Beach with the Grays

We visited Sea Isle City, NJ to hang out with Bradley and family for a long weekend. We missed a hot steamy weekend in DC for pretty-good beach weather.

 

RJ and Bradley dig a sizable hole. Later on 5 kids from 2-3 families played in it.

 

Team Gray and Team Johnson spent virtually the entire day on the beach

 

Kaitlyn helping Julia with her friendship bracelet

 

Waves were pretty good. Boys got a good tandem ride above. Doug caught some waves far out (by a sand bar). RJ crashed into the shore body surfing - his elbow hit and nearly dislocated his shoulder. Doug stepped on a horseshoe crab and continued to push his hip farther than it should have been pushed.

 

Ginger was always front and center ... but she didn't get any ice cream

 

Pizza-eating seagulls almost got RJ's pizza

 

Julia being a mermaid ... she learned to duck under the waves

 

Random Summer Pics

Summer activities ... 

Parkour at Building Museum (July 17)

Outside Building Museum with Henry (July 17)

Doug swims Lake Sammamish during business trip to Bellevue, WA (July 16)

Milo's birthday, girls ate pizza at our house (July 18)

Girls weekend with Kelly and Jen (July 12)

Julia at zoo with panda (July 16)

RJ with naked mole-rat

7-Eleven day - Slurpee 1 of 5, after track practice (July 11)

Children Together

Sara spent some time this summer winding down Children Together. 

Bradley uses the Children Together bank stamp to endorse his arm

 

Lionel 675 Engine Repair

According to Granddad, the Lionel 675 Engine was the only o-gauge engine until he got the Santa Fe on his 10th birthday. 

About 70 years later the engine wasn't running, so it was time to get it back on track.

Issue: for the last 2-3 years it was difficult to get the engine to go. The workaround was to play with the switch on top (forward/neutral/reverse control switch) and hope it would start working. The problem continually got worse until last year we didn't get to use the engine at all.  

New Bushings

The old bushings were barely able to make contact with the aperture. Grease and grime was making the situation worse. So new bushings and a good cleaning were step 1.

the small black pieces were what was left after 70 years of service

E-Unit Repair

The e-unit is the brown solenoid (see pic above). When the power goes off, the magnet is de-activated and a metal rod inside the solenoid drops down due to gravity. When the power goes back on the magnet pulls the metal rod back up and it rotates a gear that selects forward/reverse/neutral. 

The issue was that there was too much gunk so gravity would not pull the metal rod back down. This put the train in a constant state of no-power neutral.

Some isopropyl alcohol to clean the rod and gear followed by a drop of oil did the trick.

In the process I detached the headlamp wire so I got to get my soldering kit out to repair it. There is also a wire that is not connected to anything. That wire is supposed to connect to the smoke unit, but I didn't reconnect it.

Here is a look at the insides before the repair

$10 and 2 days later the Lionel 675 is ready for next Christmas

Summer Cooking

Kids made dinner 1 night per week during some weeks of the summer.

Dumpling night (Radish Kids recipe)

Homemade pasta

Whitetail Summer Camp

Sara and the kids headed to Whitetail for the week of  June 30 - July 6.

Night swimming was popular (and more crowded on July 3-4)

Rainy day? No problem with unlimited popcorn and soda. (Lilo & Stitch)

While kids were playing poker, Sara painted the nanny quarters

On Thursday night, Doug arrived and Caleb's parents took over for Marge.

Mr. Brad brought some legit poker chips for a legit looking game

We didn't get to see any fireworks (except in the distance) on July 4th, but we had a classic BBQ with Brad, Becky, and Caleb (Carter was at camp).

Stopped by Frederick on the way home for some lake fun 

We broke up the drive home by stopping in Frederick to hang out with the Kenemuths.

• Rope swing was super fun (a group of ~10 boys chanted and clapped until Julia went, RJ dove from a tree that was about 3m above the water's surface)
• Ms. Becky and Julia paired up at the beginning, but we all swapped places at times
• We saved the 'cliff' dive for another visit 

Julia Turns 11

Julia turned 11. Sara went slightly overboard on presents. Leeann was in town again! And most importantly Julia contributed to her own birthday.

Birthday prep: piñata 

In addition to making her own piñata, Julia made rainbow Jell-O which we served with leftover ice-cream cake for the Gray's on the day after her birthday.  She also influenced several gifts while yard-sailing with Sara.

The piñata string snapped before the piñata broke so the kids decided that baseball was the best way to finish the job.

 

The plethora of gifts arrived only 2 weeks after a haul from Summer Santa

 

Julia's ice-cream cake 

Julia's cake featured a realistic REC/ADP soccer game complete with:

• 5 players wearing the number 10
• Most players within 5 feet of the ball
• Referee not paying attention
• Kids asking when they could eat treats
• One kid looking at bugs instead of focusing on the game
• Doug asking how much time is left

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIA!!!

Strong start to summer

School ended. Summer arrived. Sara and the kids got a fast start on the summer bucket list. It's going to be difficult to keep up this pace!

Sara and RJ golfing (Washington monument in back), RJ almost got a hole-in-one (then 2 putted)

Bradley came over a few times ... and drank some lemonade

An evening of basketball at the Gray's

Amelia and Julia on the trampoline (explains $200 quarterly water bill)

Haynes Point golfing was fun, so Julia came on the next HOT and humid outing

Squirrel 8 of 10 (pests came early to eat apples this year)

Julia took a turn making dinner (potato bar). Do you want some sass with that?

Selects hockey team summer pool party - super fun!

Dog sitting Teddy and Pup-pup during a showing of Max/Katie's house

Fathers Day with King Oil

Father's Day featured some awesome gifts for Doug and a trip to Baltimore to see Granddad.

What's an awesome gift? Pillows for family, $10 bills so Doug doesn't have to scramble around every Sunday morning, and approval for project Whitetail porch!

Kids and Doug played King Oil for 2 hours

Notes on King Oil game:

• Julia's land must have been home to the Texas Fire Marshall. She never had a fire
• Julia consistently drew cards with $4,000/well royalties.
• RJ's properties would have been better for farming than oil drilling

Busch Gardens, 2025

To celebrate the end-of-school we headed to Busch Gardens just like last year.  Key notes and take aways:

• Doug should have purchased the unlimited soda cup
• RJ and Julia should have gone for the unlimited meal plan
• Sara needs to remember to sneak gluten-dairy free food into the park
• Doug appreciated Ken (Francis's husband) as a roller-coaster buddy
• 10am - 9pm is a long day

RJ, Logan, Julia at the entrance

When we pulled up to the hotel, we saw Finn Carr sticking his head out of the car. RJ was excited to see Desi and Liam who were there for Tommy's and Liam's lacrosse tournament. 

RJ, Desi, Liam, and Logan hung out and rode nearly all of the roller coasters. RJ didn't say no to anything this year.

Desi, Liam, RJ, and Logan on Finnigan's Flyer

The Big Bad Wolf 2 was Julia's favorite roller coaster. We renamed it the Small Fluffy Puppy.

Three rides were enough for us to rename it the Small Fluffy Puppy 

Sara rams Julia (proof that Sara did something other than carry the heavy backpack)

Julia's sports wrap up

Julia played on 2 soccer teams and a volleyball team in the spring. For the most part Julia enjoyed hanging out with friends and competing. Winning over 30% of the games would have been more fun.

Volleyball

Girls 3rd-4th grade CYO volleyball team was a chance to hang out with friends. The fourth graders were getting the ball over more often towards the end of the season.

3rd-4th Grade Girls Volleyball Team

Volleyball game in action, May 31

ADP Soccer

ADP soccer was a more expensive option to the rec team. The team was assigned to play on the crummy Bluemont Park grass field most of the time. This resulted in several cancelled games so the season didn't end until June 8. Coach Olu was a welcome addition!

Team pic on a rainy last day (5-1 loss, but 5-2 win Saturday)

Rec Soccer

Need to get picture

.

Late Night Pizza

RJ decided that we would start making home-made pizza at 7:40pm. Julia had a second dinner, RJ ate 1 1/2 pizzas, and Doug found a second-appetite so we only had a couple pieces left. 

Note for next time: the expensive bread-dough flour made all the difference with dough consistency and overall deliciousness. 

Late night (8:40pm) pizza on the porch.

Spring Hockey

The 16U league has some plyers that are as big as adults. Light blue had some issues this season (2 wins, 1 tie, 5 losses). RJ and #59 account for most of the goals.

Julia Wax Museum

Julia was Mary Jackson (engineer at NASA). Part of the fun was spending a weekend putting together a Saturn 5 Rocket model that Sara got for free. This included hand painting and getting RJ to help up 3-D print a missing piece.

Julia's class in costume

Julia - ready to give her 2 minute speech about Ms. Jackson

Whitetail - Memorial Day

Plenty of fun during and work during a long-weekend at Whitetail.

Chores

Some maintenance work included touching up the first floor toilet replacement (paint and caulk) and painting the 2nd floor bedroom. 

Julia tapes the trim

Kids were quite helpful with the painting

Fun

After chores there was plenty of fun to be had:

• Volleyball with neighbors
• Family Golfing
• Mountain biking
• Swimming in low-60s water
• Couple tennis swings
• Building a recycled boat 

Golfing at Yinglings

Doug at top of high-speed quad

Groomer looked harmless but it can easily run over a biker

Biking Day 2: Brad led us around Bear Pond loop

Recycled boat (floated with RJ in it)