First Night

Not sure why it's not called Last Night, but whatever. We made a bunch of crafts, marched up the Mall, stomped on yards & yards of bubble wrap, lost a balloon, performed a circus act to obtain someone else's lost balloon, bounced, watched a juggling family, saw a magic show, took the stage at said magic show, and watched fireworks lost in the clouds. All before 9pm. Tho she was awake in bed for an hour or so talking about what an amazing night she'd had. Hours later, Jo & I toasted the New Year, our first in Virginia, with champagne Andrew gave us when we moved.

Happy Half Birthday

We made half a cake. Sang half a song. Blew out four and a half candles. This is what happens when schools out for a while...

Waffler

Turns out, our pancake griddle is also a waffle iron. Time to perfect the waffle variation of my pancake recipe!

Big Snow

Final tally was 22 inches. A week later, the main streets are pretty much clear. Side streets like ours still have only a clear lane down the middle. Forth largest snow storm in recorded history for Charlottesville.

Foreshadowing...

If it weren't for the sudden death of all our NiMH camera batteries, we'd have posted this picture and talked about how nice it was that Virginia gets these cute little snows in December...

Kiwi

Jo has never met a fruit she didn't like (counting durian as a vegetable, I guess), but Zara's not quite there. In this photo, she demonstrates her new found love of kiwi.

Bigger Girl Bed

Zara, who never slept in a crib, not even once, has graduated from her "low aesthetic" twin bed to this lovely day bed. Turns out, big girls like beds that are higher off the floor. Who knew? You can actually see her old bed, as it's the trundle under her new bed.

B-Bye, Polar!

Well, Polar's two week visit last January has finally ended. Polar has been successfully placed as an honest to goodness public access service dog! Yay Polar! The local news did a story on him & his new person, Luke. We are very proud of him, but some of us are still missing him just a little.

Ballerinas gone Computing

Wes was at jury duty yesterday, so Zara and I had a little laptop on couch time pre-dinner. Here we see Z computing in a leotard and tights. Isn't that how all the superheros do it?

Cuteness at the Park

I think these pictures need very little explanation, largely because I have no idea what is going on here and Z and G are just always adorable. For those of you in the TKD know, does it kinda look like maybe Zara's doing a bit of Nohai in that second picture?

White Rock Falls

This afternoon we found a nice hike for Zara. It's at mile marker 20 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, across the road from The Slacks Overlook parking area, 0.9 miles one way. The hike is "moderate", with plenty of flats, some steeps, and a few rocky areas. The fall leaves made some places slippery. You cross two foot bridges, and are rewarded at the end with a 35 foot water fall into a small clear pool, ideal for cooling off before reversing direction and hiking back. There's an opportunity for a rock scramble on the way back, to view the falls from above.

Still here...

I remember back in January of this year, when Peggy asked us if we could keep Polar for a week or two while Service Dogs sorted out Polar's placement. Still, he's much smaller, now, so that's something.

Halloweeen on the Lawn

We were planning (again) to dress Zara as a Toyota Prius with an Obama sticker on the back, but the allure of Kiera's hand-me-down lamb costume was too great. I think reading about Ramona the sheep with a black painted nose in Ramona and Her Father may have tipped the scale. Perhaps next year.

Dr. DJ Bickers and Zara

We had fun at Dr. Bickers' office. The hygienist named Jenny was fun too. Dr. Bickers counted my teeth 10 times and I have a very pretty smile. It was really great. I have a book about teeth and I have lots and lots of prizes. I chose to get special dentist gum and a fish tattoo. I also got SpongeBob toothpaste and a SpongeBob toothbrush!

(the above blog entry was dictated by Zara!)

Pumpkin Patch

Zara's class made a trip to pick apples & pumpkins. This is Zara's good friend and classmate Georgia.

Graves Mountain Apple Fest

To take the sting out of the departure of our Michigan friends Caleb and Melissa, we all (where we all = us and our friendly neighborhood Canadians) spent the day at Graves Mountain, where they were having a fall apple festival. Which I think might just be an excuse to have hay mountains to climb and hay mazes and all that, though I did see some apples, and the kids even ate some. And there were some animals to pet. And trees to climb. Despite the rather chilly beginning to the day, as you can see in the last picture it warmed up considerably and we all had a lovely time.
( thanks to Char for the awesome photos.... so far posts for the month of October have been brought to you entirely by pictures taken by people other than us... hmmm, I think we might be slackers. )

Room on the Broom

Zara and her class went to the theatre twice in 2 weeks! Life at CBI Preschool is considerably more fun than I recall preschool being.... Here Z and a bunch of classmates walk to the theatre and after the show, Z and E strike poses in the courtyard.

Havdalah

Zara and her class start the week off with a havdalah ceremony, ending the weekend away from school (or in general cases, shabbat) and beginning a new week together. Zara's a big fan of candle lighting, and is taking her turn bring in charge of the beautiful braided havdalah candle. What better way to welcome in a new week than a super cute pose with an upside down sit and spin?

Theatre Clothes

Zara and school friends took a trip to The Paramount Theatre to see Harold and the Purple Crayon. One of Zara's favorite things about theatre days is getting to wear special, very fancy, theater clothes. Here we see her (and G and E) decked out in their finery. In Z's case we have cousie Sam to thank for the swanky red dress. It is a definite favorite and Zara really wishes she had more opportunities to get gussied up here in our laid back C'ville.

Ellen's Sukkah

Since no one in the Levana class (at least no house that's easy to get to on the city bus) was making a 'home' sukkah this year, Ellen graciously invited the class to come hang in her sukkah. Here we see Z hanging with her buddy G, and also, painting a craft... left-handed? Wonders never cease...

Government Fair

The city periodically puts on "government fairs" on the downtown mall. You know, classic civic kinda stuff- fire trucks, city market info, yo-yos, activity books, parks and rec class schedules, recycling info, and... balloon creations. In the first pic, Z and E model the snazzy glasses that cause everything to look like it's surrounded by rainbows. In the second pic, Z shows us what she does when she gets within 50 yards of someone making balloon animals. The sounds of balloons popping are too loud and traumatic still, up there with toilets flushing. A rare snap of a fairly common occurrence around here, as we walk by the balloon man at the City Market every Saturday!

More school fun

Here's Z and her buddy G doing who knows what at McGuffey Park. Most importantly, of course, is that they are clearly very engaged and undoubtedly having fun doing the voodoo that they do.

Shenandoah National Park

We went for a walk with Celia (Zara's classmate from last year), her brother and mother around mile marker 81.2, the Big Run Overlook. In the picture, Zara's enjoying a little meditation, unaware that a pair of copperheads are sunning themselves a few feet away. Zara & Celia were walking on a stone wall, while I nearly stepped on the two snakes. Yikes! I'd have gotten a picture of them, but I wasn't willing to get close enough to use my crappy phone camera.

High Line, NYC

For Kenny's birthday, we went for a walk in the newly completed elevated park, the High Line. A charming place, very arty. I think Zara was let down that it didn't include a play structure, but I guess that's out of scope. Pictures show that you can just never get everyone to look at once.