Due to the sheer number of acts in the show, it ran a little longer than last year. It started Friday at 7:00pm and was over (I'm guessing here) around 2:45am Saturday morning.

Cake

Pete and Sam decided to bake a cake on Sunday, without a recipe. Mom gave them some suggestions to keep things on the right track. When it was ready, they decided to cut it in half and each frost their half. Sam went with a standard chocolate frosting. Pete opted for a marshmallow frosting that involved quite an ordeal with various pots and pans simultaneously on the stove. Sam put some strawberries on top of his half, but he had already eaten the chocolate-covered strawberries prior to the taking of the photo shown above.

The cake was a delicious treat enjoyed by all. By the way, "all" means "only Pete and Sam".

The Last Meeting

Last week's cub scouts meeting was the last of the year, and quite possibly Pete's last ever. Pete had a good time at the meeting.

First, he raced the Go Kart around the parking lot. This was the Kart that his Webelos den built during the year, under the expert guidance of Mr. Korrie.

Next, Pete and his group led the flag ceremony at the meeting.

Finally, it was time to head outside for shooting off some water bottle rockets and throwing pies at the leaders.

As always, Pete and Dad were the last to leave the event, after dark.

Just One Question

It was getting pretty late, so Dad said to Sam, "ok, you really need to get to sleep, so you can ask me one more question and then I need to go".

Sam replied, "ok. What is life?"