Game Ball

The date was:

The field was:

The bases were loaded with Yankees. The batter was:

The result was:

As you may have surmised, Pete got the game ball.

Dad rolled up to the field a few minutes later, and had the following conversation with Pete:

Pete: Guess what I did on my first at bat?

Dad: walk?

Pete: No

Dad: single?

Pete: No

Dad: double?

Pete: No

Dad: triple?

Pete: No

Dad: struck out?

Pete: No

Dad: hit by pitch?

Pete: No

Dad: dropped third strike?

Pete: No

Dad: fielder's choice?

Pete: No

Dad: bunt?

Pete: No

Dad: error?

Pete: No

Dad: Home run?

Pete: Closer

Dad: Grand Slam?

Guaranteed Success

Dad usually comes straight from work to Pete's baseball games. It seems that he usually arrives just in time to miss Pete's first at bat of the game. Which is about half of his hitting, since Pete usually ends up batting once more.

At the last game, Dad rolled up just after Pete got a triple. Pete was standing on third, and the Coach signaled Dad with three fingers. Dad knew this meant that he had just missed Pete getting a triple.

Dad e-mailed Coach that if the team ever needs a critical hit in the playoffs, he can put Pete up to bat and Dad will go drive around the parking lot.

Triple

Hooray to Pete for hitting a ball all the way to the center field wall in yesterday's baseball game. And hooray to the small band of severe thunderstorms for passing about 1 mile north of the field, so the game was not cancelled.

The triple Pete got yesterday is what Dad calls a "natural triple". There is another way to get a triple in Pete's league, which is to get a single, walk, or hit by a pitch. This is because the players are allowed to steal second and third on wild pitches, and the catchers are not capable of throwing anyone out, so whenever Pete gets a walk Dad can be heard yelling out "that's as good as a triple", to the befuddlement of the other parents.

Pete's team (Yankees) won, to remain comfortably in first place.

Dad and Sam played a variety of activities during breaks in the game. After the game, of course it was kids eat free night at IHOP.

Slivers

Poem by Mike Berman 5/13/11

Bath Toys

Everyone needs a few bath toys. Maybe a rubber duckie, or a squirt gun. Dad noticed the other night that Sam has been taking a bath with the following:

Yes, a large stool and foam weight. Any questions regarding the above, you will have to ask Sam yourself.

Tether Ball

Mom and Dad finally revealed to Sam last weekend his final Christmas present. It is a real live tetherball set. Dad and Poppy poured 200 pounds of concrete into a tire on Saturday to make the base.

You can see in the picture that it is already a hit with the ladies.

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updated 5/17/11 to include missing picture

Rubber Beret

About one day a year, Pete decides that it's Pig Latin day. He speaks only in Pig Latin for most of the day. In case you think this sounds whimsical and fun - it's not. It actually starts out pretty annoying, and then gets worse.

One interesting thing did happen on Pig Latin day 2011. Pete somehow found a green rubber ball that he was able to wear on his head. He noticed that when you say "rubber" in Pig Latin, it is "ubberay" and on his head it looked like "a beret". This was a pretty unexpected coincidence of language.

Teacher Appreciation

Pete's 5th grade teacher this year at Dominion Trail is Mrs. Robin LaFrankie. Here is the poem he wrote for her, for Teacher Appreciation week:

Candace

Sam recently posted a number of drawings in the kitchen. Of course, the picture shown above is Candace from Phineas & Ferb.

The interesting thing is that I heard someone ask him what she was doing in the picture and he said it was a dance move called the "Camel Toe".

Pete's Breakfast

Pete made his own pancakes and bacon.

The two wristbands are: yellow from Woodloch and black from Farmwell Station (his middle school next year)

Mother's Day 2011

Mom had a nice Mother's Day breakfast. Actually, she had two. First, at 7:30am Sam brought her a Pop Tart and Orange Juice in bed, that he made all by himself. Then Dad and Poppy cooked omelettes, pancakes, and fruit for everyone.

Also later that day Nana and Poppy bought a condo. And Dad put up a rather serious fence to keep the rabbits out of his pumpkin garden.

Note in the picture above, Sam doing his traditional photobomb.

Woodloch Vacation - Last Day

Day 6 of the Woodloch vacation came quickly, and was sadly the last day of the trip. The good news is that even after checking out of the room, you can continue to use the facilities for as long as you want. So of course everyone took it upon themselves to cram as many activities as possible into this final day.

Pete and Dad headed down to the Goofy Golf contest, while Mom packed up the car and Sam headed up to the North Lodge for the "Finish Lines" game. Dad and Pete worked their way up to the lounge and everyone teamed up with Skillz That Killz for the Finish Lines game.

Everyone quickly hopped on the shuttle and headed over to the Go Kart area. Pete and Sam did some bumper boats, and Pete climbed the rock wall (the 2 hardest faces) while Sam and Dad checked out the bikes in the bike shed and horseshoes. Everyone then headed over to the Sports Complex for a spirited game of Wallyball. This turned out to be Newcomb, which was one of the most fun activities of the whole week.

With just a little time left before the Knockout tournament, everyone hopped in a rowboat and went out on the lake for about 20 minutes. Then they dashed over to the gym for the Knockout tournament. Pete and Sam had played quite a bit of basketball during the week, so it was pretty much their home court. They played well, but the randomness of Knockout, and about 40 entrants, left them out of the medals in this event.

Everyone made the sad walk to the car and bid farewell to Woodloch, hoping perhaps there will be another visit there one day.

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.

Fever Parade

Dad got the call one day to come pick up Pete at school. He had been running a fever the day before, but felt better in the morning and was able to go to school and keep his perfect attendance intact for the year. However, his fever resurfaced and the nurse had to call Dad to come pick Pete up.

Pete and Dad made up a schedule for the day to make sure Dad could get a lot of work done, but with a few breaks for lunch and play time.

Pete was sad because that afternoon he was supposed to parade around the school, to celebrate his class finishing third in the recent reading contest. So Pete and Dad decided to do the parade at home, as seen in the following video:

Note in the video that Dad changed his seat several times to simulate multiple people watching the parade.

A Hike Diverted

The family drove down to DC for the Spring Cub Scout hike at Roosevelt Island. However, the parking lot was full so they had to quickly make other plans.

First, they headed off to the nearby Pentagon Memorial. Pete nearly added 1 to the victim count at the memorial when he took a header jumping over a cement pylon at the entrance. Fortunately, he escaped with just a hip contusion.

Next, they drove a few short miles up to Maryland to visit the "other" side of Great Falls. Although the scenic overlooks and trails were closed due to the recent flooding, Pete and Sam found some side trails where they got to do a lot of rock climbing, stone skipping, and looking for caves.

They will need to go back another time to do the famous Billy Goat Trail.

Diseases

The family was enjoying a nice dinner at the food court in Dulles Town Center mall. Of course, the variety of tastes required visiting Sbarro, Chik-Fil-A, Flamers, and Great Steak and Potato Company. (The latter was just to get Pete's lemonade.)

Anyhow, Sam said he was experiencing chest pains, which engendered the following exchange:

Pete: I think you have angina

Sam: I am not a girl!!

Cardinal

Sam's pine cone bird feeder that he made at the Cub Scout den meeting has been a big hit with the local cardinals.

President

One of Sam's favorite homework assignments is finding words inside a big word. He went with Pete and Dad one night to Sal's pizza, and they worked on their homework there. Below is Sam's final list of words:

Note the section where he has the words "tender", "pen", "is". Pete and Dad had some other ideas for this, but Sam is clearly a professional with the highest integrity. Well, except for the part where he decided to add 14 exclamation points to the word "die".

It is also likely that Sam is the only person in his class who found the word "sniper".

Apparently the watering can stamp means he did a good job on the assignment.

Patriotic Program

Sam performed in his patriotic program at school last week. Mom and Dad attended the morning show, and Mom had the pleasure of attending again in the evening.

To sum up, Sam walked in:

Sam sang some songs:

Sam walked out:

A great time was had by all.

The Odyssey

Pete asked Dad if he would like to go to his FUTURA classroom to watch his group performance of "The Odyssey". Or, to put it another way, if he would like to get to work at 12:30.

Dad enjoyed watching three plays presented by Pete and his classmates. This was at the school in Sterling where Pete goes on Mondays for the gifted program.

Pete played Odysseus, who apparently has a prominent role in the production. Dad recorded the entire 18 minute affair, which is available upon request.

After the play, Dad took a picture of (l-r) Pete and his friends Albert, and Alonzo.

If you look carefully, Albert can also be seen in the background of the photo below of Sam (taken yesterday) shooting at the Dominion Trail playground:

Albert was practicing by himself, preparing for his playoff game the next evening. He is on Pete's team, the Trailblazers. They won the game, and advanced to the semi-final game on Friday night against the Heat.

Chat Madness

If you ever happen to chat with Pete on Instant Messenger, with Mom mixed in once or twice, it might go something like this:

Snowboarding

Dad and Pete went to Whitetail on Sunday for some snowboarding. This is the same place the family had been tubing a few weeks earlier. Pete and Dad were supposed to go on Saturday, but there was a 50 MPH wind advisory, so they decided that Sunday would be better. Sam was supposed to come too, but he came down with the flu so he stayed home with Mom.

Once they made it through the utter misery of the rental shack, they hit the slopes. Dad was on skis, and Pete was snowboarding for the first time. It turned out to be a bit more challenging than Pete was expecting, but by the end of the day they had been on 4 different lifts and were starting to do some of the steeper runs. It turns out that the most dangerous slope is the beginner run with the conveyor belt - this is where Pete and Dad witnesses several unfortunate injuries over the course of the day.

Pete's strengths were going fast and turning to the left. His weaknesses were turning to the right and stopping. Dad would follow Pete down the runs. He couldn't keep up with Pete, but eventually he would come upon a poor soul with body contorted in all directions.

This person would be Pete. Dad would help Pete to his feet, and they would continue down the mountain.

IHOP Argument

Sam argues about everything. About half the time he is wrong. The other half of the time the whole discussion is some sort of obscure technicality. There are myriad examples.

Dad and Sam went to IHOP Wednesday night, since Pete was home sick. Sam had also been to IHOP with Mom on Sunday morning, since he had wanted pancakes and Pete was still at Alonzo's house from the past-midnight Laser Tag sleepover fiasco. Anyhow, Dad told Sam that it was pretty cool that he got to go to IHOP twice in the same week, Sunday and Wednesday.

Sam quickly pointed out his pointed out his opinion that (a) the first time was Saturday and (b) it's not twice in the same week, since a new week starts on Monday.

Misplaced Credit

Dad returned to the car after running in to Bloom for some lemonade. Sam had been thinking pensively.

Sam: "There's a song in our patriotic show that isn't right. It gives credit to Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dad for all the things that he did. They always leave out the "Jr." part. The song says that Martin Luther King gave the speech 'I Have a Dream'. He was probably dead years before that speech took place."

Bagg Balm

Bag Balm is Pete's mortal enemy. It is supposed to be some kind of soothing ointment, but whenever it touches Pete's face it burns like acid on plastic. Now reading the product description for the first time, it does seem curious that it says "Treat your pet's chapped or brush-burned area with Bag Balm for soothing, moisturizing relief."

Anyhow, whenever Dad wanted to scare Pete in the bathroom he would whip out the container of Bag Balm and sing "B-A-G-G B-A-L-M Bagg Balm". After all these years, tonight Dad revealed to Pete where this reference comes from. See if you can figure it out before clicking on this link to reveal the answer.