This September felt… long. The kids started school again on 9/6, they have good teachers this year, all was well, we were getting back to normal. Blaine is in 5th grade now so it’s his last year at Chatsworth!! Sarah was still taking piano on Mondays, Blaine has PT on Tuesdays, Wednesdays Sarah started taking Spanish lessons (her idea!) and continued with tennis. Thursdays Blaine has OT and Sarah also signed up for chess club at school. And on Fridays we were doing playdates and Blaine was doing the book clubs at the library and Sarah had soccer practice, games on Saturday. She was on team Brazil this year! Blaine was also doing a Sunday morning sports program out in Purchase. So, lots going on!

Alas, all came to a halt on 9/16 when Blaine had a mild fever and tested positive for covid! First time in our house.

Sarah tested positive the next day! Oh well, we had a good run. Blaine had a bit of a cough but Sarah only briefly had a temperature and that was it, so they did their 5 days at home and then 5 more days of masking. Sarah made it back to school by 9/23 for her class field trip to the library, which I chaperoned (fully masked).

Sadly, on 9/24 Andrew tested positive, a full week after Sarah got her positive test. So that started the timer over again for me but somehow I never tested positive! September feels like a lost month, I didn’t take many more pictures. But here are a few outdoor pictures I took! Notably we found this cool bug that looks like a leaf. And we also spotted and squished a spotted lanternfly, then reported it to whatever government body is tracking them. Yuck!

We managed to all recover (or stay healthy) in time for a block party we organized to get to know some new neighbors in early October. It was a rainy icky night but the rain stopped long enough for the event to go on, and all had a good time!

Uncle Fran came to visit over Labor Day weekend this year and we went to the US Open! It was our first time going so we didn’t plan it all that well and spent WAY too much time in traffic waiting to park. Next time, uber! Or some other option which does not involve parking. But we finally made it… and then waited in a long line for security!

That part didn’t take very long actually, then we went straight to our nosebleed seats in Arthur Ashe! We got to the see Iga Swiatek beat American Sloane Stephens in an early round. Swiatek went on to win the whole thing! She is amazing.

Blaine was nervous about being up so high and needed Uncle Fran to act as his seatbelt.

Our tickets also included grounds passes so we watched a women’s doubles match with Ajla Tomljanović (who went on to beat Serena Williams), a men’s doubles match, and we checked out the Chase lounge and snagged some free hats.

The next day we took Uncle Fran to the beach for the Labor Day weekend “clambake” which is not really a clambake but at least this year they were serving actual clams! I think it was Uncle Fran’s first clam ever.

We also got to play some tennis ourselves, and Fran brought his awesome beach paddles which we played with on our patio! So much fun, thanks for visiting, Fran!