Clemyjontri Park and geocaching

Dec 30: Kids talked me into a walk. RJ learned to make the tire swing rotate with Julia on it.

Jan 1: So the next time we involved the neighbors.

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Jan 1: Geocaching with Mom and the neighbors.

Trains in 2018 and 2000

Trains Move to Basement

This year we setup the O-gauge trains and decided to use the basement instead of the lower level. New features in 2018 include:

• Extension into back bedroom
• Spotlight car, crane car from eBay
• Additional track and switches from Craigslist
• Additional houses from neighbors yard sale and Doug's birthday
• Lego section which kids enjoyed

We had lots of folks over in small groups. A few trains ended up on the floor, but no permanent damage - although we will probably be picking "coal" out of the rug for a few months. RJ became proficient at running multiple trains and switching them between tracks.

Below are a few pictures of the layout

 

Time Warp: Trains from December 2000

While cleaning up some computer files, I ran across a disk labeled "Bob's Train Garden" that had some files from December 2000. Doug must have driven up from Washington DC to help set them up. Several of the pieces should look familiar!

St. Nick at St. Luke

The kids are excited for Christmas this year. They got a chance to eat brunch, play games, and share their wish list with St. Nick.

Julia drops her list in the mailbox

Thanksgiving 2018

High Society

The kids got a taste of high society as we dined in style at the Baltimore Country Club. Food was great, tour of the bowling alley with Aunt Rita was pretty awesome, and running around outside on the old golf course was even better ... until the kids were freezing cold.

Pic 1: RJ looks downhill and prepares to run, while Julia is not so sure she wants to have her picture taken.

Pic 2: A bit blurry, but it was quite a hill ... may have to revisit this with a toboggan when it snows.

Later On

We spent the night at Granddad's house which included:

• Playing the roller coaster game
• Watching Nick Jr.
• Picking up sticks and throwing them in the fireplace

Pile of Leaves

Raking, Mowing, and Chipping

While Mom was in Phily we got outside and started raking leaves. Or should I say, we pushed leaves around while the rider-mower blew them all into a pile.

Julia wonders where RJ is ...

The Aftermath

Sycamore leaves are highly irritating. After an hour of fun, RJ had a sore throat and scratchy eyes. But I could tell that he learned from the experience ... because the next day he was back outside raking maple leaves.

Johnson Family Reunion

November 10, 2018, Kipling, NC We had a great time at the Johnson Family Reunion at the farm in North Carolina. The event was full of history and outdoor activities including hiking, horses, soccer, fireworks, stoking the fire, 4x4 rides, and hay rides.

Opening night sign in with name tags and chili.

It wouldn't be a trip to the farm without a hike to the waterfall rock. Kids loved the hike.

Kudos to Aunt Debbie for taking off her shoes and helping everybody get across the stream with dry feet. We did a good job keeping our feet dry until RJ slipped on some brown moss while throwing leaves in the waterfall.

RJ spent a lot of time throwing sticks in the fire. On the first night, we walked around in the dark looking for sticks ... by Day 3 (pictured below) RJ was pulling wood off of the regular log piles.

We also spent time diagramming our family tree. This turned into quite the art project.

Amazingly everybody lined up for pictures of the entire family as well as one with just the Eliot & Dorothy descendants.

The farm was in excellent shape due to an arrangement between Tim and a local guy (Mike?) who is boarding his horses at the farm. He let the kids pet and ride horses. The only issue is that the horses would not eat hay ... so much for the saying "hey is for horses." Don't worry ... the electric fence was turned off.

Kudos to Uncle David for getting some good pictures of the farm.

The general store.

The new house (constructed in 19??)

Trip to the graveyard featured fire ants and climbing deer hunting lookouts

And last but not least ... there is always time to play catch with a box of dynamite in from of a 4 year old.

Pickleball

Unexpected Visit

Mom did not tell the kids that Grandma and Grandpa were coming until leaving to get them from the airport. During the visit Grandma Diane and Grandpa Farmer Bob treated RJ to a game of pickleball - tennis on a smaller court with small paddles (or something like that).

This is almost as good as shuffleboard that we learned in Texas.

Halloween 2018

The kids enjoyed Halloween with their Fritel Grandparents in town. Mom took the day off to run to volunteer at schools, make chili and setup/teardown the neighborhood party, and go trick-or-treating.

First up ... Julia's school parade and party.

Next ... RJ's school party.

Neighborhood party ...

Julia trick-or-treated with Dad, Mom, and two boys from the neighborhood. But she was just as interested in watching It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

RJ trick-or-treated with the Gray's and a bunch of kids. RJ, Bradley ... and Geoff outlasted most everybody and ended up cashing in as people were trying to dump candy after a smaller than expected crowd of kids.

Counting the candy ...

Dad did not eat any candy on Halloween ... but I'm not sure how long that will last.

Kidney Stone

Oct 30, 1:05am - Ouch

Perhaps the scariest thing this Halloween season was the excruciating pain I woke up with at 1am on Oct 29. The pain was a mix of really bad gas pressure mixed with being kicked in the groin. After the pain persisted for 30 minutes, I ended up in the ER. The Dr. quickly diagnosed a kidney stone ... and the CT scan validated the findings ... a 3mm stone ... and 2 more blips in the kidney.

Oct 30, 4:00am - Whew

After the scan and some pain killers, I couldn't feel a thing ... so I went home and got 2 hours of sleep. There was very little pain in the morning, so I loaded up the truck and drove to work.

Oct 30, 8:00am - Ouch Again

Big mistake. When I got to work, I spent 2 hours lying on the floor ... throwing up in my office trash can.

Oct 30, 11:00am - Intermission

After taking some nausea meds and Tylenol, the pain was very mild, so I headed home and did some work.

Oct 30, 3:00pm - OUCH!

Pain was back and I threw up again ... even with the Zofran. The next 12 hours were particularly fun ... the most comfortable position involved pacing around like a zombie. I did this for about 6 hours. Even watching TV was out because I couldn't focus.

Oct 31, 4:45am - Pop

While pacing around the kitchen in the dark, I felt a tweak in my side and a split-second pinch at the tip of my urethra. And as quickly as it came, the pain subsided. Self-diagnosis ... stone had moved to the bladder.

Nov 2, 12:05pm - Plink

After peeing through a strainer for 2 days, I decided to give up on catching the stone. Since I was still pain free, I figured that the stone had somehow dissolved. So of course the very next time I urinated, I saw a black object go plink into the urinal. And yes ... I reached in and got it.

Nov 2, 7:00pm - Closeup

I wasn't keen on sharing this with the office, so I waited until I got home to take a look ... GROSS!

Tenniversary

10 Years and Counting

We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary with a short re-commitment ceremony at the St. Luke Chapel. Then we hosted an informal dinner (Moby Dicks's ... yum) at our house for all our friends willing to brave rush hour traffic on a Thursday night. Most people (except the re-groom) made it to the ceremony on time.

We didn't take any pictures ... but Doug did get a new ring that he is getting used to ... after a 4 year ring-wearing hiatus.

A few days later, grandma Diane and grandpa Farmer Bob came to visit and we took a family picture

Construction - Back Porch

After the kitchen and back porch project, there was some not very useful space on our back yard. In addition there was some ugly black drains. So we got talked into building a porch. In addition three of the new drains were linked together underground and directed to the main drainage ditch.

Oct 16: Part one involved some excavation

Oct 21: Progress - foundation and wall

Oct 23: Putting stones on the wall

Oct 29: Here is the ditch where the drain pipe can run

Kiwi Crate and Granddad

Each month a kiwi crate shows up. This gives RJ some quality time with Granddad where he can put the contraption together.

This month was an experiment on osmosis, cohesion, or tension ... or something like that that causes water to move up the roots of plants. This experiment allowed us to witness the colored water getting pulled up 'plant stems' to add color to paper flowers. We never explained why the yellow dye moved faster than the red dye.

5K Race at St. Luke School

Both Dad and RJ ran their first 5K race. RJ was exhausted at the end ... until he guzzled some Gatorade and saw his first grade friends. At that point he bounced on an obstacle course bounce house for over an hour.

When the final times were in ... RJ measured

RJ was the hare (zoom, rest, zoom, rest), Dad was the tortoise (slow and steady). Next year we are going to try to beat 28 minutes.

The finish line ...

Race Results

Notice that I beat RJ by 3 seconds ... because I wisely started the race in last place so when we finished together, I got the delayed start time deducted from my overall time. I'm guessing I have two more years of being able to keep up.

Men 7 and under

Plc Place Name StartInt ChipTime Gun Time Time min/mile Ag Prix Bib #
--- ----- ---- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -- ----- -----
Men 7 and under
046 1/4__ RJ__ 00:00:03 00:31:00 00:31:03 00:31:00 9:59 6 934 324
058 2/4__ HK__ 00:00:00 00:32:31 00:32:31 00:32:31 10:28 7 918 326
060 3/4__ TM__ 00:00:01 00:32:35 00:32:36 00:32:35 10:29 7 914 445
090 4/4__ BO__ 00:00:01 00:37:03 00:37:04 00:37:03 11:56 7 898 356
Men 50 and over
045 4/12_ DJ__ 00:00:04 00:30:57 00:31:01 00:30:57 9:58 50 936 323

Full results: http://www.racetimingunlimited.org/results/slw18rtu.aspx