After an awesome summer, the kids were ready to go back to school ... NOT!
RJ enters 7th grade, Julia enters 4th grade.
Mandatory first day of school picture |
Julia learned this pose from Vivian's friend at the Clear Spring Carnival |
The modern world has made it too convenient to get lasagna. You go to the store, pay $15 and heat it up for 2 hours ... done.
Therefore Sara helped the kids make their own. This involved (1) purchasing $15 worth of ingredients, (2) dirtying the entire kitchen, and (3) 4-5 hours of labor - including clean up.
The result was lasagna that the kids didn't like (too much ricotta cheese).
Fortunately Doug loved it! And Sara made dairy/gluten-free 'lasagna' that she
could eat.
About 2 hours into a 4-5 hour process |
Speaking of pasta ... here is home pasta camp from an earlier week.
Making pasta the hard way ... a good prep for sourdough bread |
The Kovacs and the Johnsons spent a few days at the beach. This year was Sea Isle City, NJ. Summary of fun:
Boys got good at boogie boarding on day 2 ... notice the body surfer (Doug) in background |
Julia heads out to catch some waves |
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Rides on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ |
After riding waves for hours, the crew needed some downtime |
Lots of time digging in the sand ... Milo's shark sculpture |
Doug stole the competitor's art designer (Milo) for help with the Beachy Towel News logo |
The gang in front of the completed puzzle |
Lots of digging kept the kids busy while not in the ocean |
3 out of 3 days, the boys had Bubba Dogs for lunch |
Kids and Sara spent a week in Whitetail. Doug showed up on Friday night in preparation for the Clear Spring Carnival on Saturday night.
The Clear Spring Carnival is always a hit. A large posse of Whitetail folks (LJ and kids, Heather and Vivian, Erika and kids, the Kenemuths, and us) took on the vomit-inducing, headache-creating rides.
The 'Hamster Wheel' was new this year ... and actually called OMG |
Julia and Nico load into the Zipper ... RJ rode this with Rocco about 15 times |
RJ scored some free tickets from a random person (Brad has them) so adults rode the Round Up (a.k.a. Throw up) |
The kids convinced Doug to stay until the bitter end ... thankfully rides stopped at 11pm |
On Sunday the normal Whitetail antics resumed ...
Antic 1: Quicksand
While wading into a pool of runoff water near the resort, Kaleb got stuck in quicksand (if such a thing actually exists). Thinking quickly he leaped out of his shoes and scampered to safety.
The next day ...
Doug and Julia spotted one shoe that floated to the top and got stuck before heading down the stream |
Antic 2: Build your own Boat
Rocco and RJ decided it would make sense to build a boat to float out into one of the seven ponds. Building materials consisted of sticks, string, and several things from a dumpster (bubble wrap, plastic bottles to hold air, other stuff). The kids supplemented this free stuff with a roll of duct tape to hold the entire thing together.
After a few hours of planning and building ...
Antic 3: Repair Work
After replacing a light switch and contemplating replacing an outlet, a light bulb went off for Doug. Maybe the table lamp was having intermittent issues because the LED light bulb was bad.
A quick trip to the local hardware store fixed the problem for $10 (it was a 3-way bulb).
While at the hardware store we purchased a latch for the broken structure around the propane tank. After disassembling the door, painting everything, and re-assembling the door the 'simple' repair was complete.
Common sense and safety dictated that we purchase a new trampoline. RJ picked it out.
We started by disassembling the old and leveling the ground |
The 'patient' boys declared that leveling was a waste of time. Nevertheless, Doug spent 2-3 hours in the boiling heat trimming the bush and leveling. RJ helped but petered out when Bradley arrived.
90 minutes of installation ... Julia's feelings were hurt within 10 minutes |