Anna Grows

Last Day of 1st Grade Pool Party Anna is officially a "rising 2nd grader."  She was quite excited to celebrate her last day of 1st grade on June 14. She learned a lot this year, including great strides on reading, addition, subtraction, and writing. Anna kept a writing journal during the school year.  Below are some excerpts: If I had a pet I would choose a dog.  I would feed him, walk him, play with him, and a dog would keep me company.  PS, i atcally want one these are the things i would do One day while I was driveing on the road a deer was in the way.  My dad honked the horn.   self-control is keping your self in control.   Peace is when you are quiet.   I can respect others by bringing over plates afer diner.    The last week of school included a field trip to Frying Pan Park, a working farm in Fairfax County.  Anna, upon recounting the details of her trip, stated that they learned how to do farm chores from...

Ready for the Father-Daughter Dance Anna was looking forward to the big Father-Daughter dance this weekend, which was held on Saturday night.  Her Dad, like most of the other fathers, was a bit skeptical of the event.  There was much conversation at soccer practice the night before about appropriate attire for Dads -- especially when the dance theme was Hollywood .  As it turned out, both had a great time. According to Joe, the dance consisted of the fathers huddled in the corner talking to each other while the girls ran around the gym, danced, and ate a lot of candy (note when the dads are in charge, monitoring of candy intake decreases).  According to Anna, she had smarties, skittles, starbursts, M&Ms, gobstoppers, hershey kisses, twizzlers, and lemonade.  This may have aided her dancing abilities as she took home the trophy for craziest dance (note Joe did not directly contribute to this award).  She also learned other important dances, like th...

Ready for Grandparents' Day at school May 3 was Grandparents' Day at school for Anna, so Grandma and Grandpa made the drive all the way from Ohio for a long weekend so they could attend.  In addition to Grandma and Grandpa joining her at school, Anna was also excited not to wear her uniform for the day.  The grandparents were able to see her classroom and attend church with her followed by a brunch.  They then attended the Spring Fling school concert (seated in the special "grandparents only" section).  Following the concert, Grandma was the special guest reader for Anna's class.  A good time was had by all. That evening, Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed watching Anna's soccer practice,where they gained a great appreciation for the patience of Coach Tom.  Spring fever definitely was in full force as the girls proceeded to cartwheel around the practice field, turn their practice jerseys inside out, create new hairstyles......they were distracted to say th...

Spring soccer finally arrived!  Anna was excited to start again and was anxiously looking forward to another season with Coach Tom.  Of course the most exciting two things about the beginning of the soccer season are the shirt color and the team name. This spring Anna will be sporting a light blue uniform.  Coach Tom had everyone's name put on the back of the shirt.  Anna was VERY excited about this, although was a bit concerned that she is not "Anna F." to distinguish her from "Anna R."  Apparently Anna R. had the same concern.  Both Annas have been in class together since pre-school and are quite accustom to using their last initial.  According to Anna R's Dad, she even signs her Christmas card  to her parents as "Anna R." less they get confused as to which Anna it is from.  The other important soccer accessory this year is coordinating socks for the team, which really pull the whole uniform together. Coach Tom has taken tight control o...

Anna is serenaded by Uncle Joe It was with great sadness that we learned of Uncle Joe's passing on April 5 after a long illness. Anna was able to see Uncle Joe on Easter Sunday and is still trying to reconcile how a week later he can be gone.  Like the many families and friends of Uncle Joe's, Anna always enjoyed visiting him.  He always had a joke or funny story to tell her (tonight she was re-telling one of Uncle Joe's stories about a runaway hot dog).  He also taught her a lot about training and caring for dogs.  Anna is concerned about how sad Bonnie must be now that he is gone. Anna joined the rest of the family in New York for the funeral services.  One of the bright spots of any funeral is the chance to see family and friends that have not gathered in years.  Anna enjoyed seeing her cousins and promptly attached herself to Andrew and Luke.  Cousin James gave a very moving tribute to his Dad at the funeral and Aunt Mary sang a beautiful p...

Coloring eggs with James Anna enjoyed Easter Break with just over a week off school (March 29 - April 5).  She enjoyed a couple of trips during her vacation. The first trip was an Easter Sunday visit to New York to join Aunt Mary, Uncle Joe, Cousin James, and Aunt Loren for Easter dinner.  Prior to hitting the road, Anna awoke early to find that the Easter bunny paid a visit and hid eggs around the house.  Following the early morning egg hunt, Mom managed to find a 7 AM Easter mass in Vienna before hitting the road.  This may have been the quickest Easter mass ever thanks to no music whatsoever (definitely a minimalist service).  The whole thing was over in less than 45 minutes. Anna arrived at Aunt Mary's house to find that the Easter bunny also left her basket there (definitely a much nicer basket).  Aunt Mary made Easter bread, including a special bread basket with an Easter egg for Anna.  Anna had time to color eggs with cousin James, visit...

Skiing at Wisp Anna had a 3-day weekend, thanks to a teacher meeting at school, so Mom & Dad decided to take a 3-day weekend as well and head to Deep Creek Lake, Maryland for a little spring skiing.  Thanks to mid-week storm, better known as "snowquestor in Washington," there was plenty of fresh powder along with a warm, sunny day on Saturday which equaled great skiing. Snow obstacle course for Dad Anna, confident in her new skiing abilities learned over the Christmas holidays, was excited to go skiing again.  Mom was anxious to try out her new ski boots, a birthday gift from Joe in hopes of relieving Theresa from the pain of rental boots.  Anna took one look at the bunny slope and decided it was MUCH bigger than the hill in Massachusetts and refused to go (try explaining the concept of steepness of a hill to a 6 year old).  After much cajoling, she finally went to to the top, held onto her Mom while skiing down - and promptly fell down.  Tears ens...