Anna Grows

Grandma, Anna & Grandpa Christmas at the Virginia Fagella household, like many families, has its traditions.  We attend Christmas Eve mass at 5 PM, where Anna sings in the choir.  We light the luminaries, along with the rest of our neighbors, on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  We have a seafood dinner on Christmas Eve (this year it was scallops with a side of linguini and clam sauce).  We open one present each on Christmas Eve.  Christmas Day is usually quiet with lounging around, opening gifts, calling family members and watching Christmas movies.  Since the weather was so nice, we enjoyed the Christmas lights at Meadowlark Gardens in the evening.  Our other tradition is leaving the day after Christmas to visit family.  This year's destination:  Ohio. Fortunately for us, Ohio was experiencing a record warm Christmas so there was no need to worry about the snow.  We flew into Columbus with the first stop at Uncle Tim's f...

Anna & her pop choir friends - Kate, Maggie C., Petra & Maggie P. It's the most wonderful time of the year!  Well, that is what the song says.  It is definitely the busiest time of the year, complete with parties and concerts. Anna is a member of the pop choir at school as well as the youth choir at church.  She decided to take a break from piano (at least Theresa hopes it is a break....it may be a permanent break as far as Anna is concerned) and focus on singing.  She is really honing her skills and is doing some occasional cantering at mass.  This year, the pop choir performed a joint Christmas concert with a local Catholic high school on December 11.  The concert featured a former St. Mark student who is quite talented at arranging music and composed a new Christmas song for the high school choir.  You can check out more about Matthew's work here. Checking out the Biltmore Replica at the Gardens Anna also performed with the pop c...

James, Andrew, Luke & Anna on the North Shore Thanksgiving 2019 was hosted by Aunt Mary.  As always, it was quite a feast (Aunt Mary could have fed at least 30 more people) and the Virginia Fagellas likely took home more food than they brought in courtesy of Aunt Mary's "to go" bags.  Aunt Loren and Aunt Lucy were also there, along with James, Luke and Andrew. Unfortunately, Uncle John was unable to make the trip from Yonkers to Long Island.  There were many rumors for why he could not make it ranging from taking a secret trip to Italy to not actually knowing where Long Island is.  Joe and Theresa thought it may have something to do with the Yankees not winning the pennant and being unable to face Nationals fans.  Joe, Loren, Lucy & Mary contemplated sending an Uber to pick him up.  Maybe next time....  There was much lively dinner discussion, including political debates between Aunt Lucy and Joe.  We caught up on Luke's adventur...

Anna & Theresa at the National Parade There is not a lot of positive news that comes out of Washington, DC these days, but one of the best things to happen is the big World Series victory of the Washington Nationals.  For those of you that are baseball fans, you know this was not a typical World Series.  The Nats were at the bottom of the National League in May.  They made a steady climb throughout the season to win a wildcard slot in the playoffs all the way to the championship.  There was no shortage of drama throughout with big finishes and agonizing defeats.  Washington fans were riveted throughout the playoffs (there were a lot of tired people at the office and school during the week from late night games). Anna's new principal is a super fan and brought her enthusiasm to the students.  She proudly hung a Nats flag in the school office and each time the team won a play-off series, she had a "Rock the Red" day for students to wear their Nats s...

Anna & Joe's Pumpkin Carving Some things change and some things stay the same.  Halloween is no exception.  Things that changed this year: No  trick-or-treating for Anna (she hung out with her friends & handed out candy) Last year for Cox Farms (she and her friends found it boring) Last year for middle school Halloween dance First year for big Halloween party at her friend's house Things that stayed the same: Hosting the Halloween father-daughter dance with the Girl Scouts Decorating pumpkin cookies with Mom Carving pumpkins with Dad Finding a costume for the dance Crazy costume for Mom Preparing for the Father-Daughter dance Anna kicked off the Halloween season with her Girl Scout troop and the annual father-daughter costume dance.  This is a major fundraising event for her troop and the girls had a great time putting it together.  They had a new DJ this year, which was the hit of the party.  The Girl Scouts were leading...

Biking the W&OD Trail Anna at long last was the recipients of a new bike!  After years of purchasing used bikes (in anticipation of her growing out of them quickly), her parents decided to let her pick out a new bike for her 13th birthday.  After extensive research by Dad and a trip to the local bike store  where Dad interrogated the twenty-something sales clerk on bike reviews - Anna found a new bike.  She is really appreciating the upgrade - particularly when shifting gears. Theresa was very excited about the new bike, hoping that at long last Anna would be so inspired by her new wheels that she would be begging to go on bike rides with her mother.  That has not happened.  Today was a picture perfect day in Northern Virginia, and Theresa had a vision of the family happily traversing one of the scenic bike trails with the wind at their back.  The rest of the family did not share this vision.  Joe was surprised to find both Anna and Ther...

Bonnie visits Northern Virginia It was with great sadness that we learned of Bonnie's passing on September 14.  She was definitely more person that dog and very much a fixture of Aunt Mary, Uncle Joe & James' family.  She was Uncle Joe's companion until his passing and a source of comfort to the rest of the family thereafter.  Bonnie was ever the people dog and always enthusiastic to greet visitors.  She was a big fan of Aunt Mary's cooking and was always happy to help clean up.  Her favorite treat was not any of her dog treats, but rather McDonald's (chicken nuggets to be precise).  We always looked forward to visiting her, playing with her, and just hanging out to pet her.  She even made the trip to Northern Virginia and got to visit the U.S. Capitol (well she didn't get any farther than the lawn.....but how many dogs get to do that).  Bonnie definitely influenced Anna's love of dogs....and even brought Theresa around to the dog sid...