Carroll Park Wildlife

Last time we took a picture on this elephant, Amity was still a full time Ergo rider. Look how far we've come!

NYCB's Nutcracker

Lucky duck Zara got treated to a super fun adventure while we were visiting my family in Brooklyn. Sophie and Evie took her to the New York City Ballet's "The Nutcracker." Despite pouring rain, she had a fabulous time "at the ballet." Here she and Auntie Evie can be seen, in their ballet clothes, working on math problems together. That's so Bromberg.

Our Christmas Tradition

It was colder this year than last year but nothing (ok, very little) comes in the way of our Christmas run! This was also the second year all 4 family members were able to take in a big screen movie. We saw "Frozen." It was awesome, and enjoyed by all (and required surprisingly little constant narration for Amity). Afterwards we had the requisite Chinese food meal. A lovely day for all.

Fairy Tale Ballet

Amity and her buddy Catherine have been taking a dance class while Zara and Catherine's brother Will are playing soccer together. This works out well for all involved, giving Amity something to do until the Fall when she is old enough to play Hot Shots (U6 here in C'ville). The last class each session they let the parents come in, watch, take pictures, etc. It's not really a recital so much as an open class. Here Amity's doing something with hoops. No idea what.

BRIMS Fiddle Kids

Zara and her Bridge fiddle peeps perform Charming Lovely Nancy (Slide), Out on the Ocean (Jig) and Cooley's Reel (unsurprisingly, a reel). The tall guy in the back is the supremely awesome Brock, who is their fabulously inspiring teacher.

Butterflies dancing a (faster) Reel

Zara an her fellow Butterflies dance a reel at their Winter recital. This dance is of note because there are now only 5 Butterflies, they now do solos, and this is the first major class they've had with a teacher who is not Lori. On the plus side, their teacher was Lori's daughter, Marina, and she was all kinds of awesome fun. She recently moved to Chicago but we hope she'll come back and visit!

Seat for 3

I don't know what we were doing here, but there were laps to sit on, and then Wes took a picture...

Four Generations of Bromberg Girls

Technically speaking we're Lisanskys, Brombergs, Stanfields, and Craigs, but who's keeping track? Pictured here we go from great-grandparent to great-granddaughters with a daughter and granddaughter in between. This picture was taken just before we set off for lunch to celebrate Debbi's birthday.

Goat Docent

We spent Thanksgiving with Aunt Debbi, Uncle Craig, and Nanny (my grandmother, Pearl) at their new home in North Carolina. We took a day trip to see the Carl Sandburg home, which happens to have a great collection of goats. Turns out his wife, Lillian, was really into goats! Debbi has recently completed her training and is working as a volunteer goat docent at the house, so she gave us the extra special super secret insiders tour. It was a beautiful day and everyone had a great time exploring the area and petting the goats!

Wavy Hair

We are big into braids here. Also cool, when you take the braids out, you have wavy hair!

Blackrock Summit

Zara climbed up here all by herself. She's become quite the climber, and I can only imagine that another summer at Hidden Meadows will help her continue the trend.

Bridge Kids

Here are the Bridge Kiddos performing Tell Me Ma/Nell Fee's Polka at the BRIMS CD release part at C'ville Coffee.

CD Release Party

BRIMS recorded a 2nd CD (it's called "Here's to You" and if you'd like a copy, let us know, we can arrange something) this past summer. To celebrate the CD release, many of the performers reunited for a concert at C'ville Coffee. While this group of Scoil kids is not on the CD, they did lead off the show with an incredibly sweet performance of an Irish lullaby. Zara's technically no longer a Scoil kid (she's now a Bridge kid) but she was feeling nostalgic and decided to join in the fun, too.

Preschool BFFs

In spite of the sturm und drang typical of preschool friendships, Amity and Amaya remain very close this year, too. Is the matching dress snuggles just the cutest or what?

Happy Halloween!

A very happy halloween from Merida (from "Brave") and her triplet brother bears. Amity was all three bears (she has 2 on her back, as can be seen pretty well in the first photo) but you'd be hard pressed to know who was who. For trivia purposes, their names are Hamish, Harris and Hubert. Kiddos had a great time trick or treating in Johnson Village (next neighborhood over).

Blue Ridge (Crozet) Tunnel

I wasn't actually here for this very cool tunnel exploration. (I had a job interview. More on that later, perhaps.) But, to sum up, Zara and her BRIMS buds danced and played music in this no longer in use but total feat of engineering tunnel as part of a documentary. Perhaps more on that when it comes out, too.

Amity's Turn

Amity was very excited about the Mountaintop Fall Festival this year as she had grand plans to take a pony ride. She very patiently waited in line for over half an hour to take her turn riding Gentleman. As you can see from the video, she's a natural on horseback. Like a certain sister and a certain aunt. Looks like the horse love runs deep in this family.... and now we're living in Virginia, it will likely be harder to sublimate these desires....

Halloween Preview

The first picture is how Zara's halloween costumed look a few weeks ago, and the next one is of me modeling it about 5 steps into the process (the design has about 30 steps, though 7 of them pertain to the neck ruffle!). The last picture is Zara's hair in prep for the big day. We'll have more pics of Zara in her costume, and Amity in hers as well, on the actual day...

Fall Fiber Festival

Though it is supposed to be the "Fall" Fiber festival, a heat wave swept across Central Virginia and so the Fiber Festival was distinctly summery. Despite the sweltering temps, here are a few clips of Zara and her BRIMS buddies performing.

Dancing... in a bar

Zara and a few of her BRIMS buddies were asked to dance at the Sean Keane (and friends) show at the Southern. Which to be fair, isn't just a bar. It is actually a lovely little venue, one at which I hope to see future shows, even. They performed beautifully (and seemed to be having a great deal of fun, which is really the important part) as evidenced by the above video.

Zara and her buddy L lead off, and the amazingly awesome dancer in the middle is Marina (Zara's soft shoe teacher this year). Incidentally, Marina ran the kiddos for the majority of the show, so Wes and I got to sit in the audience, together, with no one squirming on our laps or screaming whispering in our ear about how they were bored or asking us compelling but completely unrelated to the show we were watching questions. Nearly a date. It was delightful. As was Sean and his co-conspirators Fergus and Pat.

Editor's Note: This is the second time in recent memory we've had Zara dancing at a bar considerably past her bedtime on a school night. Well, school-ish night, she actually didn't have school the next day. And it will likely happen again in the future. Because that's how we roll.

Smiles

I love how Amity is smiling with her entire body (plus a pony and a zebra) in this picture. Shots like these remind me that it's worth it on those days these adorable children are driving me (more) insane.

Scooter Gang

Amity, Amaya, and Naomi took the occasion of yet another Fall Jewish holiday (this time, Simchat Torah) to go for a scoot. Turns out, as you can see from the second picture, that Amity and Amaya actually have the same scooter. Naomi does, too, though hers is pink. Great minds and all that. Kids had a good time scooting around the 1/4 mile-ish mini-loop at Riverview. Grown-ups had a good time drinking coffee and schmoozing.

Apple School (revisited, a lot)

Wes isn't sure if this was his 4th or 5th time at Carter's Mountain for Apple School. It was definitely Amity's first, and she loved it. She points towards the orchard as we drive around town and says "hey, Za, that's where my apple school is!" Lucky for her, she'll get to go next year... and in Kindergarten, and maybe 2nd grade, too? If Wes keeps on chaperoning, he'll maybe break some sort of apple school attendance record. For those of you playing along at home, I may hold a PhD but I have never been to Apple School.

Sukkot

No preschool for Sukkot, so we made our own fun. Sadly, there were no peaches to be picked in the orchard, but the kids had fun playing with the wagons anyway. Here Amity and 3 of her favorite school friends take a ride.

Setting the Table

The kiddos are tasked with (when we remember) setting the table. Here Amity gathers up the spoons she will need to set said table, and, to make sure she has the right number, puts them down on the floor to count them. The health department may not approve, but we support such creative ingenuity.

Family Band

Zara and Wes having a little micro-session. I believe they're playing "Charming, Lovely Nancy" or "Out on the Ocean."

Popsicles

One of the kiddos' favorite things about the City Market is the chance to see James (or one of the other popsicle sellers) of Pantheon Popsicles. On the popsicle scale of deliciousness, the rank pretty high.

My Buddy

It was Rosh Hashanah so Amity did not have school. Here she is, snacking and lounging, before we went to pick Zara up from school (after which chaos erupted).

Jones Run Falls

We took advantage of the beautiful weather in Charlottesville this week (and a day off from school for both kiddos) to hike Jones Run Falls trail. The falls were not super impressive, but the hike was nice and the kids are getting to be good walkers. Zara walked the whole way with nary a complaint, and Amity walked the whole way down (I carried her back up). We finished up with a trip for ice cream. Happy Labor Day!

Milli Joe

Wes and I enjoyed some fabulous cortados (coffee, kinda like a macchiato, but better!) and Amity and her black bear (aka these days Apple Dumpling) curled up in this cozy chair to keep us company.

Scissors

Amity is not entirely checked out on the use of scissors at home, but at preschool, it's a whole different story...

First Day of School - Levana Edition

Amity Craig, preschooler. Pictured here solo and with her intrepid side kick, Zara (3rd grader).

First Day of School - Third Grade Edition

Zara Craig, third grader. Pictured here solo and with her intrepid side kick, Amity (3 year old).

DC by Train (Business Class!)

Zara's only previous adventure on anything but local mass transit was a trip between Glasgow and Edinburgh (Scotland, in case there's also a Glasgow, PA) that happen to coincide with a Stag party (which involved a considerable amount of cross-dressing, which was obvious to Zara, and a considerable amount of alcohol, which was maybe less obvious). So, Marmee, who loves trains (takes after her dad here), decided it was high time Zara had more train adventures. So the two of them set off on a (business class!) train adventure to DC the day before Zara started 3rd grade. I should probably have Zara dictate some of the highlights of their day (or type them herself, even) but instead I'll leave you with a couple of pictures.

Ears Pierced!

I could actually go on at great lengths about the saga of Zara getting her ears pierced, and it kinda goes all the way back to the very early 80s when I got my ears pierced at an age where I was really too young to take care of them... but there is too much, so let me sum up: Marmee took Zara to get her ears pierced, Zara was super tough and brave, and (since I'm writing this in October even though it is dated August) she cleaned her ears and rotated her earrings diligently (with very few reminders from us)and they never got infected once. So for Zara, at least, 8 seems to have been a good age for ear piercing.

Unrelatedly, it was also open house day for both kiddos' schools. The second picture of Zara here was taken while visiting her Art teacher, Ms. Ryan. It is of note because a) Zara's got pierced ears now and b) she's wearing a dress that would not fly during the school year due to dress code issues. She's livin' large!

Poser

Even though she's a big 8 year old now, Zara sometimes just wants me to take pictures of her doing silly things on the playground. Since bits are pretty much free, I oblige.

Marmee Puppy Pile

Marmee came to visit! It was awesome, as always. Here she is in a puppy pile with her two littlest bunnies on her second day with us.