Peter and the Wolf

Aunties Evie and Sophie took Zara and Amity to see Peter and the Wolf at BAM. It was awesome. Aunties are awesome.

Happy Chanukah!

Happy First Night of Chanukah! We had our own little Chanukah miracle tonight. Despite planning to make latkes, we didn't have enough high-temperature oil on hand. We did have olive oil, which everyone knows burns if you get it too hot, like, hot enough for latkes. But, miracle of miracles, I was able to cook our latkes in olive oil anyway. It took a LONG time over medium heat, but they came out pretty tasty in the end, and it was completely worth it. But next year? I'm going to make sure we have the right oil in the house!

The Halloween We Forgot to Take Pictures

Apparently, for reasons no one can quite agree on or remember, Halloween 2k14 went photographically undocumented. We did go trick or treating, and we have been able to reconstruct what the kids dressed up as - Zara as a zombie princess (Merida plus scary make up) while Amity was a zebra, much like Zara was for purim a few years back.

Wednesdays

Having dinner with Amity while Zara attends Hebrew school, then taking them both for gelato afterwards. Life is good here in C'ville.

Sisters

Sometimes we need pictures like this to remind us that 99% of the time they really do love each other... (but it's that other 1% that will drive you mad!)

First Day of School - Fourth Grade Edition

Here's Zara in her first day of Fourth Grade, which also happens to be her first day at St. Anne's-Belfield School. Amity, not to be excluded, is wearing her own STAB sweatshirt to mark the day.

Zara's 9th Birthday, Observed

Zara has a summer birthday, which means she's either at camp or her friends are all away when her birthday proper rolls around. This year we only celebrated 2 months later, which is way better than last year's 7 month lag. The "birthday" girl elected to roller skate with friends (several parents donned skates too, but alas, I have no photographic proof of that!) and eat chocolate pudding pie covered generously in real whipped cream.

First Day of School - Gan Shemesh Edition

Amity began her last year at CBI Preschool today. She is in the Gan Shemesh class (Hebrew for "Sunny Garden") which basically means she's in (pre-)Kindergarten. They take a lovely Reggio-inspired approach (just like the rest of the school) but with the added emphasis on "Skills" (reading, writing, numeracy, etc) and no naps, and Amity is smitten. She gets to do more of what she loves (you should see this kid write, she's ready to compose a novella) and less of what she doesn't (sitting/laying quietly on a mat while your friends are just feet away) and we couldn't be happier. The icing on the cake, as evidenced by the last picture, is that her BFF Amaya is also in her class. Looking forward to a great year, though I do confess a bit of melancholy as CBI Preschool has been such a big part of our life since Zara started 6 years ago...

Sunny-sitting

Sunny's family went to the beach for the weekend, which meant she got to hang with us! We all enjoyed having a dog in the house (we've been dog-less since Polar was placed a few months before Amity was born), and Sunny seemed to enjoy the ridiculous amount of attention the kids gave her. Thanks for visiting, Sunny!

BRIMS Camp: The Parting Glass

An excerpt of Zara and friends singing "The Parting Glass" as part of their BRIMS camp production, "The White Gander."

Fiddle Kid Session

A bunch of former BRIMS kids, now fully adult-ified, happen to converge upon C'ville round about the same weekend in August, so Lori and Joe hosted an impromptu potluck dinner and session. What with us having little(r) kids, we couldn't stay all that late, but also noticed that people were tending to linger over food and not much music was being played. Ever our youth leaders, Z and O took matters into their own hands, and with bows a blazin' they started their own mini-session. Wes was the only "grown up" who'd join in (you see him here on bodhran, though I believe he played whistle, too) so he gets props for playing with the fiddle kids, too.

Sister Swim Lessons

One of Zara and Amity's favorite games to play is "swim team." Here Zara's the coach and Amity's the swimmer. Between the under 6 swim team this summer and sister coaching, Amity's now able to swim across the "middle pool" all on her own. My prediction is we'll have 2 JSL swimmers next summer!

Driveway Art

Zara traced Amity, twice, and they drew summer and winter Amitys in the driveway. See if you can guess which one is which!

Welcome Home, Z!

We picked Zara up today after 4 weeks at awesome Camp Hidden Meadows. She's not much of a "reporter" but we heard a lot of little tidbits from camp, and it sounds like she had a blast. Welcome home, kiddo!

Auntie Evie in DC

We took a quick day trip up to visit Auntie Evie in DC, who is working as an intern for her Congresswoman this summer. We had a lovely brunch at Roofer's Union, played around at the Zoo and then had dinner at Sticky Rice DC. Thanks for the super fun day!

Where do the ducks go in the Winter?

I took a 3 day trip to Boston for a conference and left Amity and Wes home by themselves. They seemed to have a lovely time in my absence, and I got to pet Mrs. Mallard in Boston Commons.

Bearfence Mountain Revisited

While Zara was away at camp, we took the opportunity to go hiking with our friends Emily and Jess (seen here posing with Amity at an Appalachian Trail marker). Amity was a rockstar and walked/rock scrambled the whole way! Fun times.

VMFA visit

Since Zara's been away, we've had to make the weekends extra fun. Today we visited the VMFA in Richmond, and enjoyed the Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass as well as the sculpture garden outside.

Camper

With Zara away at sleepaway camp for the next month, Amity is the only camper in the house. Here she is on her first day of Camp CBI (3rd year running).

Happy 9th Birthday, Zara!

Zara, 9 years old, and celebrating over ice cream with her sister and her friend Lolo. What a cool, confident, courageous, clever, creative, capable, captivating, cuddly, curious kiddo you are turning out to be. We love you!

Last night with an 8 year old

In the first picture, Amity is quite pleased with her new nightgown. Thanks Grandma! In the second picture, Zara excitedly reminds us how she feels about her birthday tomorrow. I think those may be spirit fingers. Or jazz hands. Unclear. In the third picture, Zara remains elated while Amity becomes petulant over the fact her sister is having a birthday and she is not.

More visits with Big Grandpa

2 years ago, we stopped in to visit Upstate NY family on our way up to see friends in Montreal. This year, we dropped by for a visit on our return trip. We're pretty lucky to still have my grandfather here to regale us with stories from his radio broadcasting career and his many travels on trains. In these shots of Ted we feature not only me and 2 of his 5 great-grandchildren, but also my fabulous Aunt Mimi. These pictures was taken a few weeks before his 96th birthday.

Locks

Back of kids overlooking locks. You'd never guess there are 7 years between the leftmost and rightmost subjects in the photo. You might guess that the middle two are less than 3 weeks apart.

Circus Galore

Amity had a blast with Kiera and Claire during our visit to see the MMs in Montreal. She's become especially skilled at a version of the jedi mind trick wherein she convinces a kid barely larger than herself to carry her kilometers and kilometers (we are in Canada after all), uphill, both ways, in the snow (again, Canada). Dunno how she does it, but all involved seem happy with the arrangement. Here she is on Claire MM's back, posing with a giraffe at Tohu on our tour du Circus Open Houses.

Coming Soon: New cousin!

An outtake of the kiddos saying goodbye to Auntie Gabi (and new cousin who will be arriving in about a month, give or take).

DIA

4 kids transfixed on a display of modern art. And sculpture of bones in the background. Totes modern.

Kitchen the Chicken

Zara and Amity (and their parents) spent a few days in Michigan visiting with family. Uncle Dean and Aunt Dianne and the cousins keep chickens. One of them is a sort of rescue chicken, who lived inside the house (in the kitchen) for some time, and was known as the chicken in the kitchen. Apparently that was shortened to "Kitchen" at some point, and now that's her name. Zara liked Kitchen quite a bit and could often be seen snuggling with her.

Last Day of 3rd Grade

This picture was taken on the last day of 3rd grade. It also marks the end of Zara's tenure at Johnson Elementary. She'll be attending St. Anne's-Belfield (aka my school) for 4th grade in the Fall. Which here is actually still summer.

This also marks the end of Amity's 2nd year in preschool. As you can see from her sartorial choices, this is a very fancy occasion!

Amity's Moving Up!

It's Super Amity, preparing to charge bravely forward into another year of preschool. Thanks for a great year in Levana, Steve and Ellen!

Ragtime Carnival

We've liked Carbon Leaf for many years now. They used to do these cool camping out concerts they called "Luaus" on Brown's Island in Richmond, but we could never go because we were living in Michigan and too many other things were going on in our life outside of concert going.

This year, however, they put on an even cooler show. There was camping involved, though we didn't try it this year (still wary of camping with Amity). But there were also 10 or so artists/bands performing throughout the 2 day event. We attended a good deal of the Saturday show, and the kids were fantastic. So fantastic that we're totally camping if they put on another musicfest next year.

In the meantime, I believe this is a photo of Delta Rae on stage from our top of the hill viewpoint. And also, Amity holding balloon Elsa (from Frozen), which she BEGGED for the 2 dollars for so she could get it from the balloon man who also happened to be minding the bouncy castle thing - good call on having that at the festival, too. Amity promised she would make our bed FOREVER if we gave her the money for the balloon, but that hasn't worked out so far. Plus, she popped it a bit before it even made it home and was un-enamoured of it pretty quickly thereafter. In this photo, however, she is still very deeply fond of balloon Elsa.

Thanks, Carbon Leaf, for putting on such an awesome event!