Sam's 7th "Video Game" Birthday Party - Arrival Game

Pete and Dad worked for several hours one Sunday on the "arrival" game, which would require filling in the names of 30 famous video game characters based on a picture (Sam wanted a special one without pictures, but the picture of Mario did not want to go away) and description. The last page would give the names in random order, to help those who were not as familiar with the names. The handout pages are shown below:

This activity went surprisingly well, and the guests sat quietly and filled out their sheets while pizza was served.

Sam's 7th "Video Game" Birthday Party

Saturday was Sam's 7th birthday. He selected Red Robin for his birthday dinner, and sat mouth agape when they brought him a big sundae and sang to him. Today was Sam's party.

Sam went through a variety of ideas while planning for his 7th birthday party. Originally, he wanted to do something at the bounce house. This morphed into having a party at the community center. But we finally extracted that he wanted to do a video game party - which of course meant a party at home. This was going to be a record in chaos, with Mom and Dad the only adults available to help with the party. Things were further complicated when Sam could only scale his invitee list back no further than his closest 12 friends. Adding in Sam, Pete, and Pete's friend, this would be a total of 15 (12 6-7 year olds, 1 8 year old, 1 9 year old, and 1 10 year old). And yes, everyone Sam invited responded that they would be in attendance. The final seating arrangement would be 5 at the kitchen table, 4 at a card table, and 6 at the kitchen bar. We also discovered the night before the party that half of the folding chairs were missing.

Pictured above, Mom and Sam work on preparing the cake and lollipops for the party.

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The pictures of the boys over the whiteboard were getting pretty out of date, so Mom took the boys to get some updated pictures.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:

Isolating the Problem

On Thursday morning, Pete went to school early for "Thursday Fitness" and Mom was off to teach for the day at Guilford. So it was just Sam and Dad getting ready to walk to the bus.

Dad: "Come over here - there's a spot on your head that I need to comb."

Sam: "The problem is not with my hair. The problem is with your vision."

Parade of Webkinz

One day Sam and Dad were bored so they set up a parade of Webkinz. The spectators are the non-Webkinz. The parade goes on for quite a bit into the bedroom, as you can imagine. When Mom and Pete got home, they were probably wondering for how many days the obstacle parade was going to continue.

First Day of School - Photoshop Edition

We were going to toss out this "First Day of School" picture, because there was a problem with it. But we made a minor modification. See if you can figure out what we did and why.

Drop Zone - Before and After

Pete and Mom rode the Drop Zone at Kings Dominion. See if you can which picture below is "before" and which is "after":

Scotch Tape

One afternoon Pete and Sam were out on the trampoline with Corey and Madison. Pete came in the house to grab the scotch tape.

A few minutes later, the following gang was seen terrorizing the neighborhood:

Long Day

Sam had a pretty long day at King's Dominion:

- Taxi Jam

- Treasure Cave

- Eiffel Tower

- Triple Spin

- Flying Eagles

- Carousel

- Avalanche

- Bumper Cars

He was so tired by the end of the day, the family decided to just leave him in a nice grassy area.

Waiting in Line

This is Sam waiting in line to ride "Flying Eagles" at Kings Dominion. He was pretty much the only kid in line who was reading the comics. The other kids seemed to be wasting their time staring at the ground, hanging on the railing, etc. Dad also seemed to be the only person in line working on a crossword puzzle.

Height Requirements

Pictures can be deceptive sometimes. The picture below accurately shows that this year Sam clearly fell into the 44" - 46" range, for the purpose of determining which rides he may go on at King's Dominion:

However, we took a second picture from a lower angle, with quite different results:

We figured maybe this second picture would convince some of the ride operators that he is more than 46" tall.

Note that Pete is 54"+, so he can go on pretty much anything. They really need another category of wristband which essentially says "this individual is permitted to go on any ride, but may not wander off and get in line for the Shock Wave without telling anyone."

Napkin Drawing

One evening, just before dinner, Pete quickly prepared the following drawing and asked Dad to identify it:

After about 20 minutes of guesses and more guesses, the family was able to correctly identify the subject matter of the picture. We will spare the reader the agony of guessing and just say that it is a polar bear sleeping, standing-up, in a snowstorm.

A Lovely Email Poem From Sam

Dad made the mistake of sending this e-mail to Sam:

This is what he got back:

First Day of School 2010

Pete and Sam are back in school. Pete has Mrs. Robin Lafrankie for 5th grade, and Sam has Mrs. Kathy Rather for 1st grade.

The bus actually came less late this year on the first day. The official pick-up time is 7:34, so at around 7:35 Pete/Sam/Mom/Dad started the walk down the street. The fact that about 60 people were already at the stop was not a concern. The bus actually came about 2-3 minutes after Pete and Sam arrived at the waiting area at 7:40. It was on the wrong side of the street, but close enough. Of course, Pete gets to sit in the last 2 seats because he's a 5th grader.

Sam is a full day student this year, so he will have to figure out something he likes to eat for lunch. Apparently he has already figured out how to use the ice cream token.

Sam is more excited than Pete used to be about taking Spanish. Here is the conversation when Dad arrived home from work after the first day of school:

Dad: Hi Sam, I'm home.

Sam: What time is it?

Dad: About 6:30pm

[pause]

Sam: Buenas Noches

Pools

Now that school is back in session, it is a good time to look back at the pools and waterways that Pete and Sam went to over the summer:

Lakes Pool

Mills ("Bucket") Pool

Pavillion Pool

Woods Pool

Ocean Breeze (Va Beach)

Water Mine (Reston)

Splashdown (Manassas)

A.V. Symington (Leesburg)

College Park Pool (Va Beach)

Radisson (Philadelphia)

Holiday Inn (Charleston)

Great Wolf (Williamsburg)

Iberostar (Montego Bay)

Hampton

Atlantic Ocean

Youghiogheny River (Deep Creek Lake)

Shenandoah River (Harper's Ferry)

New bathing suits for everyone next year.

Water Mine

It was the last Sunday before the first day of school. Dad had never been to the Water Mine waterpark in Reston, so everyone headed out for a day of fun. It was a bit windy, so swimming was not the best option, but everyone stayed for about 6 hours. The order of events at the park was roughly Little Pete, Rattlesnake River, football, volleyball, Rattlesnake River, frisbee, Little Pete, football, Rattlesnake River, frisbee, Rattlesnake River, write in Sam's journal, football, Little Pete, Rattlesnake River, football, carousel.

Sam Dad Saturday

It was the last Saturday before the first day of school. Mom and Pete went out for some shopping, so Sam and Dad were out and about. After lunch at Sal's, they headed over to Dominion Trail. There were some good winds from the remnants of Hurricane Earl, so first they flew a kite. They didn't bring any other implements, so they walked around the school. After hitting the playground, they found a good piece of mulch and played some hopscotch. They scaled the brick wall, and somehow got back down. Then there was the throwing contest. Then they rescued Crickito, who was tangled in a web. They found an old piece of chalk. Dad drew a picture of "_____ with a _____", which Sam had to guess. After hitting the second playground, they did the states game. Sam got 44 out of the 50 states correct. After playing with Nelson, they found a pair of sunglasses, Sam almost hit himself with a rock, and then headed home.

Starting Sentences

Sam and Dad were sitting poolside when Sam was working on an entry in his journal. He shared the following observation:

Sam: "Do you want to know a word that a sentence should never start with?"

Dad: "Yes"

Sam " 'And' "

Dad: That's true.

- pause -

Sam: "Also 'eyeballs' "

Paper Airplanes

Sam has been completely obsessed with paper airplanes for the last 2 weeks. There are piles of planes all over the house. One night Dad asked Sam to sort the planes into a "keep" pile and a "trash" pile. The result was about 50 in the keep pile, and 9 in the trash pile.

One day Dad spotted something disturbing and grabbed the camera. Look carefully at the picture below and see if you can spot a sign that the obsession has started to go a bit too far.