Anna Grows

This was the year for a Kohler Thanksgiving.  Once again, everyone met up in beautiful Deep Creek Lake, Maryland to enjoy the holiday in the mountains. Anna was beyond excited for the trip and had a great time with her cousin Aidyn.  Grandma arrived with Thanksgiving dinner in tow.......and roughly enough food for 50 additional people.  She truly is meals on wheels.  She also had daily presents for the grand kids.   Uncle Rod was in charge of bringing condiments and promptly arrived with a bottle of ketchup with approximately 1 tablespoon remaining in the bottle and a case of Mountain Dew.  Fortunately he also brought Courtney, who served as chef for a large part of the weekend. The weather was beautiful on Thanksgiving Day with temperatures in the low 60s.  Everyone enjoyed the outdoors, including an evening hot dog and marshmallow roast.  The rest of the weekend was snowy and cold. A hiking trip was attempted on Saturday only to discover tha...

Soccer season is over for the Orange Pumpkins who finished the season undefeated!  Actually, every team was undefeated since there is no official score keeping (although the parents that were keeping score all agree that our girls were undefeated).    The weather was good all season long with no rain-outs.  Every Saturday, the pumpkins took the field to face the likes of the Red Roses, the Blue Whales, the Pink Panthers and who could forget the Yellow Bananas. The girls had a great time, as did the parents who enjoyed Friday night happy hours during practice.  They have improved a great deal and almost know the difference between offense and defense this year. The team celebrated the end of the season last weekend with a party at Joe's pizza (let's just say the young waiter earned his tips that night).  Coach Tom presented trophies and special awards for all the team members.  Anna received the "Let's Roll" award for her willingness to play...

Anna celebrated Halloween in super style this year!  After agonizing over which princess or fairy to be, she quickly changed her mind when she saw the Supergirl costume glimmering under the lights at Target.  Theresa was happy to see her buck the princess peer pressure and trade her wings for a cape.  There was some practice flying around the house before the actual costume debut. Not to be outdone (and to carry on the Kohler tradition), Theresa joined in the festivities by donning a clown costume, courtesy of Anna & Charley.  This was quite the conversation piece both at the office and around the neighborhood.  As it turned out, one of Theresa's office colleagues was also dressed as a clown, which may be fitting for a bunch of budget folks. Anna's Halloween celebration began the week before with a costume event with the girls scouts (Theresa chaperoned in costume)  Last Friday was trunk-or-treat at school.  This involves everyone pulling their...

Pumpkin Picking with Dad It has been a busy fall with plenty of opportunity to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather.  Between assorted festivals and hiking opportunities, Anna was able to explore some new areas in Virginia. Luray Caverns In September, the Fagellas headed to the mountains to Luray Caverns.  After years of driving past the signs for the caverns and assuming it was an over-hyped tourist trap, we discovered that it is actually quite a spectacular natural phenomenon.  A trip through the mountain of Virginia requires appropriate music, and Theresa always manages to find the blue grass station on the radio to listen to (so far, Anna seems to enjoy it).  Joe, having read that the caverns are cool, packed numerous jackets for everyone, only to discover that it was actually warmer in the caverns than it was outside that day.  The caverns truly were spectacular and worth the trip.  We also enjoyed the local museum and  a garden maze ...

It was a beautiful September day in Washington with sunny skies and the temperature around 80 degrees -- a perfect day for a baseball game.  We decided to head downtown to watch the 1st place Washington Nationals so Anna could enjoy her first major league baseball game. We were hopeful for a great game so that we could call Uncle John afterwards and brag about how the Nationals have the best record in baseball....even better than the Yankees.  Alas, it was not to be today as the score was 8-0 (that would be the Nationals with 0).   We still had a great time.  The highlights for Anna included the Metro ride to the game, the escalator ride to the Metro, the cracker jacks, and the President race (that would be the race between George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt between innings.....only in Washington).  She was not as impressed with the actual baseball game, but let's face it.....there was not much impressive going on at the ...

Anna & Grandma Today Anna celebrated her 6th birthday in Olympic fashion - with an Olympic themed birthday party. Since Anna enjoyed watching the summer Olympics so much and Anna's birthday was on Labor Day this year, Mom thought it might be fun to have an Olympic-theme party.  It could be at the house and Olympic games could be held in the yard.  Mom had a vision (something she is not short on).  Execution of the vision is another story. The first problem was the dilemma of who to invite.  The original plan was a small group of Anna's friends.  The problem was the first week of school, which was August 27.  Because Anna's school is small, it is customary to invite everyone in the class.  Who to invite?  Last year's class?  Her new class?  Mom decided to invite both and bet on the fact that several people will be out of town Labor Day weekend.  Then there were other friends to invite......pretty soon the list was long....

Anna enjoys doing magic tricks and telling jokes as of late.  There is much room for improvement on both fronts right now (she makes us her own jokes......and she is usually the only one that laughs hysterically). Last night's magic trick was a bear under one of four cones.  She would move three of the cones around, say some magic words,and try to make the bear disappear.  After trying various magic words and nothing would disappear, Dad decided to help. Dad gave Anna some different magic words, told her to put one cone on her head, and made the bear disappear.  "It's magic!" Anna exclaimed.  She was even more thrilled when Dad made the bear reappear under a cone.  This trick went on for at least an hour. What she did not see (or was unwilling) to notice, was that  a  few times when Dad was moving the cones around, the bear accidentally flew off onto the floor rather than Dad's lap.  She also did not notice that Dad always seem to see a...