Pete New York Trip - Day 2

On day 2 of the New York trip, Pete and his friends took a ferry boat tour and saw Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, Battery Park, the 9/11 Memorial, Freedom Tower, Trinity Church, Wall Street, South Street Seaport, Greenwich Village, East Village, SoHo, Chinatown, and Little Italy.

They capped off the day with dinner at Ben's Deli and a Broadway show (Stomp).  They also met some of the actors from Stomp after the show.

Pete New York Trip - Day 1

Pete went to New York with a group of students from Farmwell Middle School, chaperoned by Mrs. Rossi and Mr. Dodson.

A few months before the trip, there was a planning meeting/party at Corey's house (Sam had Lacrosse and could not attend):

A few weeks before the trip, there was a planning meeting/party at the Alba's house (Sam and Dad had a Lacrosse party down the street and could not attend):

On the first day, they met the bus at school at 8:15am.  Then they did a walking tour of the city, including Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, FAO Schwartz, Trump Tower, Times Square, and Grand Central Station.

After dinner they went up to the top of the Empire State Building.

Nationals Cub Scout Game

The family had a fun outing with the Cub Scouts at the Washington Nationals game on April 28th.  Mom dropped off Dad, Pete, and Sam and then drove off to park the car in the cheap lot.  The seats were in the front row (of the upper section), although everyone moved up a few rows to the covered area when it started to rain.

Unfortunately, immediately after the rain started they posted this message on the scoreboard: "Due to the hazardous conditions, the Run The Bases event has been cancelled".  That was pretty lame.

In this picture, you can make out the US Capitol building off in the background (just to the left of Sam's head):

The Nationals lost to the Reds.  The team started out the year as one of the favorites to make the World Series, but it has not been as good a year as expected.

The boys found a very cool "Transportation Walk" on the way back to the car, by the Navy Yard.  This might have been the best part of the entire outing.

By the way, the mystery item Pete is holding under the towel in several of the pictures is his leftover french fries that he brought all the way home, and which sat in the refrigerator for a few days.

Spectrum Civilization Project

Everyone went to Farmwell one evening to see the project that Pete's group created.  First Mom, Nana, and Poppy went over.  Then Dad went to pick up Sam at John's house and they went over to the school.  

On the way to the cafeteria, they spotted a cool poster for William's sister (Theresa) who was running for class President.  The tiny hat looks good on Principal Loya:

Here is the diorama and poster that Pete's group created for the "Hydrochromats":

After viewing the poster, everyone went over to Manhattan Pizza for dinner.

Pete School Prep

Here is Pete getting ready for school on a typical day.  The pink duct tape is for some sort of spirit event that was going on that day.  The thug Eagles hat is actually his hair styling tool.  He would wear it for a while and then remove it before heading off to school (except on really cold days).  The hat got lost a few times on the bus and some other places over the course of the year.

Pete already has on his socks and shoes, so there is a decent chance in this case that he might make it to the bus stop on time without any running.  Which is no fun on the days that he is carrying his trumpet.

Claude Moore Geo-Picnic

Dad was pleased to have Pete join him at a local geocaching picnic in Claude Moore park.  They met some fellow geocachers and had some cheeseburgers.

Then they went off to find the final stage of a geocache called "A Walk Along Vestal's Gap".  Pete found a cool levitating stick along the way:

Kino Level 40

Congratulations to Sam for getting to level 40 on a solo game of Call of Duty: Zombies (Kino Der Toten map).  This is the highest level any of us have seen.

Let this be a cautionary tale - when someone says they are going to play a game of Kino, make sure it is not within a few hours of bedtime.

Crime Prevention

Mom arranged for Loudoun police Deputy Capitan to come to the last Cub Scout den meeting of the season.  Pete joined in the fun as well.  The deputy showed the boys how to dust for fingerprints and gave them some tips on crime prevention in general.

Dad was hoping that the school did not get broken into that night, since his prints were on the door going in to the cafeteria.

Project Collaboration

Pete has been getting pretty high-tech when collaborating with his classmates.  Here he is pictured working in his room on a class project, using Skype and a webcam to interact with his friend:

It is good to see his fancy desk getting some use, other than for his Pearls Before Swine calendar and miscellaneous candy wrappers.

Pete finished the school year with straight A's, and a few A+ grades also.  Which makes one wonder what grades he could get if he actually did some of his projects a few days *before* they were due.

Pinewood Derby

As the Bear Den leader, Dad was in charge of the Pack Pinewood Derby this year.  So there was a lot of work to be done.  One thing that helped was Poppy working with Sam to design and cut his car.  Dad helped with the car's wheel assembly.  Here is the final car.  It weighed in at 5.1 ounces, so they had to drill a small circle out of the bottom at the weigh-in:

Sam was delighted to finish in 2nd place for the entire Pack.  There was a bit of a mistake with the trophy (which you may notice below), but they got it corrected:

The event went off great.  The only issue was when Dad was loading the derby track back into the attic, and ended up with a hernia that would require some surgery.  It is time to find someone else who can store the track next year!

Architecture

One of the BearCub Scout requirements this year was to visit a place where they make a model.  Jackson's Dad invited everyone to his office where he is an architect.  The Scouts toured the office, and then built some cool models out of cardboard and styrofoam.  There was also a computer program (Google Sketchup) Mr. Gavin told them about, that they could try to use at home.

Sam drew up a pretty intricate model on paper:

No one could really conceive of it until he built it out on the computer.  This is Sam's finished 3-D model that he created and implemented completely by himself:

Art Prize

Sam won a raffle at the school dance and the prize was a special art project.  He stayed after school 3 times and make the cool dog shown in the photo below:

He had the option of making any creature with legs.  He chose to make a dog.

Packing Lunch

Since Mom is working all the way in Springfield this year, Dad gets to prep Pete and Sam every day for school and also frequently prepare their lunches.  This year Pete did not buy any lunches, and Sam bought lunch about 1/4 of the time.

Below is a standard lunch for Sam; a turkey/lettuce/cheese wrap, strawberries, chocolate milk, cookie, and "cold guy":

Sam doesn't like too many typical lunch items, so it is a bit of a creativity exercise to pack his lunch.  Sometimes Dad throws some extra stuff in there just to make sure the lunch attendants don't contact Child Services when they see Sam show up with just chocolate milk and some tortilla chips.

Pete doesn't like sandwiches, so his lunches are typically a mashup of about 7 or 8 small "side" items, such as a small container of cucumbers or Cheez-its.

Colored Pencils

One day Pete decided that the colored pencils need to be arranged in proper color order.  You can see his pretty arrangement in the photo below:

This was all fine and good, until Pete also announced that the pencils need to be put away in this order, and that the order needs to be maintained in perpetuity.

If anyone knows of a good colored pencil order maintenance guy, please send us his phone number.

Thomas Jefferson Speech

Dad was pleased that Sam gave several speeches in class this year.  Below is the costume he wore for his Thomas Jefferson speech:

Of course he did a great job on the speech and got a good grade.

Unlike the original Thomas Jefferson, Sam posted the above picture on Instagram after his speech.

Bikes in the Cafeteria

No, the title of this post is not the sequel to "Lions on the Astroturf".

Sam's Cub Scout Den brought their bikes one night to the Den meeting.  It was fun bringing the bikes into the cafeteria.  Mr. Gavin volunteered to lead the activity.  He used to work at a bike shop:

Pictured above of course are Jackson Myers, Alex Biddle, Dominik Blank, William Hammann, Jalen Riggio (who had just joined the group a few weeks earlier), Ethan Markowitz, and Sam.  Their Den Chief, Jonah Hyatt, was not in attendance at this meeting.

Soon after the picture was taken, Mr. Gavin demonstrated how to fix a flat tire, and then Dad took the Scouts out one at a time to the obstacle course he had set up in the parking lot.  Dad was heard making the following speech that he was worried he may come to regret:

"ok Scouts, you will now take your bikes out to the parking lot for the hairpin course - keep in mind that it is dark, it is cold, it is raining, it is treacherous, ..."

Balls Bluff Hike

The Spring Cub Scout hike was a great time for the family to go out together to Balls Bluff.  Dad somehow ended up being the leader of the hike, so Pete and Sam stuck with it and joined the smaller group that hiked the longer loop around the park.

Sam is pictured below in the front left, with his sharp new t-shirt (designed and purchased by Dad):

Here is a cool animal bone that Sam and Dad spotted along the trail.  About a week later, Sam brought home a picture of the identical item in a study packet, and they were able to identify it as a deer jaw bone:

Scalp Removal

They say there's a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow, so with the skyrocketing prices of gold lately the family is working to get Pete scheduled in for a scalp-removal appointment.

Sterling Station

On March 30, the family took advantage of the nice Saturday weather and did a brief Geocache/hike called Sterling Station.  They had planned for a short family hike along the W&OD trail, but as they had feared the "Carmax" trail lot lot was filled up in the early afternoon by all the bikers, so they executed Plan B and parked in the Ruritan area. They had fun briefly exploring the area.  The boys and Dad should have listened to Mom and not tried their "shortcut" on the way back to the car.  But they still made it back in time to rush Pete over to meet up with Jeff and his other friends.

Dad and the boys walking across the street from the old Sterling Station (now a private residence).  The paved path on the right (W&OD) is where the train used to run:

Dad signing the geocache log book in the area of an abandoned house:

Easter 2013

The boys dyed some eggs for Easter this year:

Then it was time for the annual Merrywood Easter Egg Hunt:

Sam quickly found his dozen eggs:

Note in the group photo, you have to look twice to realize that Pete is wearing Sam's camo basket on his head, which blends in perfectly with the tree in the background:

It was raining, and when Pete was all bundled up, Dad said he looked like the Egg-burglar.