My Favorite Time of Year

Highlights

• Board game club and board game/strategy game gathering with Mr. Johnson at the RCC on Sundays

• Soccer and goalie training
• A fun family day of hiking at Seneca Park, lunch at Taco Bamba, and a lot of great Halloween decorations in Falls Church, Dunn Loring, and Vienna
• Taking the day as it came: 100 Things to do before you grow up with Teddy and the soccer match with GFR coaches Illias and Carter. Had time to chat with Josh’s dad
• Walking to school - great as always
• A birthday celebration in Woodstock was great fun. Frank and Zach ran the RC car, and then met us for lunch and cupcakes. Zach spent the night! 

• Zach and I also stopped in to visit Mom and Dad on the way to and from TN
• I got my old job back! People missed me, and in my listening tour, they’ve been letting me know. Feels pretty good!
• Hubbard Street Dance performance at George Mason was a fun treat, though a late night!
• Math Olympiad for Zach
• Rediscovering the Indigo Girls’ song Mystery and Matt Kearney. Nice rocking out!
• We're getting in a lot of Gordon Korman listening. We like The Superteacher and Fort best and then Slacker, Snoop, and Ungifted. The books are so good!
• We celebrated Frank's 50th birthday! On Veteran’s Day, so we went out for a hike at Banshee and then lunch at Lark and then tried a new Vietnamese restaurant.

• At the end of the season, the boys got their first win and headed off to the Bethesda Premier Cup where they won all four of their games and finally won a tournament. The champions! Hanging out with Yousef and Alan.

• A sweet card from one of the soccer families. I appreciate the thoughtfulness from them, from Sameen and Amy
• Northern Lights in Reston!
• Dinner with Katie and Suji

Halloween fun: though I really dislike costumes and trick-or-treating, I loved checking out decorations in October and making fun treats (witches fingers and eyeball punch)! 

Not our carved pumpkin, but so good!

Visit to TN: magical - See Paige's special video here.

• Zach got to ride a horse for the first time, feed a calf, and see the where I grew up. We had fun with the Bell family! They were selling honey at the Willow Garden. There are good restaurants, Ghost and Grits, great food and coffee - all in Jefferson City. 
• We had some terrific inside jokes, played games all around, laughed a lot and ate Martha’s wonderful cookies, soups, and casseroles. 
• We visited the rodeo in Seymour, TN, and it poured and was so cold, so it was nice to warm up with and old friend, Linda, and her cat, Cornbread. Zach enjoyed vegan hotcho
• We visited Jonesborough and the International Storytelling Center and Kids Festival and learned about Buckminster Fuller, which was fascinating!
• When we left, Zach cried. I did too. 
• On the way home, we happened upon a wonderful coffee shop and bakery - The Girl and The Raven in Abingdon. 

Food and Cooking

• Trail mix pancakes
• Dinner out for Emily’s birthday at Reveler’s Hour in DC; the gnocchi and garlic knot were amazing
• Choolaah was an unexpectedly delightful find! Zach and I enjoyed the black lentil daal. Yum!
• Finally made it to Great Harvest Bread Company, and October was shortbread month! Ran into an old GoCanvas colleague!
• Don Sebas for tacos
• Dinners at Corsica
• Breakfast for Frank on the eve of Frank’s 50th birthday
• We tried out a new Vietnamese restaurant, Lantern House

Of Note

• Zach doesn’t like chorus because the teacher is cranky and mostly frustrated with the students. 
• We had Zach's parent / teacher conference and all seemed great, and I think it is, but his teachers this year "grade" on a harder scale! LOL!
• Ears cleaned out and a visit to the dentist
• Flu shots and COVID shots all around
• My second shingles shot made me so much more sick than the first. I was glad to see the same pharmacist. I really like her. 

Challenges

• Having empathy and understanding for others different motivations - Why isn't everyone like me!?
• Homework is still a challenge, but we’re rolling with it and are less intense.
• Halloween - the actual night! Though I had a lot of fun finding recipes and making witch fingers cookies and eyeball punch, the actual night is so energy draining! Claire and Beto made an amazing taco bar spread, but the conversation about Reese’s candy as the devil was a little hard to handle! Zach had a blast with Theo, Henry, and friends as Harry Potter. Year 2 of 2!