Rosh Hashanah 2016

Last Monday was the Jewish New Year, which started on Sunday night at sundown. To celebrate, Gammy came for a special dinner on Sunday.  Abby and I made a round apples-and-honey challah for the occasion:

I forgot to change the shutter speed on the camera, so all of these pictures are a but grainy, but scenes from our celebration:

Benji with his sparkling cider

Blessing over the candle lighting

Blessing over the bread

Time to eat!

On Monday, I took the kids to the morning family service:

Abby wanted to go back to school afterwards so that she did not miss too much, but Benji hung out with me all day and we attended the Tashlich service in the afternoon.  Benji really loves this service where you symbolically toss bread crumbs to the fish to represent tossing away your "I'm sorries:"

Plus, I always let him play in the creek afterwards, which he loves:

Virginia History Museum at Greenbrier

They set up in the ampitheater and had a home field trip. These pictures are from Benji's class website:

Buford Fall Dance

Abby went to her first school dance last Friday. She asked if her friends could come home from school with her to get ready and then stay the night after the dance. They were not up for a lot of pictures, but Kevin managed to get one on his phone as they left for Buford:

Talia, Sylvie, Abby and Julia

Apple Picking 2016

We made our annual trip to Carter's Mountain last weekend:

 

Human Pyramid

Greenbrier boys, trying so hard to make this happen after school last week:

Cub Scout Campout

Last weekend, Kevin and Benji headed out to Camp Shenandoah for the Cub Scout fall campout. Kevin sent me these pictures off his phone, evidencing the good time they had:

Buford Harvest Festival

This is the middle school's annual back-to-school night and community festival, and this year Abby is actually a student there!

Benji watering the flowers made it onto the 6:00 news

Watching Sam work the water pump (which is hooked to a bike)

Abby did not spend anytime with us, but alternated between groups of friends. I caught a couple of sneaky pictures from afar