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

 

A night on the boardwalk at Ocean City, NJ

oardwB

 

Pizza-eating seagulls almost got RJ's pizza

 

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

 

Room Swap

Julia and RJ decided to swap rooms. Since RJ got the bigger room, Julia got to pick the paint color of her 'new' room.

Planning how to get a lot of stuff into a smaller space

 

Painting her room with white lavender paint

 

Old speaker system was converted into a cubby

 

Re-assembling bed in new room

 

 

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