Family Obstacle Course

 A bucket list item, We each took part of the yard to set up some obstacles. Benji insisted it was a competition, so we timed each person going through:

Universal Yums: Spain

 This month's box was Spanish treats:

Barking Kittens

 We gave this expansion of Exploding Kittens to Benji for his birthday and he was excited to play it. It comes with a hat! You get to wear it if you play the Tower of Power card:

National Scrabble Day

 

Bar Mitzvah Cake Party

Inspired by a classmate who had "drive-through cake," earlier this year, we asked Benji if he would be interested in having local friends stop by for cake after his bar mitzvah service. He was enthusiastic about this idea, but then the weather forecast for his entire bar mitzvah weekend was rain. We decided to postpone for a week, and even though the weather turned out fine, we were glad to have done so. What we thought would be a low-key couple of hours of people stopping by in ones and twos actually felt much more like a party than we expected. Most of our friends here are fully vaccinated and chose to stay for a while. We had luckily divided the crowd into three groups (UVA friends, teacher friends, and CBI friends) and given them different times, so no more than 20 or so people were here at a time. This did make for a long afternoon (about three and a half hours), which was exhausting after having not done any live  socializing in months. It was so fun to see everyone, though, and Benji was happy to see his friends:

Kiran decided this group was in a circle so we must have been playing duck, duck, goose

Benji was so happy to see Aidan and Wilson

Posy Updates

 She is super affectionate with everyone. She particularly like Grandpa Steve, and Benji was thrilled that she finally climbed into his lap (he is maybe a little too twitchy for her):

Veritas Vineyard Outing

 The day after Benji's bar mitzvah, we made a reservation at a local vineyard for brunch. This was our firs time eating out since the start of the pandemic, and it was lovely. The winery lets you reserve a 10x10 square with a picnic table, fire pit and Adirondack chairs. The waitress took our order from outside the square and put the food on a table at the edge of the square, so it was virtually contact free and very relaxing:

Bar Mitzvah Day Candids

 We had a photographer come in the morning and take posed pictures (we have not seen these yet), but we were also able to snap a handful of candids during the day to give it color:

Newsletter blurb

Selfie

Before the service, communing with Blue Henry

Gammy and Grandpa Steve, watching the service

Pre-zoom meeting with the Rabbis with Lukas

Post-service breakout rooms. Room #1 Payne/Aranoff Family

Room #2: UVA Law

Room #3: Paquette/McShane/Platt Family

Room #4: CMC friends

Special Benji Buffet with all of his favorites

Happy 13th Birthday Benji!

 Even though we had the Bar Mitzvah at 10am, we tried to do our usual morning birthday celebration, involving an Asiago Cheese bagel from Panera, birthday bear, and opening presents. We also had a birthday cake after lunch, just so it would feel like a real birthday:

Bar Mitzvah Practice Sessions

 We picked up the Torah from CBI on Thursday morning and practiced with it twice that day - first with Benji's tutor Latifah in the morning and then for the official dress rehearsal with Rabbi Tom and Rabbi Jess in the evening I snapped a few pictures of Benji reading from the Torah, since I knew we would not take any during the actual service:

Getting ready to put on tallit to read from the Torah

Benji, reading along in his book as Abby reads her parsha

Last haftorah practice

Dress rehearsal

After the rehearsal, we decided to take a few pictures outside with the Torah, since we figured it would be raining on Saturday:

The dress I decided not to wear