End of Summer

As many of you may know, today is the last day of summer. Tomorrow I start school at a new school, Kingswood-Oxford. Today we had to make the last day of summer one of the best days of summer ever. In the morning, with my dad's help, we repaired and rebuilt the lean-to in an island of mulch in the front yard that we have made into an imaginary fort. We call it Dig Island (because it was the only spot in the yard that mom would allow us to dig in.) We made a lean-to there last fall, and over last winter a lot of the smaller sticks fell off, leaving us with a low ceiling and tattered framework. Today we rebuilt and expanded the lean-to in a "modern" newly refurbished style. It is now more circular in shape, and much wider than it was. The ceiling is higher so Aidan can stand up in most of it. We made "dig" a lot better.

We also went mini-golfing. But we all seemed to be evenly matched. It was very hot and we were all very excited whenever we got to one of the holes in the shade. Aidan scored one hole in one. Dad also scored a hole in one. We all had a very fun time mini golfing and at the end we were rewarded with very cold ice cream. I got peppermint, it's my new favorite flavor. Despite the ice cream we were still hot and sweaty so when we got back we were all very excited to take a dip in the pool.

Brandon and I (with the help of my dad) have been working on a human powered car. One person does the steering, one person gets a back rest and does the brakes. The human powered part comes from the person doing the pushing in the back. We found two steering defects on the testing today and it was kind of hard to control without brakes. Soon we should be able to ride it and send more pictures (once we get brakes).

Aidan also got a pair of pet frogs. He completed his summer homework book and the reward was the pet frogs he's been waiting for for the last month. He let me name one of them. I named it frederick, because he wouldn't stand for Hamilton, MacBeth, or Josephine (if it was a girl). In the end he chose Frederick and Cassie. Speaking of Aidan, next summer he is thinking about writing his own blog, or maybe keeping a journal. I much prefer the blog idea. I'm very glad I did mine, despite my dad's constant, "DID YOU DO YOUR BLOG YET!?" I hope I'll be able to continue it next summer. Until then, have a great year and study hard.

-Connor

cup cake truck, ice cream, and sand?

On Thursday, I went to the cupcake truck with the Kneidels. For all of you who don't know a cupcake truck is like a ice cream truck but it gives out cupcakes. I was all excited about getting a delicious cupcake, but when I got there they only had DISGUSTING flavors! No plain or vanilla! the only flavors were chocolate, mocha and carrot. But next to the cupcake truck, they had a fruit truck that sold, you guessed it, fruit! So I asked my mom and she grudgingly let me have fruit over cupcakes. Aidan did not like his frosting, so I got to use it as dip for my strawberries.

That night I went to my Ice Cream Social at my new school, Kingswood-Oxford, where I met my school advisor, Mr. Harper Follensbee and my school advisee group, full of people soon to be my friends. Mr. Follensbee was really fun and sarcastic and said that he has been known to do somersaults and cartwheels in the classroom, not to mention that he roars some mornings when entering the classroom to see who might hide under their desks. I got a t-shirt made by my senior advisors (Mr. Follensbee's helpers) it says the FollensBee's and has a picture of a bee on it. I like my advisee group and my advisors and I can't wait for school to start. Mr. Follensbee is also my new English teacher, he reminds me of Mr. Gallagher, my fourth grade teacher who told me to start this blog. I'll have something to show on my first day now.

On Friday, I got to go to the beach at Winding Trails, where I built a sand sculpture. It was a penguin on a surf board. I thought it was pretty good, for my standards. But then we saw the ginormous 15 ft tall sculpture that was built by the World Record Holder for the largest sand castle. It turns out he is attempting to break his previous record and build a sand castle more than 31 feet tall. His 15ft one was really well detailed and sculpted with dragons, gargoyles, and a drawbridge moat that a cat could fit in, mine paled in comparison.

Today (Saturday) I got balsa wood to whittle into something. I shall post before and after pictures and tell you how it is going. I hope to be able to post pictures of my creation soon. For my birthday this year I got a Swiss army knife from Grandpa Wood, this inspired me to want to whittle. I also got to see Grammie and Papa today. We played the board game Clue, except for Papa who had to go back to work after lunch.

-Connor

Promotion Night

At my karate school, belt tests are called promotion nights. This month I was on the promotion night board, which means that I would be tested to rank up. I was all worried about promotion night. I was nervous that I wouldn't get my stripe(not belt, stripe. I have one more stripe before I get my adult brown belt.) I kept fretting and fretting and when I got there it wasn't that hard, in fact it was pretty easy. We just ran through everything. For example, we did Chinese Form Five, Nahatchen Two and some of my techniques. In the end they made us shut our eyes while they came around and put tape on my belt. In the end I passed and I got to adult blue belt.

Connor

Promotion Night pics

Connor is tired. He'll post his update tomorrow morning but here are his pictures from his promotion night.

DRAGON BOAT RACES!!!!!!!!

My dad entered the dragon boat contest at the Hartford Asian Festival with his team of Jefferson employees. We were excited to see my dad race in a long narrow boat with twenty rowers, one drummer at the front sitting on the tiniest chair, a steerer in the back and a foam dragon head and tail at the front and back! He had a background of canoeing skills but the paddling was different and it was all about synchronization. In the first round, he had a bad drummer who was drumming and counting at different times!! He had a lot of strength so he got under 3 minutes!!

The Muellers came to watch my Dad race. It was nice to see them after Virginia Beach and we hope to have a Mueller sleepover soon. We also ran into Grammie and Papa. It was very good to see them. We had missed them after all of our vacations.

In the next round he had switched drummers and did really well!! The only down side was his name was not very creative and the shirt was just their name, the Jefferson radiators. Though they did have cool white hats that made them stand out from everyone else. It helps you spot them in the pictures. I think they should have have put a dragon X-ray on the back and had a more clever name.

In the end, my dad ended up winning second place in one race, third place in one race, and fourth place in one race and having a fun time. I had a great day and enjoyed watching him.

At the Asian Festival, they also had booths. I enjoyed seeing some of them. I painted chopsticks at one booth. I made an origami cup at another. I tried to make a bird but it was too complicated. They had a karate demo going on, but it wasn't very good. I'm going to tell my Sifu (my karate teacher) that we should do a demo there next year.

Connor

Rhode island

I went on vacation with my neighbors, the Fernandez's. I had a lot of fun playing on swings, going to the beach, and mini golfing. We also spent a lot of time just hanging out and playing games. We played chess (I won most of the time at this), poker with york mints, and who can catch the most crabs.

One day we went out into town and went to the beach, with bumper boats and mini golf all in one day. The bumper boats were awesome and we all got completely soaked by a big water gun ran by the parents. We decided to drip dry while we went mini golfing because it was hot. The golf was hard but I got a hole in one and in the end I came in second place. We also went tubing. That was awesome. I went and Aidan went slowly, but the best tuber was my Mom. She rode it like she owned it. I also tried the aqua-board. I did pretty well on it to. Rhode Island was a lot of fun.

Yummy Peach Pie

Coming home from Virginia Beach my Dad bought a basket of peaches. Yesterday, he made the yummiest peach pie ever! I don't really like peaches, but peach pie is really good! Many compliments to the chef, my Dad.

I am doing another week of tennis camp, this time with the Kneidels. It's just as fun and before class (while Grace and Aidan are in their class), I get to play tennis with Henry. He is a really good tennis player. Yesterday after tennis, I had a sleepover with Henry, that was really fun. We also went to see a Breakdancing Shakespeare play at Kingswood-Oxford School. The first thing I noticed when I got there was that two very familiar people were sitting in front of me. I leaned into their row and saw Erin and Patrick Connolly! They were not in the play, but one of Patrick's friends was. The play was really good. There was no major good character - all the characters were a little bit bad. The main character, MacBeth, being one of the worst. For those of you who haven't seen the play sorry for spoiling it.

At the very beginning of the play, MacBeth is battling to protect the King. He wins and then sees three witches, who tell MacBeth that he will be King. When MacBeth goes back to his hometown, the King elects him Prince. When the King comes over to MacBeth's house, MacBeth murders him because his wife, knowing about the witches, wanted him to be King. Then MacBeth runs into the witches again and they tell him that his friend Duncan's kids will be King. MacBeth sends out an elite squad to kill Duncan's kids and Duncan. When they get there, Duncan ends up dying, but the kid gets away. When MacBeth has a party, he sees the ghost of Duncan. He is the only one who can see it, and all of a sudden gets very scared. The party is cancelled because of MacBeth's' "hallucinations." MacBeth runs into the witches one more time, and they tell him that he is to be killed by his friend MacDuff. He finds out that MacDuff, has fled to his castle London, but has left all of his family and children behind. MacBeth sends out an elite squad to kill MacDuff's family. They hit and are very successful, everyone in the audience gasped when one of the mean soldiers took the baby out of the wife's hand and kicked it right off the stage. Meanwhile, Lady MacBeth is feeling very guilty and has been having nightmares. She cannot get blood splotches off her hands and when she does the smell is still there. Being frightened nervous and guilty she cuts both of her forearms with knives and dies. When the news reaches MacDuff that his family has been killed, he decides to go attack MacBeth. They go through a whole war scene with MacBeth killing random citizens of MacDuff's people. But when MacDuff comes to fight MacBeth, MacBeth knows he will lose. So he says, "Give me all you got MacDuff" in oldish english. They fight it out to the death, and MacDuff wins. MacDuff's friend becomes the new King of Scotland and it all ends relatively happily ever after, except for all the dead people.

I really enjoyed the play and the breakdancing was awesome. The breakdancing took place in-between scenes but did not actually effect the play, though the dancing was done by characters in the play.

I am having good time even though we are back from Virginia Beach. I have been loving summer, too bad there is only 21 days left.

-Connor

we got home

The final part-day of VA beach we played with our new fifes. I can now play little ditty's with out knowing any real notes. We went and had breakfast at IHOP and then started the real drive home. It was really, really long. We occupied ourselves with modern technology and a bit of the fife. I already miss the Mullers.

When we got home we were greeted by our great big hairy beastie we call Ginny. Once we got her calmed down Mimi had her fair share of petting as well. Someone missed us! It is good to be home.

Last Full Day at VB

Today we went surfing!!! It was totally awesome. I have my own surfboard now, and it was totally awesome to use it in the totally awesome waves. Aidan also has his own surfboard too. All the rest of my family rented one, except for my Dad (toenail still hurting him.) I caught some pretty big waves and I wiped out only 1 and 1/2 times. The 1/2 time wasn't really a wipout, I was going out and my board turned sideways and got hit by a big wave and I got knocked over and engulfed. My Mom stood up on two feet and Dad was very proud of her. My Dad said I lived up to my old nickname (Longride).

After surfing, we built little restaurants in the sand. We had a whole functioning economy that worked pretty well, everything was made out of sand of course! Me and my Dad teamed up together and built a super awesome sand sculpture of a ladybug.

Today was also the last day of the polite contest. I won in the category of "Politest despite having the blandest diet." Alaina won in "Best behaved while torn between her love for both Jacob and Edward" (she is reading the Twilight books). Maddy won "Best behaved despite being tormented by her brother and sister." Aidan won for "the politest cannonballer" and

Ben won for "Best behaved while dealing with the throes of teenage angst." We got our prizes, they are something different every year, and this year we all got fifes and Maddy got a tin whistle. We all have been working on it, and so far we have been hitting minor notes. I have a little tune going on. The fifes were an awesome prize.

I am excited to go home and see everyone there, but I am sad to leave Virginia Beach and the Muellers. I'm driving home tomorrow.

-Connor

Ocean Breeze Water Park Day Five

Yesterday we went to Ocean Breeze Waterpark. They had lots of fun rides and a big wave pool in the center. One of my favorite rides was the Bamboo Shoots. It was an orange tube that dropped you off. They had smaller green ones and longer faster orange ones. One orange one had a curve at the end that would send you flying off into the air and you had a feeling of weightlessness before you SPLASHED into the water. They also had rides to go on with a tube, those rides were really fun, though the lines were a bit longer. I went on a ride called the Hurricane that was really fun. The line was quite long, but it was totally worth it for the 10 seconds of complete thrill that it gave us. It sent you down a very, very long slide going so fast it felt like your brains were going to shoot out your face. Then you entered into this big toilet bowl and spun around like three times before dropping into this giant ditch that dropped you into an eight foot pool.

In the wave pool they had a contest of who could make the best cannonball. Aidan entered that contest. The first round half the people got kicked off for smallish cannonballs, Aidan stayed. The second round 4 people were left, they had audience cheers to judge who would stay. The two people left were this big tall person and little Aidan, who had almost the same size cannonball and was 2 feet shorter. The cheers were close, and at the very end they did a cannonball to see who would win and then they would do a final cheer. They both did really nice cannonballs but when they came back up there with cheers, Aidan WON! He did a victory cannonball. He won a watermelon flavored smencil (a smencil is a pencil made of recycled paper that smells.) Watermelon happens to be his favorite flavor.

It was one of my best days, we had a lot of fun and it helped the awesomeness that they had a giant gorilla in the parking lot.

-Connor

PS If you want to see the giant gorilla "humongous" I'm pretty sure he is in my pictures from Virginia Beach from last year.

Day four Virginia Beach

Yesterday we had a hole digging contest. The teams were Alaina and I versus Aidan and Ben. Our hole was a tiny bit deeper and neat and organized. Ben and Aidan's hole was completely straight down and a lot wider. The adults were to judge. They said it was a tie because they were different categories so we decided to connect our holes into one big trench (not a ditch as ditch is offensive.) So we ended up with the biggest manmade trench that I've ever seen! Yayyyy...

My dad was also surfing and as you know his luck with this has been a bit down. This time, he partially ripped his big toe toenail off. He limped all the way upstairs to our condo and Chill-axed for the rest of the day with his toe wrapped up in a napkin and duct tape. We all felt really sorry for him and the picture of his toe (that's a later on picture) was bleeding a lot more initially.

Connor.

Colonial Williamsburg (Day 3)

Yesterday I went to Colonial Williamburg and I got a tricorner hat. I also saw lots of cool things like a blacksmith making nails. My favorite was the cabinetmaker but I didn't get to stay too long because everyone was leaving. He was talking about different types of wood and how you could drain the colors and use it as stain for simple woods like oak. He was showing us the design of a mirror that had all these fancy curves and golden leaves and when he passed us a corner of the mirror to hold, I could lift it with just one hand, it was surprisingly light. He was going to stain it with this log that washed up from the sea that's actually called "logwood." The cabinetmaker was my favorite spot.

My least favorite spot was the brickmaker. Just because I am reading a book called The Single Shard about Korean pottery and in it the main character collects and squishes clay with his feet, and there was an option to squish the clay, my Dad MADE ME DO IT. I knew that I shouldn't have done it because when I got in I sunk and my feet hit the floor. So I got out and in the process of getting out I slipped again. I caught myself both times, but it took forever to get the clay off of my feet and hands and I was really mad at my Dad for making me do it. He said it was "educational". They had other educational things and they were okay, such as the silversmith and the apothecary and the milliner.

We had dinner at Shield's Tavern. I got confused because all of the people who worked there were telling us to be as impolite as we wanted, but I had the polite contest to worry about, so I was wondering in this circumstance if it would be polite for the polite contest to be impolite? They just wanted you to have fun and do whatever the heck you wanted dance, sing, eat with your fingers, wear your hat at the table.

Connor