Pandemic Week 77: Happy 15th Birthday!

Anna & Friends
 Anna celebrated her 15th birthday on September 3!  What better way to celebrate than with a day off of school and a long holiday weekend?  Anna decided to celebrate with a pizza party and movie night with 8 of her friends.  She requested that her dad make the pizza, which he was glad to do (he had a bounty of tomatoes from the garden that needed a purpose). Anna also decided she wanted to make her own cake this year - a six layer, rainbow vanilla cake.  Theresa whipped up homemade ice cream to go with it.  The food was a hit and there was lots of laughter coming from the basement as they watched the movie, had  nerf gun fights, and just hung out.  After the past year, it was great to see Anna doing normal teenage stuff with her group of fully vaccinated friends (a prerequisite for the party).

The Rainbow Birthday Cake
The other big item for the week was that Theresa started her new job.  Since most of the workforce is still working remotely due to the pandemic, Theresa had to start her job remotely.  As is the case with most government jobs, it often takes a few days to get computer equipment.  As you can imagine, this makes remote work rather challenging.  Theresa's computer finally arrived via FedEx on Friday.  Prior to that, she spent the week trying various creative ways to attend meetings virtually (it was not easy).  When the computer finally arrived, there were various issues getting it set up.  At one point during Friday afternoon, Anna was dealing with cake issues in the kitchen requesting help while Joe and Theresa were huddled with the new laptop in the laundry room trying to get it connected to the home wifi.  Joe then attempted to direct connect the computer to the home network and realized that the new laptops have a different connection than what he had on hand.  Theresa was trying to attend a meeting virtually for work on Anna's laptop from the laundry room without people know she was in the laundry room while Joe was on the phone with the help desk until Theresa could get off her call.  Meanwhile, Theresa cut her finger on a container she had tried to open and was searching for tissues to stop the bleeding.  All of this while trying to appear normal on camera.  She made it through the meeting and Joe got the issue worked out with the IT staff.  Hopefully next week at work will be more productive.

Joe making lots of pizza

Other highlights from the week included:

  • A HUGE storm at 3 AM Wednesday morning - the remnants of hurricane Ida.  It was quite a lightening show with nearly 2 inches of rain.  
  • A visit to Christ Church in Alexandria, VA on Sunday.  This was the church attended by George Washington, Robert E. Lee, and many other famous historical figures.  The church was built in 1773 and remains open today.  Anna was most excited about the ice cream after the visit to the church.
  • Anna mastered her new digital drawing pad, one of her birthday gifts.  Stay tuned for samples of her work.

Thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes for Anna.  Happy 15th birthday!

George Washington's Pew at Christ Church



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