Chanukah

More pics to follow once I consult with the co-editor of this blog, but for now, may I present, Chanukah 2019.

Christmas Run

Our annual Christmas run had fewer humans but more dogs this year - Maizie joined us since her person, Chani, was off in Florida visiting human family. Kids stayed home, so there was more tail wagging and maybe slightly less whining?

BRIMS Recital

Amity and her buddy Phoebe kicked it up an extra notch this recital with a bonus slip jig. Props to Riddley for teaching the steps and helping to choreograph the piece, and for spending extra time teaching.

Lessons and Carols

Another round of bell ringing, this time for the 4th grade's performance of "Bells in the High Tower" at the school's winter celebration known as Lessons and Carols.

Varsity Swimming

STAB hosted its first Varsity meet this year. Wes and I timed, so I didn't get any of my own pics, but the school took some nice ones. May I present, Zara rockin' butterfly and freestyle.

Bells

The theme of Amity's fourth grade winter performance was bells. There was also dancing. Who knew STAB had a set of hand bells? Apparently they were out to good use for the first time in a long time. Amity and her buddies deeply enjoyed wearing the white gloves and ringing!

Dreams do come true

As a wee kiddo, Zara was OBSESSED with Pegasus, UVA Health System's helicopter. She loved to watch it take off and land, and would wave to it (her? I think she said Pegasus was a her) when we saw her fly overhead. She'd even talk to Pegasus, like "good morning Pegasus, do you like my overalls?" It was ADORBS. So of course she was Pegasus for Halloween, as well.

And then, during her Sports and Emergency Medicine Intensive at school this year, she took a field trip to see Pegasus. I think some of the shine is off it at this point, but still, it's nice to know that in this case, a dream deferred still has a happy ending. (No raisins in the sun here.)

Trophy Kid

I had no idea Amity was so motivated by hardware, but apparently she was determined to earn this shiny trophy in a martial arts competition at chug (kinda like a club/elective) at Hebrew School. She was sore for DAYS after, reminded me of what I looked liked after running a marathon, so I could tell she really put her all into it. This kiddo is impressive.

Hamilton!

We had a pretty delicious dinner at Kuba Kuba beforehand, and then we all went to see Hamilton in RVA. It was incredible as expected, and yet somehow, even better?!

Potter's Cider Grand Opening

BRIMS helped Potter's Cider celebrate their grand opening in their new, beautiful, much closer to town space. It was the event of the season with cars lined up for a literal mile to get in. It was quite a time!

Fall Orchestra and Choir Concert

Zara's in high school now, and for once the fact that she avidly participates in both orchestra and choir did not work against us. That's right, there was a joint Orchestra/Choir concert, so we all were able to attend a single event wherein Zara played violin in a long black dress and then sang in an entirely different outfit about 5 minutes later. Props to the orchestra (and Debbie Lyle) and concert choir (and Will Nichols) on a concert well done, just 2 months into the school year.

(and photo credit to one of the school's photographers, likely Rachel)

XC

Cross Country has never been Zara's favorite sport, but I think she's enjoyed her past 3 years on the team. This fall is probably the end of the road (so to speak) but I hope she'll occasionally deign to run with slowpokes like me. The plus side is that Z wants to go back to playing rec soccer in the fall, which I think will be fun, and from a purely bureaucratic perspective, she's well on her way to her required 4 trimesters of sports in her first 2 years of high school. We were very proud of her for trying something new back in 7th grade, and for sticking with it for 3 years. To close this chapter, here's a cute picture of the entire XC team, because they are very LARGE. Not the kiddos themselves, per se, but the number of kiddos on the team is great.

Back to School: 4th and 9th Grades

After 3 fabulous weeks at Camp Hidden Meadows in the beautiful wilds of West Virginia, the kiddos returned refreshed (though not rested, particularly) for another school year. Z starts 9th grade (how'd my baby get to be in high school?!?!?) and A starts 4th grade (how'd my actual baby get to be the überkid of the lower schoo??). Here's to a fantatsic year full of smiles and blue steel.

King's Dominion

For Zara's 14th birthday party, we spent the day at King's Dominion. Amity rode the Dominator, which is an impressive 3rd roller coaster ever. Zara rode *everything* pretty much, though in the grand tradition of her parents, has declared wooden roller coasters (particularly the newly re-branded "Racer 75") to not be her jam.

We missed out on a few rides, though, so there will need to be a repeat journey in our not too distant future. There's a few more rides I'd like to go on, personally, but I have to say this day greatly exceeded my expectations because Amity seems to love roller coasters and is quite the daredevil, and no one was in tears by the end of the day (at least until we left the park). I rode the log flume with the three cool cats pictured here doing the "Charlie's Angels," and that was incredibly fun. It was, however, topped by all 5 of us riding Whitewater Canyon together, screaming our faces off (who is driving car? BEAR is driving car!), and the discovery of Z's deep seated fear of animatronics.

I think Z would identify riding Intimidator 305 as one of her favorite things, or possibly the straight drop waterslide. A's favorite thing is that Zara's friend BG also likes wooden coasters, so the two of them got some QT on a Racer 75 repeat adventure. As for me, I deeply enjoyed chillaxin' on the 300ft high swings.

Last day of (middle) school (and also 3rd grade)

Last day of school, 2k19. Amity's finished up 3rd grade and is ready to take on the responsibility (and the glory) of leadership in the East Wing (aka K-4 wing) aka 4th grade. While it was a surprisingly good year for middle school, Zara's ready to break free from the confines of the LV and looks forward to life on a new campus. Yes, dear readers, she's going to HIGH SCHOOL! OMG. Dude.

Field Day 2k19

Even when I taught at STAB and was working at Field Day, I somehow never managed to take any pictures. Generally speaking, Amity rocks the hula hooping contest and I believe she was again victorious this year. This photo, however, is not of that, but merely of some dribbling in perhaps a relay race of sorts? Who knows. It's an action shot, I like it, I'm sharing. Go Maroon!

Bikes!

We've been talking about it for ages, and Amity's finally become enough of a bike rider that we took a biking adventure! We met our fearless companions, with whom we had previously had super fun kayaking adventures, for a delicious pre-bike BBQ etc at The Fishin' Pig. Then it was a delightful 5-ish miles cruise on very flat, easy trails to this very cool high bridge. After many back and forths on the bridge, and some photo ops, we made the trip back to the rental shop. Amity now has a 10 mile bike ride under her belt!

No fun adventure is complete without ice cream, of course, so we hit up a cute little soft serve shack in Dilwyn on the way home. Forgot to take a picture of that, I was clearly too busy eating ice cream!

Editors note: While there are no bikes in any of these pictures, the fact that Wes is holding a helmet should be clear evidence they did in fact exist.

Green Dream Team

I've coached a lot of soccer, it turns out. We've had some pretty great teams, too. And while I'd never pick favorites, this team was a hoot, a riot, a thing of beauty, and an absolute joy and privilege to behold as they all became both better and more of a team throughout the course of the season. I'm going to miss them as they scatter onto about 6 other teams next year. My fellow coach, with whom I've been coaching one or the other of our kiddos for over 10 seasons since 2012, was also pretty great and it turns out I might miss working with him a bit, too.

But as they say, onward! Amity's moving up to "challenge," which is the advanced rec league - with 2 practices a week. I thought I was retiring from coaching, but apparently not quite yet. So I'll have 2 new co-coaches, and we'll see how this coaching triumvirate goes.

It's all... Rome to me?

Here's Amity in her peplas (i think that's what it's called) getting ready for Rome Day at school. I'm not entirely sure what they did or what it was all about, because we've now reached the point in the school year where everything is flying by at ludicrous speed and every other day is a special something or other and OMG is it summer yet??

JV Soccer

Here's Zara somewhat uncharacteristically playing the field (based on previous post of goalie auditions). She's actually been dividing her time between goal and almost every field position, having played wings, midfield and forward in the last few games. She's loving soccer this season even though they have yet to post a "W" (they tied once!) but such is the life of a scrappy, raggle taggle JV crew.

Ain't no party like a PGH party!

I could regale you with tales of how 8 of us ended up spending the weekend together in Pittsburgh doing all sorts of fun things. Some of the fun things are pictured here - carousel rides, natural history and art museum, and science museum with a super cool indoor high ropes course. Many are not pictured - the quirkiness of the AirBnB we stayed in, getting Stu and Chris' car unstuck in the mud, some delicious food and coffee, and of course the completely intangible and unquantifiable delight that is getting to see your childhood friend's kiddos and your kiddos secretly planning to conquer the universe. Grown up time with said childhood friend was also good.