RJ is keeping busy with school, hockey, and commuting. After lifting at Gonzaga he decided that it made sense to help clean up by skating the goal to the other end before ice resurfacing. Yes, he was the last one off the ice at 9:23pm.
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| RJ drags the goal across the ice. Notice the CHA4 pile up (not a fight). |
The garden made a late year comeback. RJ's radishes re-seeded themselves. Cherry tomatoes continued to produce. With all the other plants out of the way the lunchbox red peppers started thriving!
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| Tomatoes, lunchbox red peppers, and one of 500 radishes |
On a random Wednesday, RJ got a day off. He had plans but not much transportation since Sara was sick.
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| Fishing in Reston |
Anniversary fell on a Sunday ... so we took our anniversary picture ... on our anniversary! Julia's friend Ava was here to take the picture - this saved about 15-20 minutes of setting up the tripod!
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| Family Pic - with King Oil from Grandad's house |
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| Family Pic - more typical |
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| One with just Doug and Sara - sort of |
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| One with ONLY Doug and Sara |
Doug and RJ drove to Rochester for a hockey tournament. Drive was nice with fall foliage on the way up and nice and wet on the way back.
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| Remnants of Hurricane Isaias made it a wet ride home. Traffic was light and organized! |
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| Pregame Huddle for Game 2 |
Sara arranged a lot of play dates for Julia ...
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| Ava from Whitetail unwraps a ball of plastic wrap full of random toys (Oct 11) |
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| Amelia (granddaughter of neighbor) and Julia being mean Moms |
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| While Doug/RJ were in Rochester, Julia arranged Lee Heights, a movie, and skating with Brooke (Oct 9) |
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| Julia, Alex, and Catherine with the Pringles costume (Oct 10) |
It looked like a rain-out but the weather turned and we all had a fun day at St. Luke. Doug worked the grill for the Knights, Sara brought Julia and her friend Kate. RJ met Bradley. The kids got a lot of prices and candy.
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| Only Doug's spatula appears in this pic ... Pav was the master sausage cooker |
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| RJ and Bradley focused on laser-tag. RJ got hundreds of kills hiding behind a tree in the spawn area |
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| Julia and Catherine with some balloon animals (lot of candy not pictured) |
Sara helped organize the first cross country race. Julia participated on the winning sixth grade girls team. Julia ran the 3km in 14:47.
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| St. Agnes 6th grade speedy girls |
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| Amelia's pool / 4-wheeler party (some girls lacked driving skills) |
Failing to raise the fence high enough allowed the deer to chew the tops off the sunflowers (see post Garden, But). But as a result we got double the number of flowers. Unfortunately the varmint that ate the seed-producing saplings in back destroyed our food source.
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| Deer unwittingly doubled or tripled the number of flowers |
Gonzaga freshmen (i.e. RJ) had a welcome mass and picnic with the freshmen from Georgetown Visitation.
Julia and Doug didn't want to go but found about 25 field hockey balls which turned into a game of bocci ball. Grrr... didn't get pic.
Doug did take this picture ...
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| Is this Julia's future high school? |
The CHA3 team started the season with a tourney in Hershey, PA. Won 2 (big), lost 1 (big), lost a close one to CHA2.
We missed the first game due to work and high school. In the third game RJ pulled up lame with a hip injury that but him out of the tournament. No contact, no fall, no explanation ... he cannot lift his leg without pain.
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| Friday, night late night travel. Free scrap sourdough bread from Panera |
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| RJ takes a face off |
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| Bachelor night dinner |
What's better than a delicious dinner? Answer: a dinner that you don't have to make, don't have to clean up, and don't have to pay more than the cost of groceries.
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| RJ and Julia prepare steak and potatoes |
With RJ gone ... Julia gets St. Agnes all to herself.
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| Newsletter featured 6th grade, Ms. Morris class |
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| Picture day ... an unofficial picture |
Coach Joel and family went to a National's game, so Julia got to dog sit!
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| Whew ... dog sitting Jiro looks like hard work! |
RJ started high school at Gonzaga this year. There was NO first day of high-school picture, but Sara did manage take a picture of RJ coming back to get his soccer clothes that he left at home.
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| RJ - too cool for pictures, Aug 21 |
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| Doug's first appearance in a first-day-of-school pic. |
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| Julia and Sara with a more traditional look |
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| Julia and friends with the Nationals presidents |
With summer winding down, Sara took the kids to Upton park to take advantage of discounted passes from summer reading.
Everyone had lots of fun in the batting cage, at the swimming pool, and on the ropes course.
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| Julia connects with a softball (great timing on the pic Sara!) |
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| RJ in the batting cage |
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| Based on his smile, RJ must have been aiming at Julia |
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| Julia on the ropes course. |
Sara decided it was time for Julia to learn something about maintaining cars.
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| Sara and Julia replace the air filter on the mini-van |
Too much time away equals not a lot of production from the garden.
Doug got some lettuce in the early going BUT it quickly got bitter. RJ planted radishes BUT forgot to pick them. Sara had some cucumbers BUT they got bitter. We are getting cherry tomatoes BUT nobody is eating them. Doug planted some sunflowers BUT the rabbits ate the good ones and the deer ate the rest. BUT the sunflowers the deer ate sprouted two shoots ... so there is still a chance (see post with the results).
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| RJ got some volunteer tomatoes and 2-3 cantaloupes. We got about 20-30 peaches (the squirrels got the rest) |
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| Julia planted corn. She got about 10 ears (we overcooked the first batch), Doug's corm is still growing |
Sara and the kids were coming home ... the garage door opened a few inches and slammed back down. Spring broke. Luckily they were outside so they didn't hear the BANG. Once the spring broke the part the holds the door along the rail was stripped.
So in addition to a new garage door, we needed a new garage door opener ... or do we?
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| Broken part - the guide in the middle was stripped |
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| Garage door guy somehow clamped the spring ... so we could open the door manually. |
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| $15 later we installed the new part and have a temp solution until the new door arrives |
The kids got better about brushing their teeth and were rewarded with a Ninja Creami Swirl. This was after Sara purchased 3 machines and kept the best one.
Now instead of going to the store to purchase 1/2 gallon of ice cream for $3.00, we go to the store and purchase $8.00 worth of ingredients, mix the ingredients 12 or so hours in advance, and then eat ice cream.
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| The result is soooo worth it. Now we get soft-serve ice cream at home! |
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| By September 2, RJ was able to substantially increase the quantity of ice cream per cone |
After dropping Doug at the Philadelphia train station Sara, RJ, and Julia headed to Sea Isle City. Doug needed the extra time to prepare for Ascent (partner-only summer training).
Shockingly there are no pictures of Bubba Dogs ... but the boys ate there pretty much every day (from what I heard).
Day 1 (Tuesday) featured big waves and red flags. Doug was jealous. The waves cleaned up (and got smaller) on Wed. and Thurs.
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| It wouldn't be a trip to the beach without some sand castles |
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| The girls (I wonder if Beachy Towel News reported this year) |
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| How did Janelle get the hat Sara lost last year? Turns out she 'bought' it, yeah, right. |
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| The Boys avoided the camera for the most part |
For summer vacation we decided to drive the mini-van all over the place.
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| Kids toured Cleveland with Ian (not pictured) |
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| We did not spent the night in South Bend, so we had to change in a Chipotle bathroom |
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| We re-enacted last year's photo (except Doug pitched) |
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| The entire Cleveland gang in the box |
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| RJ drank 9 sodas at the Guardians game (we got there early so he had 3 before the start) |
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| Sara and Marissa |
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| While travelling through Phily, the gang dropped Doug at the train station. |
