Mom and Mol came up to visit us in November and to see Sarah play in her soccer league’s end-of-season tournament.

We also found time for some 99!

Late fall at Cranberry Lake!

On 11/9 the 4th grade band had its first concert, playing Hot Cross Buns. Here’s a pic where you can see Sarah on her first ever percussion performance in the back row on the left.

That night we attended another musical performance, a trumpet recital by Sarah’s band teacher, Denise Meltzer. It was right across the street at the Larchmont Avenue Church and the music was beautiful!

On 11/11 Sarah and I went for a hot cocoa at our favorite place, Cocoa in Larchmont! So good. I think we’d just played some paddle so it was a very good day.

On 11/15 we went to the STEM night at Chatsworth and got to make this awesome zoetrope, an early form of animation.

Sarah and I also went out one day for the Larchmont window painting — previously for Halloween but this year they made it fall themed and scheduled it in November. We painted a window at Jack’s barbershop.

Blaine did not want to help this year, he is outgrowing some of the activities aimed at younger kids, I suppose. 🙁

One day I took the kids out to Manor Park to try to get a Christmas card photo. The kids were really good sports and we managed to get a decent one!

For STEM at school Sarah got to build a balloon sculpture to celebrate Thanksgiving (ala the balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, I guess?). This is a balloon representation of the Pokemon, Squirtle, which Sarah made with a classmate.

For comparison:

For Thanksgiving this year, Gram and Grand-dad traveled up to Larchmont to celebrate with us! Blaine was so excited he got really into decorating and gathered lots of fall leaves to make into garlands, place cards, and the centerpiece.

He also folded all the napkins using the envelope technique he’d learned at school in the new version of Home Ec, now called Family and Consumer Science (FACS). It’s cool that he wants to try out what he’s been learning at home!

I like this pic because it captures a particular moment in time — Sarah, Grand-dad, Andrew, and I were playing Code Names, and Sarah got bored and started simultaneously playing Solitaire. In the background you can see Blaine and Gram making the persimmon pudding!

Andrew did most of the cooking — turkey, mushroom dressing, brussels sprouts with bacon, Grand-dad made the gravy, and Sarah and I made a pecan pie to accompany the persimmon pudding and chocolate smashing-turkey. In the afternoon we got some fresh air at Manor Park before dinner.

Here’s Andrew carving the turkey!

And Blaine getting ready to smash the turkey after dinner, on a zoom with cousin Jamie in California!

Then we had an excellent flambee-ing of the persimmon pudding.

On Friday we took a walk around Larchmont and showed Gram and Grand-dad Blaine’s middle school.

Andrew made prime rib for dinner and Gram made a cherry pie using cherries from her own garden.

It was a fun holiday celebration and we’re so grateful we got to spend it with Gram and Grand-dad this year!

Later that weekend we went bowling in Yonkers and ran into friends from Larchmont.

To round out the month we spotted this bird (hawk?) in a tree next to our house:

And Sarah had her end of the season soccer banquet. Her team did not do so well this year, but they had a lot of heart and Sarah gave her all in every game!