South River Falls, revisited a lot

We like to start the new year with a hike. We've done it most years, save the ones where everyone's been sick or the weather's been atrocious (no bad weather, just bad clothes?). This year we visited an old fave that hasn't gotten love from us in a few years - South River Falls. Everyone's a pretty fly hiker these days, and while it was a wee bit chilly a good time was had by all. Here's to spending the next 4 years (and many more after that) outside!

Our Hearts Beat for Brooklyn

Spent a few days visiting my fam in Brooklyn, and also hanging with my childhood bestie Tasha and her kiddos. These pictures don't really tell a cohesive story (because also it was just one of those visits?) but suffice to say we very much enjoyed getting to spend time with besties and fam.

Christmas-akuh

In some ways, the predictable rhythm of the seasons and the year (and the Jewish holidays) is a balm to chaos and uncertainty almost everywhere else. In other ways, maybe you are sick of seeing pictures of the same people, getting slightly older and lighting candles on the same menorah I've had for 74.4% of my life. In either case, the world's need for light during her darkest times is never ending, so we're going to keep bringing the sparks.

Triangle Leaf

After years of half-hearted attempts, we finally made it to the fabled Carbon leaf December RVA show at the National, aka the Christmas show. It was PACKED, good vibes all around, definitey more Christmas than we are used to, but also, some fun antics, including the on stage shaving of Carter's Christmas Beard. Also Jon singing about Carter's Christmas Beard. Before hand most of us climbed at Triangle, and in between we all had sushi, so it was a pretty lovely way to celebrate the solstice.

Solstice Traditions

We've been working on our Solstice game for a few years now. It's slowly evolved and we've got a pretty good ritual going now - the yule log with our wishes for the future and the casting out of the past, a roaring bonfire, smores, an excellently curated playlist, good friends, etc. I think we've hit on a pretty good overall rhythm, but there may still be some fine tuning. We'll let you know next year!

Soccer Showcase

Wes was originally going to be the soccer parent this weekend, but he picked up a bug during our Michigan travels and was coughing a lot. We decided it would be more restful for him to stay home, and for AJ not to sleep in a small hotel room with someone hacking up a lung, so I was next up. This was actually AJ's first showcase - very similar to a tournament but you play one game per day over 3 days, no double headers. As a result, there's more downtime - both for homework (which you need because most teammates missed school for the Friday game - AJ had a teacher work day) and for fun, as represented here by the gingerbread house AJ, Wynter and Annabelle decorated.

Other glimpses into our trip include AJ finding a VERY LARGE jar of pickles at the Wallyworld we stopped to charge at, the insane weather that had the kids playing in 25-50F weather over the course of the weekend, the hotel bathroom I turned into a prep kitchen so AJ could have fresh fruit and veggies for snack, and the international walkout they do before each match, just like the pros do!

Thanksgiving in the Mitten

Oberlin only has 2 days off for Thanksgiving, officially, but people seem to cancel the Wednesday before classes as well, or at least make them asynchronous days. Starting Zara's junior year Oberlin will be piloting a 3 day Thanksgiving break, but even so if Z left Tuesday after their last class (usually a lab so 4:30) and went directly home, and ignoring potential traffic, they'd be home around midnight. That gives a solid 4 days to hang (W-Sa) and then a potentially BRUTAL Sunday return trip of 7+ hours. I guess they could leave Saturday for maybe some better travel vibes, but 14 hours for 3 days at home, especially when they'll be home for a 6 week stretch about 2.5 weeks after break seems like a lot.

Conveniently we have both friends and family just a few hours away, so while the rest of us still have a bit of a nightmare travel sitch, Z's got it pretty swanky. This year we all went to On the Rocks so the kids could get a climb in before our trip up to MI, drove up to see Wes' family and had Thanksgiving with them, went down to A2 to see our buddies Caleb and Melissa and their kiddos, spent some time with Clare and Elliot (who are moving (back) to Australia - SOB), and then some time with Johanne, Carl, Gabi and Nick, and THEN a quick on our way out of town brunch with Stu, Fiona, Eilidh and Chris - before dropping Z back in Oberlin and then making our way back to C'ville, EV style, and all that entails. We packed a lot in a short period and somehow took pictures of almost none of it. Instead you get to see the kiddos climbing (well, standing), the cousins playing soccer in the freezing cold, Z and A at the table during some food but I don't think it was Thanksgiving proper, and me, doing my favorite thing when visiting the land of much flatter than C'ville - my own personal Turkey Trot. It was cold enough I needed mittens and covered ears, but I clocked 5 miles and it was delightful.

Me and Zel

As the primary photographer and author of this blog, I am not often featured. But this picture with Zelda is just so adorable and captures her (and my?) personality perfectly. Photo cred to Wes.

Dragon's Tooth

I've actually only been aware of it for a bit, but there's a set of hikes near Roanoke called the Triple Crown. Dragon's Tooth is both the shortest and the scrambliest, so it seemed like the perfect hike for a random professional development day. The weather was pretty great, and since it was a weekday it wasn't very crowded. The first part of the hike was easy walking, but right around Lost Spectacles Gap (see our hilarious dramatic interpretation of said name, above) it gets all scrambly! It's not Old Rag level scramble, but seeing as this is ON the AT, it'd certainly up the challenge quotient to do it with a full overnight pack. We just had day packs, so not very taxing, but defnitely lots of fun and some good views. It was VERY windy (and exposed) at the peak so we didn't stay super long, but the vibes were good and AJ got to play on rocks.

There are 2 more points to the Triple Crown - MacAfee Knob and Tinker Cliffs - and we hope to get to those 2 (probably as an overnight backpacking trip?) in the Spring.

Chill Days

Some days, you play an awesome game of soccer. Some days you catch the matinee of "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" because the day before you played an awesome game of soccer and ended up with your second stitches-worthy head wound in the past 7 months. So when you can't play because the very nice ED attending who did an awesome job sewing up your face said under no circumstances should your face and a soccer ball be in proximity to each other for the next week or two, you pose with Totoro because that makes everything better. For no particular reason.... theoretically.