August 2012 - Week 2

The summer is blasting along! Here's the the account of the the seventh week of summer vacation: 

Sailing:

Claire participated in her second Green Fleet (novice) regatta. Conditions were good and she placed 45 out of 52 boats. Her friend, Brooke, finished in 7th place. Way to go girls!

Heading out to the race course 

Claire at the Green Fleet skippers' meeting

Beating to the windward mark

The Lakewood Blue Claws:

Are you ready for some baseball? The gang joined the Lakewood Blue Claws Kids Club. The "Claws" are the single A affiliate of the Phillies. The Kids Club membership lets them get in for free on special nights and Sundays plus free food on Sundays and Mondays. As usual they ate their way through the game. Tonight's opponent was the Kanoppolis Intimidators. Entertainment was provided by the "Zooperstars." The kids knew them from their appearances on AGT.  A great time was had by all! Oh yeah, the Blue Claws won the game 5 - 0!

First batter for the BLue Claws

Between innings entertainment by the Zooperstars

A Visit to Silver Lake:

After Claire's sailing class, we piled into the vehicles for what has become an annual trip to Silver Lake! Ed and Sara invited us (kids included) for an afternoon of fun at their lake house. The boys and I loaded the "spare parts" Sunfish into the pick-up truck while Madi and Rose did some light cleaning. When Anna Marie and Claire returned, we were ready to roll. We stopped for a quick bite at McDonald's along the way.

When we arrived, the kids wasted no time getting into the lake. They said a quick hello to our hosts as they ran for the dock and the pedal boat.

It was a gorgeous day. The sun was shinning, there was a nice breeze blowing off the lake,  the air temperature was in the high 80s and the water temperature was warm. The kids swam/peddled the paddle boat/sailed to the swimming platform in the middle of the lake. They made dozens of trips throughout the day.

Geoffrey, Claire, Madie, Rose, Josh and I took turns on the SUNFISH.

Ed invited his friends Dennis and Lorraine to join us for dinner. We enjoyed great pizza, homemade brownies and popsicles and the company of great friends. 

Having fun in Silver Lake!

Later in the afternoon, I took the Sunfish for a spin.

Heading out in the paddle boat

Geoffrey and Claire sailing the Sunfish

Dropping the sail

Paddle boat fun!

Projects: 

Green head flies can be a problem out here on the salt marsh. There are days when it is difficult to be on the crabbing dock because of the flies. The boys and I discussed solutions to the problem and did some research on the internet. As a result, we decided to build four green head fly traps. This is our model:

Rutgers University has done a lot of research in the design of the trap. Because they have been successful, we chose to build four traps using their design. Their experiments suggest that the traps be painted with glossy black paint. The boys wondered how color could affect the success of the traps. They were impressed when they started to apply the black gloss paint over the primer. Almost immediately, Green Head flies started landing on the fresh black paint. They observed that didn't happen when they applied the gray primer. By the time they finished  a panel, Five green heads were stuck in the paint! 

The boys are doing this work to earn extra money. They primed the wood on Tuesday and applied black paint on Wednesday. Our plan was to cut the pieces on Thursday and assembled the traps on Friday but we fell behind in our goal. We'll cut and assemble next week. 

The boys are painting the wood we will use to build the Green Head Fly traps.