On December 1 the kids were excited to get started on these Advent calendars from Gram…

December also brought the start of Sarah’s basketball season. This year for the 4th grade the LMBA divided the girls into 4 teams and they play a game every Saturday for an hour. No clinics! But the refs are really experienced and so it’s a pretty good learning experience. Sarah’s team is being coached by some high school girls which is pretty fun, and Sarah is happy their shirt color is black (her current fave color).

Sarah and I had another stop for hot cocoa at Cocoa prior to the annual Larchmont tree lighting. Blaine opted to skip that this year, as well! Oh well, lots of Sarah & Mommy time.

On 12/2 we also got our tree at Tony’s and set it up! It took us a few days to decorate but Sarah got it started with her favorite ornament (DC zoo pandas, of course).

And with all the ornaments:

I was excited to see that our local Flint Park started to prepare the location for new platform tennis courts which should be installed this spring. Which means we can have a paddle team next winter!

Meanwhile, my tennis team has also been doing well and finished second place in our division this fall. My co-captain designed this logo and printed stickers for our water bottles.

December also included some musical performances by both children! The Chatsworth 4th grade band gave a brief and enjoyable morning concert, 15 minutes of Hot Cross Buns, Go Tell Aunt Rhodie, Rain Rain Go Away, Merrily We Roll Along, with Baby Shark for the finale. Sarah is in the back row, second from the right. She did a great job!

Blaine also performed in the middle school 6th grade Chorus concert. The chorus includes all the kids who’ve decided not to move forward with an instrument, or who just like to sing, so it’s a very large group!! Blaine is in the second row on the far left.

And to show the full group:

We planned to spend Christmas in Wynnewood this year, alas our plans were foiled by the flu! We drove down as planned on Saturday and got to hang out with Mom-Mom, Molly, Fran, Tim and Liz and kids. We also got to see the Oregon Mahoneys who joined us for Chinese takeout that night!

Then on Christmas Eve we went to Devon Lanes for the traditional Mahoney Christmas Eve bowling (plus arcade), followed by lunch and the Christmas gift grab which was hosted in Wayne this year. Everyone made it except for Aunt Jane and Daniel, who were very missed!!

Sadly, Nate was already feeling sick that day and by the afternoon he was really sick (turned out to be the flu), so we made a tough call to head back to Larchmont early to try to avoid the germs. The kids were really sad about it, but mom sent us with a whole filet mignon so we at least had something for Christmas dinner the next day. Andrew also managed to find an open market in New Rochelle and was able to get the ingredients for mushroom risotto, creamed spinach, and homemade dinner rolls. And Sarah and I made chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

The kids were particularly bummed that we did not get to hold the 2nd annual Mahoney Cup Mario Kart Tournament, so we have promised them that it will be rescheduled to a later date TBD.

Back in NY, we’ve had a mostly quiet week at home, with one excursion to see the NYBG Holiday Train Show, followed by a trip to Pizza Fenice in Pelham.

I thought this elephant was Lucy (of Margate fame) but turns out it was a different giant elephant that at one point existed in Coney Island!

By Thursday Blaine and I were feeling a bit under the weather with minor flu-like symptoms (likely the flu shots are doing their job!) so we’ve been mostly staying home. Sarah and I finally managed to finish this near-impossible panda puzzle.

And we did another much easier puzzle Sarah got for her birthday, on the new puzzle board we got from Gram.

It’s only December 30 but I’m anticipating a quiet goodbye to 2023 here at home. A disappointing Christmas this year, but at least we got to see everyone briefly on Christmas Eve!

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!

Birthdays, soccer, Halloween, and other fall activities!

The kids had a joint birthday party this year, which has not happened since 2016! They both wanted a party at 5th Dimension VR in White Plains so we decided to combine them into one party. A good time was had by all!

After many orcs were defeated by elven arrows, we adjourned into the party room for pizza and french fries, cupcakes for Sarah and ice cream cake from Bona Bona for Blaine.

Sarah and Andrew hopped into an Uber right when the party ended to get to Sarah’s soccer game on time! She was determined to show up and play, and helped her team avoid a default due to not having enough players!

That night we had a birthday dinner for Blaine (burgers?) followed by more ice cream cake and presents!

Sarah’s birthday was on Monday and we celebrated again that night with another birthday dinner (steak, probably?) and then a yellow cake with chocolate icing, and presents.

It was a rainy October, especially on the weekends! Which meant a lot of wet soccer games.

I took this pic of a particularly creepy Halloween decoration which was causing an uproar on Nextdoor — this was at a vet’s office located between two daycare centers and apparently all the children were crying at dropoff in fear of the pumpkin man. 🙂 The vet’s office left it up right through Halloween.

One night we went to a district music faculty recital at the high school and got to see all the kids’ music teachers perform!

We finally got some decent weather the weekend before Halloween so I searched the internet for a new corn maze to visit! This year we went to the Wright Family Farm in Warwick NY. It had a steep entry fee but included the corn maze and various fall activities like a giant hamster wheel and pedal cars. We had to pay extra for the apple cannons, and for the pumpkins of course.

Thumbs up on the corn maze! It was well done with two phases so you could adjust your visit. We did both and it took us about 45 minutes.

The apple cannon was an odd addition, and disturbed the peace somewhat with the regular firing of apples and occasional clang of an apple hitting the target. But it was probably the highlight of the day for the kids!

Sarah also enjoyed pushing our wagon of pumpkins back to the farm for weighing.

After we finished at the farm we stopped at a local brewery, Tin Barn, for some beer and pizza. It was a great place, and I especially enjoyed the beer called “Oh, how I’ve dreamt of taps” which referenced a bizarre animation short I haven’t seen in years.

Back in Larchmont, we carved our pumpkins and donned our costumes (dragons!) for the various parades and trick or treating.

Happy Halloween!

My pictures are sparse from September, probably because there was a lot going on! After we got back from MV it was Labor Day and we went right into the start of school. The kids refused any sort of back to school photos and I decided they were old enough to make that decision… but I did snap this one pic of Blaine walking off to middle school.

A more minor milestone was my first post-pandemic concert, which I went to with a friend visiting from Florida at an outdoor venue in New Haven! We had the best time. It was the Death Cab / Postal Service tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of the Transatlanticism and Give Up albums — Ben Gibbard’s most creative year.

On 9/12 we somehow managed to talk our way into the middle school, which seems to be totally off limits out of regular school hours. A very kind custodian helped us get in to set up Blaine’s locker with some shelves and stuff to help him stay organized. He also has a fancy fingerprint lock!

The kids were so excited that we could finally take out the basement bouncy house after two years of being off limits. They’re a lot bigger now, unfortunately.

I also went through some old boxes of stuff and found this motor I built in a freshman course at Dartmouth, which still works! Sarah was pretty impressed.

We also had this giant tomato plant going in our front planting bed — we’ve never been successful with intentional tomatoes, but this interloper somehow managed to thrive and gave us a huge number of cherry tomatoes.

The weekend of 9/24 we drove down to Great Falls to visit Gram and Grand-dad, and to say goodbye to the giant pandas at the National Zoo who were being taken back to China. On the 24th we visited the Air and Space Museum and got to see the actual original Wright brothers’ plane (the one we saw in NC is a replica).

Gram made this awesome cake for the kids to decorate in honor of the pandas.

On the 25th we went to the Zoo in the morning to say our goodbyes. Sarah wore her red panda sweatshirt to celebrate, which she got on her first trip to the DC zoo back in 2016! Hard to believe it still fit, 7 years later, but it was a last minute purchase to compensate for some carsickness en route to the zoo that day. 🙂

For comparison, here’s a pic from the 2016 zoo trip:

After the zoo we had some lunch with Uncle Fran and Aunt Jane and then drove back to NY!

The other major event from September was a giant rainstorm on 9/29 which caused some flash flooding and chaotic school dismissals in our area. The middle school basically sent the kids out with no guidance, and the ones on foot or bikes were going through this deep water in Flint Park! It was knee deep the whole way around and I had to wade through to find Blaine and bring him back to the car. Very exciting, but not handled well by the school district.

We spent the last week of the summer in Martha’s Vineyard. We stopped for lunch at the Landfall restaurant in Woods Hole and then caught the ferry over to Vineyard Haven.

This year we stayed at a nice VRBO in Katama, near Edgartown. It had a fully stocked basement with a ping pong table, Wii, board games and puzzles. It must have been kind of rainy early in our trip because I have this pic of a completed puzzle!

I think the first day we went to South Beach, but I must not have taken any pics. The second day we went to State Beach. You can tell from the pics it was a little chilly.

Then we went into Oak Bluffs for ice cream (Big Dipper) and a ride on the carousel. I almost had the brass ring but it slipped through my fingers!

On Tuesday there must have been rain in the forecast and Andrew planned ahead and booked a lane at the bowling alley in Oak Bluffs. Nicest bowling alley ever!

Then we went into Vineyard Haven for lunch at the Black Dog. After that we stopped at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, which I recall had a nice exhibit on the deaf population in MV. And that night we had dinner at Lucky Hank’s followed by ice cream at Mad Martha’s. A full, rainy day.

On Weds 8/30 we had a visit from these turkeys — someone must be feeding them! Coincidentally, I had achieved my first ever turkey in bowling the previous day (three strikes in a row).

Then we went to the beach at Menemsha which is the fishing village where all the dock scenes were filmed in Jaws. We ran into a family that we know from Larchmont. And had a yummy lobster roll on the beach from Larsen’s!

Speaking of Jaws, like all well equipped MV rental houses, this one had a DVD of Jaws along with the board game! After reading the full plot summary in the complicated board game instructions Blaine decided he was ready to watch the movie, and now declares it to be one of his favorites. 🙂

On Thursday we went to another new-to-us beach at the Longpoint Wildlife Refuge. It was very windy so we had to sit up against the dunes for some cover. But very beautiful!

That night we went into Edgartown to check out the lighthouse and then we had dinner at 19 Prime Steak and Oyster.

On our last day we went back to our fave, South Beach!

Then on Saturday we grabbed a lobster roll to go from the Net Result in Vineyard Haven and then caught our ferry back to Woods Hole.

It was a beautiful week!

All the pics of August before our trip to Martha’s Vineyard! This August we finally got some more work done on our basement. First we had to extend the french drain along the third wall.

Then we got a contractor to fix the floor tiles and wallboard and other finishing details. Unfortunately this required a wild goose chase for the matching floor tiles involving trips to tile stores all over Westchester, only to find that the correct tiles were where we’d expected them to be in the first place (Home Depot) and we were led astray by an incorrect sample tile. Sigh. At least everything turned out all right in the end.

The kids finished their weeks at the Rye Nature Center. Here’s Blaine showing off the structure the NITs built. And Sarah showing off the garnet necklace she made using pieces of garnet she found at the quarry.

One day we went to the Glen Island beach in New Rochelle with a new friend from camp. Blaine found this GIANT hermit crab which we figured must have been a released pet.

In other wildlife sightings, we spotted a praying mantis at the library. Is that good luck?

In mid-August we got to spend a little more time with the Merchants on their way back from Canada, before they departed the US to head back to Abu Dhabi. The kids made chocolate truffles together! And we went to Playland.

Also in August the kids did a bunch of other half day camps — they did some Minecraft at Makeinspires, they did art camps at the Rye Arts Center, Sarah did two weeks of rock climbing at the Rock Club, and one week of chess camp! While Sarah was at chess camp Blaine and I did several excursions. First off we visited Philipsburg Manor, a historic manor restored to how it was circa 1750 with working mill.

Blaine impressed me and our tour guide by knowing the name for this tool in the picture below, called a flail, which was used to separate the wheat from the chaff. He said he’d read about it in a book on ancient Egypt.

Another day we went to see some beautiful stained glass at the Union Chapel in Pocantico Hills, with a Rose Window by Matisse and nine other windows by Chagall.

Another day we went and played laser tag!

And now for some overdue summer pics! Manor Beach is beautiful in the early summer. It can be a bit hot in August, and overcrowded on holidays, but some days it’s just perfect.

One day we decided to check out the Intrepid! Hard to believe that we’ve never been there before. A bit hot that day but the space shuttle building had AC.

Sarah building a robot (thanks, Uncle Tim!)

Fireworks from Manor Park on July 4th.

My birthday was a two day celebration — not quite up to Molly’s standards, but getting there. On July 9th we had a delicious dinner at home prepared by my talented husband!

And on July 10th another amazing meal prepared by Gabriel Kreuther — SO MUCH FOOD.

Mid-July the Merchants came back for visit #2, en route to Canada from Boston. We had dinner out at Coriander and more s’mores!

Lastly here’s one of Blaine at the Rye Nature Center camp. He so enjoyed caring for the guinea pigs that he tried really hard to convince us to get some for pets of our own.

All the pics from June 2023…

Sarah got her black belt in recorder karaoke this year!

Blaine went to some 5th grade graduation parties.

We spent a night at the Jersey Shore on June 10 to celebrate Aunt Molly’s birthday!

Then there was the actual 5th grade graduation on Friday, June 16! But first, a few pics from Blaine’s final Capstone Project presentation (on the inventions of WWII).

Followed by celebratory ice cream and video games. And then a celebratory steak dinner with more ice cream!

On 6/21 we welcomed the Merchants into town, the first in a series of summer visits! Top priorities despite the jetlag: pizza, Minecraft, plotting and s’mores.

Then it was the final day of school!

That afternoon we set off for our long weekend in the Northeast — first stop was Hanover NH for a trip down memory lane at Dartmouth. Highlights included self-propelled vehicles in the Engineering school, an old typewriter in Baker library and getting lost in the stacks, and canoeing on the Connecticut River.

Next stop: Vermont! Our ultimate destination was the Highland Lodge in Greensboro, Vermont, for a Westbrook family reunion to celebrate Gram and Grand-dad’s 50th wedding anniversary. We had some wildfire smoke the first night but after that got to enjoy the beautiful scenery, boats, beer, and cheese, and we even saw a bear!

On the drive home we stopped again in Hanover for some brunch at Lou’s, which lived up to my memories.

May photo dump! Blaine’s last time saying the pledge of allegiance over the PA system in the morning:

On May 3 I went to a parents’ intro night at the Hommocks Middle School. Can’t believe our baby will be starting middle school in the fall! I also snapped a pic of the lockers which seem to cause the kids so much anxiety.

On May 6 we went to the Chatsworth Carnival. They’d figured out how to keep the line for cotton candy to a reasonable length somehow. And Sarah kept getting back in line for the archery booth. But for some reason the balloon lady was overwhelmed and it was an hour wait for balloon animals!

The magic show was a hit.

On Friday May 12 we went to Hommocks for the annual STEM-tastic event. It was actually our first time attending, I guess because pre-pandemic it must have seemed a bit late in the evening for our kids.

Sarah travelled to Bronxville with her team for a lacrosse game on the 13th.

First smores of the season!

On the 20th we headed back to Bronxville, this time for a chess tournament Sarah had signed up for! This was her second tournament ever. In the photo below you can see her way in the back of the room playing her final match, which she won.

She had fun, and even decided to sign up for a week of half-day chess camp this summer with the man in charge of the tournament, Sunil Weeramantry, pictured below giving out the awards.

I took this photo one Sunday to show Sarah practicing her T-stop which she’s learning in ice skating. She convinced me to sign up for lessons at the same time, so I did! Sadly I was sitting out of class this week since I’d done something to my quad in my first tennis singles match, attempting to run down my opponents’ drop shot. I lost the match. My quad was fine in a few days, though. 🙂

Manor Beach opened for Memorial Day weekend and we were there for the first day of the season!

Another day we went for a hike at the Marshlands.

Blaine’s class also started practicing for graduation! Here’s a pic of them arranged on the stage in height order. Then they had to switch to alphabetical order (to Blaine’s horror!) for the diplomas, hence all the practicing. 🙂

The kids had a snow giveback day on the day after Easter so we had an extra day to recover from our trip. They insisted on special breakfast so they did it all themselves!

Then we had our own small easter egg hunt at home. Jet lag + chocolate = ?

I don’t have a ton of other pictures from April, I guess we were resting a recovering? On 4/22 I somehow convinced the kids to go to an actual movie at a movie theater with me! I don’t recall how I talked them into it, they usually refuse. I’ve been dying to go to the renovated theater in Mamaroneck and it did not disappoint! We saw the Super Mario movie which was a big hit, and they had chocolate haagen daaz ice cream bars and cans of rose. Everyone was happy! Then we went to the Harbor Island playground for awhile and had dinner in Mamaroneck. I think Andrew was away for the day visiting his grandmother in Charlottesville.

In April I was able to volunteer at the kids’ school a few times, first for the Art Appreciation program, which had been on hold since the start of the pandemic! The project was to learn about stained glass art.

I also volunteered to help with Better Together, a program to raise awareness and acceptance of disabilities.

One more pic from the end of the month to document the fact that we got a little more water in our basement sadly! It had been 1.5 years since we had the drain put in with no more water, but this was a big storm and we got a small amount along the wall where we hadn’t installed a drain. So now we’re waiting to get that work done before we finally fix up the basement and make it usable again! 😛