Anna Grows

Meeting Vince & Larry   Anna is in the final weeks of school and the "finals" continue.  Actually, one was the first and final event for her:  Take Your Child to Work Day.  While Anna would occasionally go to work with her mom when she was younger, she never made it on the official "Take Your Child to Work Day" event.  This year she decided to humor her mother and join in the festivities.  The U.S. Department of Transportation did not disappoint!  There were lots of fun activities for parents and kids to enjoy and Secretary Pete was apparently participating as well (Anna did not get to see him but kept running into others that did).  Some of the fun included: An FTA swag bag, including a stress bus along with a photo with her mom and her mom's boss, Matt. Watching crash videos and seeing the various crash test dummies that are used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. A real crash test dummy Photo with the original crash test...

After the show  The senior "finals" have begun, and the first one was the Big Jam with Vienna Jammers on April 20. This is their largest concert and fundraiser of the year and was held at a fantastic venue - Capitol One Hall ( here is the program ).  Mrs. Latimer joined in for the outing and our neighbors, the Fitzellas, were ushering at the event so the group had a quite a neighborhood following. Seniors:  Ryland, Sophia, Lori, Max & Anna  Anna has been a member of the Vienna Jammers since fourth grade - starting on marimba and moving up to steel pan drums in junior high and high school.  This has easily been her favorite activity and when the group performs you can see why.  They practice once a week; it is low stress and just a happy place to be.  The show featured guest artist Yasmin Williams , an incredible guitarist who played with all of the ensembles.  Theresa got to perform with her adult group, Jammers Gold (they even have t-shirts) ...

 The Easter tradition at the Virginia Fagella household is every year is different.  This year was no exception.  Since this was Anna's last spring break of high school and since she had a total of 9 days off, a bigger trip was in order.  There was a desire to go out West - a trip that was postponed during COVID.  Theresa's proposal:  a visit to southern Utah to visit 5 national parks.  There was discussion about renting a camper van for the trip (more on that in a moment).  After much debate, Joe sent Anna and Theresa on the March 31 - April 2 Western adventure and he headed to Massachusetts and Long Island to visit family. Anna and Theresa both had a camper van on their list of things to do.  Theresa researched it and even reserved one.  That was she realized that you needed to book camping sites in the National Parks at least 6 months in advance.  Needless to say, everything was booked.  There were options for "remote" campi...