Anna Grows

Happy Birthday Grandpa! There are a number of family birthdays in March, so this year we traveled to Ohio to celebrate one - Grandpa's.  Grandpa turned "37" (his words, not ours) on March 14.  Fortunately the weather was lovely and Anna caught a flight to Dayton with her parents to Columbus to celebrate with Grandpa. The weekend was a Northwest Ohio road trip.  After picking up Anna and company in Dayton, Grandma and Grandpa drove to Columbus so that we could see Uncle Tim's new house.  Uncle Rod and Courtney joined in the festivities as the family took Grandpa out for steak on his birthday.  While one would think having the family together would have been the best birthday present for Grandpa, his greatest joy of the day was attempting to fix Uncle Tim's sub-pump with Joe.  This required a trip to Home Depot and a lot of engineering discussions before realizing that a new sub-pump was needed. After spending the night at Uncle Tim's, it was off to G...

Anna delivering cookies before the snow If it is February, it can only mean three things:  1.  Girl Scout Cookies Arrive 2.  Joe goes to Las Vegas 3.  We have a snowstorm. It should be noted that items number 2 and 3 on the list usually occur at the same time.  This year was no exception, although the timing of the snowstorm was a bit off. Girl Scout cookies arrived on February 9.  Thanks to Anna's work walking the neighborhood, she sold almost 200 boxes of cookies.  Theresa once again served as cookie mom, which meant on February 9 over 2,000 boxes of cookies arrived at the house for distribution (Anna has a lot of budding sales women in her troop).  The Fagella house served as the distribution center with parents arriving throughout the day to pick up orders.  This still left 600 boxes of cookies to store at the house for booth sales and to deliver to the USO for donations.  Let's just say Anna and her Mom carried A LOT of ...

Enjoying dinner at Pistone's January is birthday time in the Fagella household - at least for Joe.  This year we marked Joe's January 18 birthday with a visit to the ultimate Joe place:  the Newseum.  One of Joe's favorite things to do is read a couple of news papers each day.  What better place to take him to then a museum that houses over 30,000 news artifacts?  Of course if you could throw that many newspapers in at a spot on the beach with a fishing pole AND a beer, that would probably be the ultimate Joe day, but there was only so much we had to work with in January.  This was our first trip to the Newseum since it moved downtown DC, and it was fantastic.  Fortunately for Anna they also had a lot of movie clips to watch.  More importantly, they  had an area where you could be a newscaster and tape yourself giving an update (who knew how tricky those teleprompters were).  It was a great place to visit and definitely worth the...

Christmas in New York Christmas 2014 was an eventful one for Anna.  Between outings with friends, the Christmas sights around town, parties at school, Santa Claus, and visits to family in Massachusetts and New York, Anna had a holiday to remember. Fun with Friends Anna enjoyed celebrating the holidays with her friends throughout the month of December.  She got to see a local version of The Nutcracker with her friend Maggie.  Her friend Sofia was dancing in the production, which made the show even more fun for the girls.  She joined her Girl Scout troop for their holiday service project - caroling at a local assisted living facility.  The girls also made holiday cards and scarves for the residents that attended.  Anna also enjoyed a couple of ice skating outings with her friends. Anna & Maggie at the Nutcracker The last week of school before Christmas break was full of celebrations.  The last full day of school was party day.  An...

Thanksgiving with the Kohlers The weather for Thanksgiving can range from freezing cold to a balmy 70 degrees. This Thanksgiving we experienced both, thanks to the first snowstorm of the season on the busiest travel day of the year followed by 70 degrees to close out the weekend. This year year we headed to beautiful Deep Creek Lake Maryland to meet up with the Kohler family for the holiday.  This year's house was a lovely place right on the lake.  As always, with each rental we learn something new.  This year we learned that while the lakefront is nice, it usually means a very steep driveway which is not good for snow.  Grandma, Grandpa, and & Uncle Tim learned this firsthand when they had to shovel 7 inches of snow just to get into the driveway followed by a walk down icy steps to access the house.  Grandma decided she was not leaving for the rest of the weekend. Grandma & her new IPad The Fagellas arrived Thursday morning thanks to the sno...

Team Awesome Another soccer season has come and gone.  It was a big season for Team Awesome.  First, four of their best players moved up to the travel soccer teams (these require a try-out), opening up opportunities for other girls on the team to step up.  Second, the team played a full field with goalies.  Finally, there were referees for the game (granted, some of their referees were maybe a year older than the girls, but still it was new).  In addition to the players moving up, Coach Larry moved on as well, opening up a spot for Joe to join the coaching staff. The role of goalie was always a negotiation for each game with Coach Tom requiring each girl to try it at least once.  One of Coach Joe's key roles was putting on and taking off goalie gloves - something that took some engineering.  A couple of girls were excited to play goalie after they figured out they did not have to run as much.  Others concluded that diving for balls and riski...

Scary Anna Fall is in the air!  Anna has enjoyed some beautiful fall weekends leading up to one of her favorite holidays:  Halloween.  This year she decided to be a witch (minus the hat most of the time).  Theresa also joined in the Halloween festivities with her own costumes.  Once again, Grandma served as costume seamstress for the events.  Joe opted to dress once again as a suburban dad, requiring no special costume. Anna celebrated Halloween over the last two weeks beginning with a Halloween party at her friend Hannah's house on October 18.  Hannah's parents are incredibly brave, having invited ALL of the third grade girls to their house for a costume party and lots of sugary treats.  The Halloween festivities continued on October 24 for Trunk or Treat at school.  This annual event involves pulling into the school parking lot and decorating your car.  At 7 PM, the kids begin trick-or-treating from car to car, resulting in a M...