Solo Stove

On a visit to see the Kenemuth's awesome new house, Mr. Brad hooked RJ up with a personal (Mesa) Solo Stove. RJ talked about it incessantly on the ride home.

The next day, the kids put it to good use making smores. 

Cooking smores with the new Solo Stove

Whitetail Cats

After a week in Whitetail, Sara drove back ... after arriving in McLean, Doug and RJ headed back for some golf and repair work.

• Mission 1: Replace the 3-year-old broken Samsung TV with the 15 year old Visio TV that still worked.
• Mission 2: Finish fixing woodpecker holes on porch pillars.
• Mission 3: Play 1 hour of tennis with John and Annie.
• Mission 4: Visit Carter and Caleb in Frederick on the way home

Unanticipated Twists:

• Twist 1: Power out at 3am, not restored until after we left
• Twist 2: While on mission 2 RJ spotted 2 very young kittens. A brave and social one we called Blacktail and a very shy nearly identical looking twin.

One cat was very brave and friendly, he was hungry/thirsty but not much interested in a peach

Blacktail walked with RJ and Doug to play tennis. He proved to be a difficult obstacle to avoid. After tennis a lady named Marti gave him some cat food and water. RJ carried him back to our house to find his sibling. 

After failing to find cat #2, Marti made a travel box and we took cat #1 to Frederick to hand off to Marti's daughter who knew a LOT about cats.

Brave cat rode with us to Frederick

A few hours later, Marti found the sibling and re-united the strays

Lake Fairfax Park

Kids earned a free Peddle-Boat from the library for reading this summer. So we headed to Lake Fairfax Park. We were originally going for the 4-person boat, but another family needed it (only 1 adult) so we went with 2 2-person boats. This turned out to be a good choice because Julia was annoyed that she had to listen to Doug and go where he wanted about 20% of the time.

Sara and RJ

We followed one turtle who was swimming underwater for about 5 minutes!

Birthday Weekend

Birthday 1: Graham D. and Escape Room

Actually this was Thursday night. And you could not take picture in the escape room. And Dad was in charge, so no pictures were taken at all.

 

Birthday 2: William H. and Mini-Golf

RJ and gang at mini-golf

 

Girls beat the heat by putting ice on their heads

 

Doug and RJ hit the batting cages after the party broke up!

Birthday 3: Milo K. and bowling (replacing splashdown water park)

 

RJ and Milo look out at video games, leaning up against sign saying 'wet paint'

 

Milo and Poppy (who is about to roll a strike)

Whitetail Antics

We kicked off July 4th weekend at Whitetail.

We played some quality golf at Yinglings. Julia lead the crew with 25 hat throws (throwing hat on ground in frustration). Doug searched all day for an elusive birdie. The course cheated RJ several times. It was 'rigged' and 'trash' when that happened.

Julia from her lucky fairway

While running an errand at Home Depot, Julia spotted a $20 bill in the parking lot just as Doug was about to step on it. RJ grabbed it. The discussion about who got the $20 was solved by agreeing to go to Dairy Queen after golfing.

Final DQ bill was $20.52 (and Doug found $0.25 on floor by DQ)

Neighbors hosted kids for smores. RJ the pyromaniac was responsible for getting the fire going.

Julia and Ava during smores party

RJ started this fire in the rain, Niko has chocolate all over his hands

Pool Time

Plenty of fun at the pool. Rain, shine, old friends, new friends, kids, teenagers adults. Throwing kids, throwing/diving for balls. Contest to see who could swim the longest. More.

Five hours of pool time for 3-4 days straight, even with rain

Tidal Wave!

Ball toss with Caleb, Marge, Julia. RJ swims in the background.

Other Activities

Great idea - build fort in middle of pond with only dry pair of tennis shoes

A more organized creature hunt

The Next Saturday

After late-night swimming (Julia, RJ, Kaleb, Doug) until 9:40pm, we started a multi-part Saturday.

• Part 1: Conococheague Institute
• Part 2: swimming at pool
• Part 3: 9-holes of golf OR games at house
• Part 4: Hagerstown Speedway

The Conococheague Institute was a pleasant surprise. We enjoyed games from the 1700-1800s, historical information about frontier farms, gardens, short trails, and a puppet show.

Doug and RJ play shuttlecock - predecessor to badminton

Julia was proficient with the hoop and stick 

Before video games people played 9 men's morris, dice games, various ball/cup games

The speedway was exciting. We witnessed the good, bad, and ugly sides of racing. We almost got to see a fistfight. We got to see #25's engine over heat. And we stayed until 11:30pm. The folks in front of us were rooting for a car. Doug spent 5-10 minutes trying to figure out which car. Julia said "Dad, they are wearing a shirt with car #85 on the back." Mystery solved!

A 2-tow-truck accident. Race winner apologized for winning. Another race featured the leader (#49) getting taken out by the last place car.