Anna Grows

Dinner in the Sunroom  It was with great sadness that we canceled our Thanksgiving plans.  This was the year to meet the Kohler family for a long weekend at Deep Creek Lake, Maryland.  Unfortunately the rising COVID cases and travel restrictions meant we will need to reschedule for another time.  Alas, we celebrated Thanksgiving at home, along with most of our neighbors.  The weather was beautiful (Theresa kicked off the morning with a bike ride - the first time she has done that on Thanksgiving) with sunny skies and a high of 70 degrees. We made the most of it and used the opportunity to pull out the trusty Cooks Illustrated  to prepare our own Thanksgiving feast.  We decided to share with our neighbors (Jean recently had surgery and they help us out with Storm, so it seemed like a great way to return the favor).  Preparations started the day before Thanksgiving with brining the turkey.  This took some thought before we realized we could put the turkey in a cooler, which would fit in

Anna's new haircut  The big event of this week as Anna's new haircut.  After much debate, she decided to get 7 inches cut off for a shoulder-length look.  Joe reasoned that this should significantly reduce Anna's prep time in the morning since she has much less hair to work with.  Anna had some concerns about looking too much like her mother, but she did offer that Theresa could dye her hair a completely different color.  Stay tune for more updates on Anna's hair saga. The other big news was that Anna completed the work for her Girl Scout Silver Award.  This requires doing a community service project with a minimum of 50 volunteer hours.  Anna's project was organizing the Lakevale Candy Launch for Halloween.  She finished her video today (you can check it out  HERE ) and submitted her paperwork.  This  was a great neighborhood event that hopefully will continue in the future. Other activities for the week including: Continuing the leaf raking.  Storm spent Saturday

Thanks to some rain and wind, the leaves came down almost overnight. This meant a fun family activity on a beautiful fall Saturday: raking leaves. Anna was thrilled to participate. It was such a great day for it that practically everyone in the neighborhood was working in their yard. We are convinced that 50 years from now, this will be a tradition that future generations will look back on as crazy. "They stuffed leaves in plastic bags and put them on the curb." Alas, that is how we get rid of leaves in Northern Virginia.  Raking Leaves We are trying to make the most of the good weather while we can. COVID numbers continue to rise and it is clear we are in for a long few months. In the meantime, we mask up and enjoy the local parks and hiking trail. Highlights from this week included:  Veteran's Day on Wednesday (Happy Veteran's Day to Grandpa). Theresa got to enjoy sitting on the front porch with friends and Anna got out of virtual school early.  Visiting

Week 34 of the pandemic was historic. First, the number of positive COVID cases hit record levels for several days. Second was the conclusion (eventually) of the Presidential election. Finally,it was Anna's first week of in-person classes. Let't start with classes, which is actually only one day. Anna is in a pilot group for her high school. She happens to be in a "cross curricular cohort." This is an optional program in which your english, biology, and history class are all complimentary to each other. For example, Anna was studying Mesopotamia in history and had a biology project that looked at enzympes present in the mesopotamian diet (there was also a related writing assignment for english). The classes are project based rather than traditional test based. Anna has the same group of students in each class, which means it is easy for the school to pilot. Anna will be going on Wednesday, along with half her class and the other half of the cohort will go

Candy Dispenser  It is somehow fitting that Halloween 2020 was marked by a blue moon.  Not only was it a full moon and a Saturday, but it also marked the end of daylight savings time.  Add the need for social distancing and it was definitely a Halloween for the books.  Thanks to many great neighbors, it was also one of the most fun trick-or-treat events ever. Neighborhood chatter started a few weeks ago about what to do for trick-or-treat.  Everyone agreed that the show should go on but within public health guidelines.  After some dinner conversations at the Fagella house, including potential projects for Anna's girl scout silver award, the idea surfaced to have a neighborhood contest for building a candy dispensing machine that would meet social distancing requirements.  Anna, who is always one for a good challenge, put a sign-up sheet out along with some contest parameters.  At first, the sign-ups were not happening, despite lots of positive feedback.  Right up until the day of t