Myles and His Cub Scout Trip

Both Max and Myles have joined the Cub Scouts, and yesterday, Saturday, April 19, Myles' Den visited a local TV station -- WRC Channel 4, an NBC affiliate in Northwest D.C.


Myles and his Den got a tour of the facility, and the weather man for the station came out to talk to the boys and explain the weather forecasting.


While he was there, he saw himself on the monitor as he passed the spot in the newsroom where the station does its newsroom updates. While he was sitting the chair, he heard a voice come over the system, which said, "Hey ... will the reporter with the yellow shirt who was just on camera come back to the news anchor chair." Which Myles did.


"Show me how old you are with your fingers," said the voice. Myles held up 6 fingers. "You qualify!" said the voice. "You're hired. Please report to personnel and fill out the paperwork. You may begin immediately." Which got a big smile from both Myles and dad.


The boys had a great time, and visited the control room during the live broadcast. The director spoke to Myles and explained how she directed the live show.


We also went into the studio to watch the newscast. The anchors were very gracious and the boys had a blast. After the trip, Myles was starving, and we stopped into Georgetown for a bite to eat.


Myles checked out the menu from the street at Nathans (he had no idea this was mom's hangout in her younger years) and we went in to grab some lunch. Myles saw the bar and the stools and went straight for them, insisting we sit there to eat. Hmmm ... We had a good lunch -- Myles had a burger and fries (and quite a few muffins as a pre-meal appetizer). A fun trip!

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Myles, the Ladybug

We're skipping WAYYYY ahead here, since it's been so long since the last update to the boys' blog. But we wanted to get these posted to get this blog going again. We'll fill in more with the months between now and last October shortly.

In the meantime, here are some shots of Myles in the school play. He played a part in the Ladybug chorus, and he was really belting out the song as you can see.


It was quite the popular play. So many parents attending.


Way to go, Myles!

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Max's 8th Birthday

It was a hot one out there yesterday (yes, actually it really was yesterday, Oct. 6 -- this blog post is actually on time) as we had a party to celebrate Max's 8th birthday (Tues., Oct. 2) with some of his friends at the Lake Ridge Nursery Pumpkin Patch. Hot -- 90 degrees or more -- with high humidity.

The birthday boy

But the boys spent well over two hours running around and playing on the various bounces, swings, slides, rides and other paraphenalia, like motorized toilets (more on that below). It's quite the pumpkin fest:

William at the wheel of the fire engine

Myles keeping cool, poses with pumpkins

One of the spooky moon bounces

Max comes bounding out of the Batman slide

Jackson, one of the friends who came

Jackson's brother, Alex

William -- king of the castle

Max pulling in after riding one of the toilets, believe it or not, around the hay bales ... guess you have to live here to understand that!

Told you it was hot ...

"Mr. Lake Ridge Nursery" himself

We gathered for the celebratorial cutting of the cake and opening of presents:

Happy Birthday, Max!

Prince William County Fair

It was a hot one the day we went to the Prince William County Fair. But the boys were looking for fun.

There were a ton of rides, and it helped to cool the boys off. I just couldn't help myself shooting photos of the boys on the roller coaster:

It was just too colorful to pass up.

Another ride the boys enjoyed was a tilt-a-whirl type ride. You can tell they were enjoying it, even tho they looked like they might be getting a little dizzy.

The boys had a bunch of fun. We'll be back next year to see more of what's happening there.

William's 5th Birthday

This is the first of many overdue blog/photo posts ... more to come over the next days and week.

We travelled back from the Warm Springs/Hot Springs area of Virginia from our vacation (more to come on that beautiful area in another post) to get back to Woodbridge just in time to grab William's birthday stuff and head over to Chuck-e-Cheese! Yea! :-)

William was ready for the party, all right, even after a nearly four-hour car ride. All his "buds" were there, including Nathan, one of our family's long-time friends. We've known Nathan since he was born, just a few months after Max. He's become a buddy of all the boys.

Here's most of the rest of the gang:

And the birthday boy with his cake:

No, William's not smoking a meershaum pipe -- that's his special Chuck-e-Cheese cup and straw:

And -- the big moment: William gets a hug from Chuck-e-Cheese himself!

Happy 5th William!

Max's First Step to Stardom

Ok, this is it: Max's first commercial. It's his first step on the path to celebrity and stardom!

You saw it here first. Update, 8/7: Check out the video, just uploaded to YouTube:

(Yes, that's Melissa doing the voice-over in the commercial.)

Melissa's work with the water Service Authority here in Prince William County gave us the opportunity to have Max star in a water Service Authority commercial. It just so happened that the location where the crew was going to shoot at fell through, and the crew decided to shoot it at our house. And they wanted to use Max as "the young boy" in the commercial. It's going to run throughout Prince William County (hey -- another PW!), which just happens to be one of the top-ten fastest growing counties in the country. It will air on Fox News, the Weather Channel (apparently two of the most-watched cable channels), as well as other select channels on Comcast cable here. We'll have to record it and link it up on YouTube so you all can see it when it's finished. But here's an out-take still photo from the shoot today:

The scenario is that someone from PWCSA (the Prince William County Service Authority) comes up to deliver a Consumer Confidence Report to the homeowner, which documents the quality of the water they're getting. So that's "Mom" at the door (really a water authority engineer) with Max, the water authority guy at left in the blue shirt and cameraman at right. We'll link the video up on our blog as soon as we can. 

More T-ball Photos

I found these photos that I shot a few weeks ago during a Saturday T-ball game at Lake Ridge. Just had to post them. I love that intensity with Max batting:

Max gets ready to tear into a pitch ...

He crosses the plate after rounding the bases.

William climbing the dugout fence ... ya gotta do something while you're in the dugout, right?

William in the field ...

... and in the trees:

And, I'm playing around with a new AOL product called Bluestring (http://bluestring.aol.com), which allows you to mix your digital files together and string photos in a gallery format with music. This is my first, quick foray into this, although I see the sound is not working:

Check out our other T-ball entry below: T-ball Time.