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After several years off, our small group from church restarted the tradition of holding Field Day. While the events previously involved only adults, now many of us have kids old enough to join in the fun.

Tom did an excellent job at adjusting the games such that adults and kids could all have fun together.

The three-legged race can make it tough to keep your balance.

Jen and I moved so quickly we were a blur for the camera.

The egg spoon relay returned to competition.

Make sure to take breaks and stay hydrated.

Molly jumped so fast in the sack race that her hat flew off her head.

Nice air, Leah.

There was a hula hoop chain.

It’s the kids from BF2K7 (well, the three quarters that do not live in Texas, making it difficult to attend Field Day). They’ve grown a bit in the past 10 years.

Dunk the sponge, pass it down, fill the bucket with water. Squeeze well to make sure you get every last drop out of the sponge.

Jen got a selfie with the official professional photographer.

Look out, some drops are getting away.

Here we all (minus the photographer) are as we transitioned from outdoors to indoors for the indoor games.

Tricycles again made an appearance for dizzy-bat tricycle. Observant readers may recognize the tricycle Leah is sitting on. Two of them were originally purchased for Field Day in 2009. When the day was over, we ended up hanging on to one since we had a toddler, and it became Molly’s tricycle. Then, it became Leah’s tricycle. Then, we handed it down/back to Tom (the original purchaser of the tricycle) since he then had a kid who could use it. And now it’s back at Field Day.

Field Day finished with a giant balloon war.

Thanks to the International Field Day Committee for putting on this awesome event. We hope that it can continue for many years to come.

Yesterday was the big day - the end of braces for Molly. Just before heading to the orthodontist, I got one last picture of Molly with braces.

And a few hours later, she looked like this.

She still has the bottom bar, and now has a removable retainer for the top that she needs to wear when she’s home. She actually says having nothing on her teeth feels weird, and prefers to wear her retainer as much as possible since it feels more normal to her.

She had braces for exactly 15 months. For context, here’s what she looked like the night before she got her braces back then.

It’s hard to see the difference in her overjet from a picture, but it’s huge. Nice smile, Molly.

The girls love their American Girl dolls. Since Leah’s birthday, they’ve been asking for a triple-decker doll bunk bed. After Christmas, I told them we could build one together. They got very excited about the idea, so we embarked on a long-term project to build one.

We started by getting some graph paper and drawing up some designs. From the designs, we created a materials list. Then we headed to Home Depot to buy wood, screws, and paint (thanks to a Home Depot gift card from G’Mom and Grampa). You’ll have to wait till the end to see what color they picked.

We worked on the project over several weekends. We started work in February, but it was very cold in the garage making it hard to motivate ourselves to make too much progress. We still managed to cut several of the pieces (I was the only one to operate the miter saw, but the girls were excellent helpers). They then sanded all the pieces smooth to get them ready to assemble. I used the router to create slots for the side rails.

In May, it warmed up so we managed to pick up the pace and make some significant progress. They also finally got to use some power tools. They used the drill press to drill holes (with counter-sink).

Molly made sure to keep the screw straight up as she drove it in with the impact driver.

After a lot of work, we had 3 frames for the 3 beds.

Leah measured how long the slats needed to be so we could cut them.

And marked where I needed to cut.

And more sanding.

The impact driver works much better if you scrunch up your nose.

Nice job Molly (and nice photobomb, Leah).

Once the beds were constructed, it was time to paint them.

We each painted a bed.

Leah covered the bed well, and her face a little. We put two coats of paint on them (as well as a little touching up).

The final step in construction was to drill hole in the top/bottom of the posts and cut dowels to connect them. Here we are with out finished project.

Jen used her sewing skills to make mattresses, and the dolls were ready to snooze.

I loved working on this project, and the girls seemed to really enjoy it as well. I hope we can do it again soon.

While Jen was out of town, the girls spent a day with their friend Matilda. They had a water gun fight, and were very excited about getting their own water guns when I picked them up. I of course loved this idea, so we went to 5 Below and picked up some Super Soakers.

The girls finally got out of school on June 14. They love school, but were very excited for summer vacation.

After school, the neighborhood kids again took a picture at the circle, as we’ve done every year.

After the big picture, the 5th graders who are moving up to middle school took a picture on their own. Meanwhile, the other kids snuck off to gather water balloons. The 5th graders went from smiling to soaking in an instant.

This, of course, led to an all out water fight.

The girls then took a quick picture for me before running to a neighbor’s house for an ice cream party.

Let summer begin!

It’s been several years since I’ve been on a mission trip. We had kids, and getting away with little ones is tough. I’ve been meaning to get back to it for a while, but not able to make it work. This year, my job gave all of us an extra week of vacation, and I knew what I’d use it for.

I went with my church to rural West Virginia for relief work after the big flood from last year. The flood was a year before, but there were still folks in need of help. As they told us, those with means had all fixed their homes, so the only folks still suffering are those without.

The first day was rainy, so we couldn’t go to our planned sites. Instead we worked in a church basement cleaning out, putting up insulation, and laying cinder blocks.

The rest of the trip I worked at a house that had been hit hard by the flood. We finished a porch that had a wheelchair lift, including adding a roof to it. We replaced a large portion of the tin roof on the house, as it was leaking badly. And we added support jacks under part of the house that had pulled away from the rest of the house in the flood.

For any Glen Mar folks (or other Marylanders who’d like to go with us) considering a mission trip, this one is really great. I’m used to having the most construction experience on my crew, but this trip was full of experts. We were like a finely oiled machine.

After the work day, we made sure to see a bit of our surroundings. We saw the Summersville Dam and the Summersville Lake.

Though I was most excited that it was near Fat Eddie’s where we could get ice cream. This is a large dip cone, and it was delicious (though it took so long to eat that some of my compatriots were getting tired of waiting on me so we could get going).

Another day, we went to see the New River Gorge Bridge, the longest single-span bridge in the world up until a few years ago.

Being in West Virginia working to help those in need alongside my fellow believers has reawakened a part of me. It's the most direct feeling of being God's hands and feet I've experienced. I connect with God in a lot of ways, but there's nothing that's anything like a mission trip. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back on a trip, and I look forward to another trip soon.

For Memorial Day, we had some last minute visitors from afar - Aunt Caroline and Uncle Charles. They joined all the Maryland family at Grams’s house.

After a delicious meal, we made sure to get a few pictures.

Jen likes to take the girls strawberry picking each year. This year, it was a group effort.

Stacie and Zach were making grand plans for thier fresh strawberries, including a strawberry pie.

The girls filled their buckets, then added the strawberries to Mom’s box. The picking was much slower without Dad, G’mom and Grampa this year. Thank goodness we had friends to help out.

About 10 minutes after arriving, light rain started. Molly and Matilda found a unique way to cover up in the field.

Jen and the girls made a second stop at Woodbourne Creamery at Rock Hill Orchard. It is about 15 minutes from the strawberry field and the homemade ice cream was a perfect snack.

We celebrated Jen’s birthday on her birthday (yes, more than a month ago, I’m still catching up on posts). Many of us get smaller and smaller presents as we get older, but not Jen. It took both girls and me to carry all of them down for Jen to open on her birthday.

It was a kitchen-themed birthday.

Jen chose to go to Stella Notte, a delicious Italian restaurant, for her birthday dinner. The dinner was very good, but the desserts were the best.

The girls had their Field Day at school, and it was a beautiful day. I volunteered during the younger grades, and was assigned the ring toss station (new station from last year).

Jen and I swapped out at lunch time, and Jen worked the bean bag tic-tac-toe for the older kids.

And the face painters this year really did a fantastic job, as you can tell from these happy girls.