Buford Harvest Festival

This is the middle school's annual back-to-school night and community festival, and this year Abby is actually a student there!

Benji watering the flowers made it onto the 6:00 news

Watching Sam work the water pump (which is hooked to a bike)

Abby did not spend anytime with us, but alternated between groups of friends. I caught a couple of sneaky pictures from afar

A Day of Festivals

While Abby was at her friend's Bat Mitzvah, we took in some of the many festivals being held in Cville that day. We started at the Pride Festival in Lee Park:

Moved next to the Sabroso Latin American Festival in Ix Art Park:

And ended up at the Belmont Bash in Belmont Park, which we liked the best:

Start of Bat Mitzvah Season

Abby's Bat Mitzvah class is starting to turn 13 and will all of a Bar or Bat mitzvah in the next year. Ellie Goluboff, the oldest child in her class, had her Bat Mitzvah last week. Abby was nervous about attending, but had a great time. She was also in a good enough mood to let me play with my portrait lens some more:

This one was over-exposed, but Abby said it was her favorite, so I included it

Richmond Trip

Our friends the Rothmans invited us to do an escape room with them in Richmond. We decided to make a day of it and first hit the Richmond Science Museum, which we had never seen:

Moon Fountain

Focault's Pendulum

Wind Tunnel!

Space Capsule

Racing a Cheetah (as represented by the light)

Racing a telegraph operator

Challenging a robot to air hockey

Petting a hissing cockroach

And a snake

We had planed to get dinner before the escape room, but we enjoyed the museum so much we decided to stay as late as we could. The escape room was great -- Matrix-themed -- and we made it out with a few minutes to spare (the room only had a 21% escape rate, so we felt pretty good):

We managed to squeeze in dinner at our favorite Richmond restaurant -- Addis Ethiopian -- before heading home to get ready for the week.

Pack 36 Rocket Day

This year's scouting theme is "Rocket into Scouting" and Benji's pack had a thematically appropriate "Rocket Day" earlier this month:

Proud of his rocket (he and Kevin built it)

Lining up for inspection

Adding the final fuse

Putting it on the launch pad

Getting his instructions on the controls

Blast-off!

Setting it up for a second launch

Blast-off #2

This time the ribbons actually deployed

Benji is already asking when we can do this again.

New Lens

My parents got me a new 135mm lens for my camera, and Benji kindly let me practice on him:

Scouting 2016

Benji had his first meeting.  Kevin agreed to stand-in as den leader for the week, and I helped him by making a sign-in poster:

After the meeting, Benji could not wait to start selling popcorn and nuts in the neighborhood: