Sweeney Todd

Pete participated in the Broad Run Spring musical production of Sweeney Todd. Pete was the understudy for Tobias, in addition to being in several company scenes and singing in several scenes as part of the sextet. Mom, Dad, and Sam attended the Saturday evening performance.

A variety of Dad's clothing ended up being used in the play, which left Dad wondering since it was mostly for the street urchins. Here is Pete wearing Dad's shirt and tie; the shirt was was one of the ones used in the production:

Spring Break Golf

The forecast for Thursday of Spring Break week was sunny and 73 degrees, so Dad scheduled a tee time to play with Pete and/or Sam. Sam was not able to play due to some soreness in his neck from Rebounderz (and URF mode on League of Legends), so Dad and Pete played their first full round of 18 holes together. It was a glorious day.

Pete and Dad played at Sterling Golf Park. They teed off on the back 9 at 10:30am, took a break for lunch, and returned to play the front 9.

Pete played great. He made a very long putt on #17, and had quite a number of good shots. Pretty good, considering that he only had 5 clubs, most of which are a bit too short for him. He also had a great attitude throughout the day (except for a few putting issues towards the end).

Dad was overjoyed with such a fun day together.

Minute To Win It

The family decided not to go anywhere for Spring Break this year. But after a quick dinner at Wendy's, they had a lot of fun at the "Minute To Win It" event at the library.

Mom was the best at the dice balancing:

Pete was good at the pasta pickup:

Pete trying the slinky headband game:

 Sam was the best at the tissue box ping-pong ball twerking:

Mom and Sam doing the toilet paper snap toss:

Dad was probably the best at the balloon balancing:

Other games included the Smarties with straws and marble rolling on to tape (that Sam was quite good at).

It was a fun way to spend about an hour on a Monday night.

Dad Class Presentation

Dad had the distinct pleasure of teaching a lesson in Sam's class on Thursday. He asked Mrs. Lindenfeldar if he could speak for about 30 minutes about some of his adventures in traveling across the USA.

Dad covered the following topics:
- Baseball Stadiums
- State welcome signs and capitals
- Pictures and stories from 1998 trip (more info available here)

If you would like to see the slides from the presentation, they are available here (at least for a little while).

Science Project

Sam’s class did a mandatory science project this year for the Science fair. Sam had some trouble choosing a project. His first idea was to see if video could be used to determine the speed of light. Dad’s friend Brian (the laser scientist) had a few suggestions for this, but fortunately Sam eventually realized that this might not be the best choice. He ended up doing “What Liquid Evaporates the Fastest”.

For a few weeks, there were tubes of water, salt water, and vinegar in the dining room.

Here is Sam’s poster. The project was not his best effort, but he got it done and turned in on time:

Dad enjoyed going to the Science Fair and looking at all of the posters for the other students’ projects. A lot of study is apparently being done these days on Mentos in coke and microwave popcorn. There were some really funny ones too, like this one by Sean Sullivan:

Scout Badge

Here is Sam earning his Scout Badge. He skipped the first campout, so he’s a little behind on his Tenderfoot and First Class achievements. But he doesn’t seem to be too concerned about that.

Donuts With Dad

Sam and Dad woke up early for their final “Donuts with Dad” at Dominion Trail. Sam put on a nice shirt and his ubiquitous orange sweatshirt, and they were off to school. They parked in Dad’s secret spot in the local neighborhood and got a nice seat near William and his Dad.

Hopefully they can continue this tradition next year in Middle School.

Munzee Trail

Dad convinced Pete one Saturday to join him a new type of Munzee called a “Munzee Trail”. They went up to Lansdowne and had an enjoyable 3-mile hike up and down the Potomac River.

The first location was a bit dicey with some bees’ nests:

Pete did some community service by raking a bunker on the golf course:

And Pete found a decent stick that he carried for a while:

They released the stick in the river and rooted for it to wend its way through some shoreline thicket and outu toward the waterfall.

Pete’s phone actually did a better job locating most of the Munzee’s than Dad’s, so it was good that he came along. They eventually found all of the Munzees and completed the trail.

Miracle Take-out

One night Dad and Pete went to Chipotle in Broadlands to get take out. When they arrived, there was no line. They thought maybe they were closed or something, but they placed their order and got their food. It was truly a magical night.

Sam 5th Grade Basketball FSBL

Sam played on Anthony's team again this year for FSBL. They were the Celtics. Anthony's Mom (Jen) and Dad (Dennis) were the coaches again.

Pictured above are:Tyler Provencal, Anirudh  Addepalli or Nihar Kandarpa, Ben Yan, Austin Ashley, Sam, Dominic Del Rosso, Alex Ashley, and Anthony Gonzalez.

County Spelling Bee

Sam represented Dominion Trail at the Loudoun County Spelling Bee at Stone Bridge High School.

He got the first right, but went out on his second word (cacao). He was a bit upset, since Dad had always told him to ask for a sentence, which he did, but then the pronouncer blundered and gave him the definition of the word instead of using it in a sentence. This seemed to throw Sam off of his game and he did not spell the word correctly.

He had a nice receptioin the next day at school, being on the morning announcements and a general celebrity for the day.

The Sea The Sea

Dad and Pete went to a local micro-concert in Sterling with Brian and Patti. They saw a group called “The Sea The Sea”. They both really enjoyed the concert. Dad has been listening to their songs since then on Spotify. It was a very small concert. There were about a dozen people in attendance. One of which was an annoying girl who asked the artists after the concert to buy a box of Girl Scout Cookies.

Snow Shoveling

We had some good ice storms and snow storms this winter. The boys missed quite a bit of school. The good news is that Pete is old enough to help now with the shoveling. Here is a picture Dad took about 30 minutes after Pete went out to “shovel”:

It took a while, but eventually the job got done.

Arrow of Light

Sam received his Arrow of Light award at the Cub Scouts Blue and Gold Banquet. This is the highest award one can receive in Cub Scouting. As you can see, Mom presented the award to Sam and his fellow Webelos II Scouts (as their Den leader). Dad also presided as emcee over the banquet, as the Cubmaster.

This was the last Cub Scout event that Sam would attend. (He was sick for the Crossover ceremony at Discovery Elementary in March.)

Mall Parking

Everyone knows that people in Virginia don’t know how to drive in the snow. Pete and Dad discovered that apparently they don’t know how to park in the snow, either.

They were able to piece together what happened in the above picture. First, the mini-van decided that since it snowed he can park across four spaces. Then the other cars decided to implement vigilante justice and park all around the mini-van so he would be stuck there for a while.

Pete seemed to appreciate this community effort. It fit in well with his sense of fairness.

Nagoya - The Home Edition

Dad thought it would be fun and economical one night to cook dinner for the family and try to emulate the Nagoya experience at home. It did not go as smoothly as expected. First of all, he did not plan to spend 20 minutes cutting the chicken (which only takes the chef a matter of seconds in the restaurant). And it was all downhill from there. Somehow, the rice cooker did not cook the rice smoothly (is that even possible?). So no one would eat the rice, which is kind of a deal-breaker to begin with.

The good news is that there was plenty of food for whoever was willing to try it. You can see in the picture above that Pete ended up with a decent plat of steak and chicken. Just whatever you do, please avert your eyes from the griddle in the background. Which surprisingly did not simply wipe clean with a damp rag like the grill at Nagoya.

Family Thesaurus

Sometimes Dad digs pretty deep to come up with games to play at dinner. On this particular night, he decided it would be fun to name words and try to guess some of the synonyms listed in the thesaurus. Unfortunately, however, apparently not all Thesauruses are created equal. Which is fine. But Dad was deeply disturbed when someone pointed out that the word “chum” was not even listed in alphabetical order.

Duct Tape Sleeves

Sam know what he likes, and he certainly knows what he doesn’t like. And what he doesn’t like is snow going up his sleeves. Of course, the solution for this involves some creative use of duct tape. If you look carefully at the picture above, you can see that Sam is playing in the snow – which means that he has some duct tape around his wrists.

Can Stack

Mom got a good deal on canned goods the other night at Giant. Her only mistake was to leave them all out on the counter before going to bed, with Pete still awake. The next morning she had some un-stacking to do.

Chair Man

Dad knew something looked odd when he glanced over at Sam one night during dinner, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Perhaps Sam had been working out.

Timeline Project

Pete had some crazy assignments this year. Case in point, the timeline that he had to do for pre-AP History. Above is a picture of Pete’s timeline laid out on Mom and Dad’s bedroom floor. Pete is lying next to it to give an idea of the scale. Or maybe he passed out from working on it all night - it's hard to say. 14 pages in all its glory.

And don’t even mention the “Thrice Told Tale” and personal Anthology that he did for Honors English.

Nice Font

Some of Sam’s basketball games could get a little dry at times. Fortunately there are other things to enjoy besides the quality basketball. For example, Dad was blown away by the awesome font they used at the Rock Ridge gym in Loudoun Valley Estates. Look at how thick that ‘K’ is!

Also, Sam’s team won the game. Or lost. Can’t remember. This is also the game where Nana and Poppy couldn’t find the school so they turned around and went home.

Cub Scout Ice Skating

Dad managed to convince Sam to come to the Cub Scout ice skating event at the Ice House. They had a great time. Sam is wearing his Cub Scout t-shirt, although you won’t catch a glimpse of it from under his sweatshirt.

Sadly, Sam suffered a bit of an injury to his “rear” extremities, rendering him unable to play in his basketball game. (He did sit on the bench to cheer his team on.)

Pinewood Derby 2015

Sam did a great job this year on the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby. He decided to go for one of the awards, drew up a good design, got some help from Poppy with the cutting (and Dad with some sanding), and painted several coats. This resulted in winning the award for “Most Patriotic” car!

The car did not race too well, finishing near the middle of the pack. Sam actually missed most of the racing anyhow, as there was some miscommunication between Dad (who was helping coordinate the event), Mom, Nana, and Poppy. Anyhow, Poppy got Sam there in time for a quick donut and to receive his award in front of the group.

Perhaps for the first time, Sam had a car that he really seemed to take pride in.

Patti’s 50th Birthday Party

Dad’s friend Brian threw a 50^th birthday party for his girlfriend Patti. The boys were happy about the prospect of some birthday cake.

As you can see in the pictures, there were no kid activities at this party, other than “hang all over each other”. They played this for a few hours with Alex and Justin. Then it was time to go home.

Last Webelos Meeting

Mom was responsible for running the meetings of Sam’s Webelos scout den each Monday. The nice thing about Monday meetings is that you have the weekend to prepare for it. On the other hand, that is not necessarily how Mom dreams of spending her weekends.

Anyhow, it is convenient having some of the meetings at the house, such as the one pictured above. The other scouts in Sam’s den were:

• William Hammann
• Jackson Myers
• Ethan Markowitz
• Dominik Blank
• Alex Biddle
• Alex Estes
• Moksh Shah
• Sean Sullivan (joined for 5^th grade only)

As a credit to Mom, they all earned their Webelos Badge and (except for Sean and Jackson) all chose to move on to Boy Scouts.

And the house did become a lot quieter on Monday nights.

Geography Bee

Much like the Spelling Bee in November, it was inevitable that the Geography Bee ultimately came down to a battle between Sam and Sarah Jakubowski. And once again the better candidate won – in this case, it was Sarah.

The questions were painfully easy in the first round. Here is an example: “This Northeastern state is home to the Susquehanna River, as well as cities such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Name that state.”

The questions got harder pretty quickly. It only took another 2-3 rounds to whittle the field down to Sam and Sarah. Gone were Josh Bidwell, Natalie Sitter, Jacob Grimm, Jennifer Owen, and the others. 

In the end, Sarah definitely deserved to win. Sam missed a pretty easy question about Scandanavia, and another about Canada.

Mrs. Lindenfeldar must have been doing something right to have two great champions in her class this year.

Unfortunately, Sarah was absent on the day later in the year that Sam’s Dad came in to class for a US Geography lesson. She would have really enjoyed it (and helped answer a lot of the questions too).

Sand

As the boys get older, it becomes a bit more challenging for Santa to come up with stocking stuffer ideas. This year, he gave each of them some of that cool “Sand” that they have at Brookstone (except I’m sure Santa got it at Five Below where you can get the same stuff for a third of the price).

It was sitting out on the kitchen table for a few days, but didn’t get used much. Anyhow, Dad decided to surprise Sam one day with a little sand dude.