CHA4 Party

 The CHA4 end of season party was a free skate. Oddly, the best picture of the event was of the two stowaway girls.

Girls crash the boys hockey party

Grant, Mark, Martin, Mattias, Ewan, RJ

Lola at Grandad's

Since we will miss Easter, we travelled to Baltimore to see Grandad. We got to:

• Watch Duke get to the sweet 16 in the NCAA tourney (81 - 58)
• Eat pizza, pasta, and wings
• Try to pet Lola

RJ tries to cast the cat toy to lure Lola out

Lola wasn't going to budge until she saw an opening to escape!

Hypermiling

New car ... Honda Accord Hybrid replaced the oil leaking, poor visibility, trunkless, gas guzzling Honda Accord Crosstour.

Doug decided to try to maximize his mpg. Sara called this hypermiling. 

Average is about 50 mpg, P.S. I never listen to 80's music. 

March 26 update on drive home from work ... 

That's more like it!

 

Stuff flows downhill

They say that shi* always flows downhill. That's true of our neighborhood drainage ditch. After a heroic effort the day before the storm, sticks came from somewhere and blocked the drain. This caused a lot of stuff to overflow into our back yard and under the fence into the neighbor's yard. Stuff included ... 

• Two construction signs
• 4-5 cardboard boxes
• 1 destroyed styrofoam cooler
• 1 lacrosse ball
• 2 Starbucks coffee cup lids
• 1 plastic coke bottle
• various plastic pieces   
• 1 plastic bag with dog poop 

Part way through the cleanup. The picture doesn't do the mess justice.

The junk flowed all the way to the hill at the end of the picture. I need to have a chat with neightbors about better managing their trash. 

Life on a Bike

Bradley and RJ ventured out on their bikes to McLean. First they stopped at the library to warm up. Then they went to 7-Eleven for a Slurpee. Then they went to Santini's for dinner. 

Since it was now dark, the way home was via bus. Here is how that went ...

• Waited ~20 minute for a bus
• Bus finally arrived, boys got on and put bikes on front
• Bus headed east, then navigated around and ended up west ... at the McLean metro stop. Oops.
• Bus driver said he would be back
• Bus driver came back and said bus was out of service going east
• Doug picked up boys who chalked it up to a fun adventure and a learning experience 

Boys (with Sara trying to get out of the picture) after returning from the adventure

Whitetail Cleanup

A 1-day trip to Whitetail was required to get Doug's ski stuff for Whistler. There was no snow but we did some hiking and a lot of treasure seeking. RJ and Doug tried to see the turtle swimming in the pond ... but RJ got bored and decided to try to sneak up on some Canadian Geese. 

The metal detector found a bunch of cool stuff ... including $1 in quarters, various bottle caps, screws, a computer chip, and 2 iPods (one was broken).

Kids collaborated during a treasure hunt. Here they are washing their 'treasures'

Billing Goat Trail 2026

Kids and Doug has an odd day off ... so we took on the Billy Goat trail again since it was so much fun in Jan 2024.

One of the highlights of this year (sorry ... no pictures) was Doug and another random Dad holding RJ upside down by both ankles to retrieve a football that had fallen into the water next do a 3 foot drop-off.

Just like last time Julia bleated like a billy goat when she saw blue trail markers.

Found the old spot where we took the picture last time

Julia was a bit hesitant about climbing the ridge, but she did it!

RJ was NOT hesitant to climb. We found one cliff he did not want to attempt without a rope

We forgot to send this picture to Sara

G-Geoff and Arthur

We got to see G. Geoff and his newish dog Arthur while he was making a trip to DC from State College.

Luckily we cleaned up the trains so Arthur could run around the basement

 

Philippines

Work trip to Bohol, Philippines. Sounds fun, but it was 40 hours of flying and long work days. I did manage to snorkel outside the hotel and take a boat trip to an island snorkeling experience.

View from my room

7-Eleven walking distance from my hotel

Spent most of my time here

This wiring reminds me of the mess under the train garden

Starfish looked like Patrick from SpongeBob

Lots of people/boats in the snorkeling area. Turtles and fish were plentiful!

American Pika project

Julia selected the American Pika as her project animal. Doug helped her a little bit ... but Julia was pretty self sufficient.

The best part of the board was the QR code that linked to a video with the sound that an American Pika makes. Make sure you notice the bee that flies into the pika.

Julia with her board at school

Julia in school newsletter with rest of class