Anna Grows

Anna prepares to shovel (with her NY Yankees hat) A major winter storm hit Northern Virginia on February 13, dumping over 14 inches of heavy, wet snow.  This can mean only one thing:  Joe was in Las Vegas. It turns our that Joe has a higher accuracy rate than the National Weather Service in predicting a major winter storm. He currently has a 75% accuracy rate, thanks to the latest storm.  Once again, he was "stuck in Vegas," or at least until he managed to get a later flight. Anna got to enjoy two more days off school by making a snow igloo and having a snowball fight with the neighborhood boys.  She enjoyed hanging out with her friends and making Valentine cookies.  She was not so excited about the packet of extra homework her teacher sent home. Theresa got a significant work-out in  shoveling the heavy, wet snow.  Thankfully, the neighbors (who have come to expect these sorts of things when Joe goes to Vegas) lent a hand.  A big thanks...

Anna's delivery vehicle It's cookie season once again.  Anna exceeded last year's sales, selling over 200 boxes of cookies thanks to her door-to-door sales around the neighborhood. The girl scout selling season in Virginia runs from right before Christmas until mid-January.  This presents several challenges.  First, most people have holiday cookies and are not looking to purchase large volumes of additional cookies.  Second, the New Year diet resolution depresses sales (Anna ran into some of those).  Finally, door-to-door sales in January are really not ideal.  This year Anna and her Mom braved the icy sidewalks to take orders (they did get some sympathy).  After getting all of the orders, the cookies arrive in February - traditionally the snowiest part of the winter. The cookies arrived last week.  Once again, Theresa is the cookie mom for the troop and the Fagella household served as the distribution center for 1,300+ boxes of girl scout...

Happy Birthday Joe! Anna was happy to enjoy a long holiday weekend (no school Friday or Monday) in Mexico to celebrate Dad's birthday.  Dad was also happy to celebrate in Mexico, where the sun was shining and temperatures were in the upper 70s. We enjoyed a lovely stay at one of the Cancun resorts on the beach with delicious food and a lovely pool.  Apparently Mexico was not immune to the polar vortex and temperatures were a bit colder than normal.  We needed jackets in the morning and the evening and the pool was too cold for even Anna.  She jumped in twice and did not stay in more than 10 minutes before she started to turn blue.  Fortunately the ocean was warm, so we spent the majority of our time on the beach where Anna jumped the waves and we expanded our sand castle building abilities to include sand animals. Dad's birthday was on Saturday, so Theresa suggested a snorkeling trip.  What better way to spend an afternoon than enjoying the calm, wa...

Christmas Eve with the Grandparents Christmas 2013 has come and gone.  Anna was thrilled to have Grandma and Grandpa come to spend Christmas this year.  Grandma and Grandpa were jet-setting and flew in on December 19 in time for Anna's Christmas concert at school and flew out Christmas morning so they could spend the day with Aidyn.  As always, Grandma and Grandpa proved even better than Santa. They were not prepared for the spring-like weather that ensued when they first arrived with temperatures in the low 70s for the first day of winter.  Grandpa helped Joe and Theresa rake the last of the leaves out of the yard and assisted Joe in a drainage project.....all while wearing his slippers (he was not prepared for warm weather and outside work).  Grandma took care of LOTS of baking and supplied the goodies for Theresa to take to the neighbors and the office, where Grandma got all the credit. When they were not working, Anna did take her grandparents out on...

Anna & her cousins  The Fagella Thanksgiving 2013 will be one for the history books.  Actually, it is one from the history books thanks to the pilgrim and Indian Thanksgiving/Aunt Lucy birthday party hosted by Uncle John and Aunt Yvonne in New York. Anna & her aunts The planning started early thanks to the efforts of Aunt Mary and cousin Deborah who requested that everyone come in costume.  The pilgrim and indian theme expanded to include the 1960s (in honor of the year of Aunt Lucy's birth).  Anna was thrilled to be going to a costume Thanksgiving and immediately decided she wanted to be an Indian since she was studying Native Americans in school for social studies.  Since Theresa did not make it to the after Halloween sales in time and failed to book Grandma in time, she was forced to pull out a sewing box and make Anna a costume.  After a couple of trips to JoAnn fabrics, Theresa and Anna secured the supplies and went to work.  Fo...

Anna & Dad - ready for the dance Anna was thrilled to attend the annual Father-Daughter dance Saturday night with her Dad.  This year's theme was "Western Round-up," which meant that everyone could wear jeans (Dad was very happy about this). Reports from the dance indicate that there was in fact very little dancing by the dads.  There were lots of sugary snacks for the girls, which aided in the dancing.  Apparently the dads joined in for the conga line at the end.  Anna had a great time and is already looking forward to the next dance.

Aidyn & Anna....in Aidyn's pajamas Anna got to enjoy a long weekend over Veteran's Day thanks to parent-teacher conferences at school.  Since Mom also had Monday off AND it happened to be the weekend of the Kent family Thanksgiving, Anna hopped on the plane with her parents for a long weekend in Ohio. The major milestone for this trip was the fact that Anna willingly left her kitty pillow behind.  In her place, she took her much smaller owl, Hoot (thanks Aunt Gayle).  Anna survived, although we may have seen a tear in kitty's eye as she was left behind for the first time. After arriving in Columbus, we picked up our rental vehicle - a bright red minivan with New York plates.  While we were initially chuckling about the New York license plates (haha, Joe if from New York), we found out later that the real problem was the color of the license plates:  orange.  Apparently under current Ohio law, if you have 3 DUI offenses you have to pu...