Licensed! (AJC edition)

This is Amity. They are a licensed driver. OMG?!

Extra hilarity - they passed their road test/last day of driver's ed on April 19th, but Virginia Law says you have to hold your permit for 9 months before you get your license... and since they passed their permit test on August 7th, they became streel legal for realz on May 7th.

Turns out... we have a pizza oven

We got a new stove/oven. It's induction, which has been kinda cool but also has a learning curve. Worse part was definitely replacing some of our older, beloved pots and pans. But the oven has convection settings, and also a dehydrator (maybe this will finally solve our fig problem??) but most excitingly it goes to 750F and has PIZZA MODE! Comes with it's own stone and shield and is awesome. It makes some really good pizza. We've been eating a lot of pizza. Mmm... pizza.

Happy Birthday, Wesley!

For Wes' birthday this year, we made a trip to Oakencroft Vineyards and sampled some of their beverages (Wes pictured here with said sample) and also some of their lovely snacks, which I neglected to take a picture of. In the evening we had Thai food (birthday person's choice) and then a selection of desserts from Albemarle Baking Company. We also took the dog on a delightfully long walk, and went for a birthday run. Happy Birthday, Love!

Tour de New England: Ski Edition

We've got Ikon Passes and we're not afraid to use them!

Some of us - the under-employed and under-enrolled (at the moment) subset of the family - took an epic 9 day sojourn up to Maine and Vermont for some truly excellent (though yes, still east coast) skiing. AJ and I remained home holding down the fort at school and work, and since I don't know because I wasn't there, all I have to present to you, dearest readers, are a smattering of pictures. Perhaps Z will hop on and tell a few stories.

In the meantime, the short version is Z and W ventured to deepest, darkest Maine aka Sugarloaf. Met up with Nick, had a blast skiing some Glades and some Moguls and some Terrain Parks and some Ice Rinks and all of the rest of the mountain, too. Since 5 days is the limit for Ikon at Sugarloaf, they took the party on the road to Killington and spent another 3 days there. As fas as I can tell, everyone had an awesome time. And for context, the last picture is a dramatic rendering of the knee pain/injuries that would have ensued had our crew taken a particularly dodgy run they opted against. NO actual knees were busted in the takng fo this trip!

Snowshoe Party!

Some of us have to go to work, or school. Other of us are peeps of leisure who are in between projects or on a slightly extended winter break since they don't leave for semester abroad for another month. Guess which ones of us got to go on a day trip to Snowshoe??

Happy 16th Birthday, AJ!

Skifest 2k25

Happy Solstice-ukah!

And the holiday collabs continue. This year the 8th (and final) night of Chanukah very conveniently fell on the (winter) solstice. So we got to combine 2 different fire rituals in one super fun (and luckily not super cold) night. We're still working out the details of our solstice celebration, but we've got the key element of beautifully decorated log containing each person's "leave behind in this year/bring into the next one" written and folded and tucked in notes that we then burn in our fire pit... and also that somehow solstice bonfire is the perfect time to burn up excess yard waste as well. Not so sure that's a formal celebration element more just a happy coincidence? Top 2 pics are the majority of our celebrants and aforementioned log, and bottom ones are the various fires. Darkest day is now behind us, nowhere to go but light!

Chanukah for Realsies

Well, it was for real the other nights, too. This night we got all 4 of us under one roof... with candles!

Homeward Bound