Glee Club 2022

It was emptier than usual at Old Cabell Hall, but the concert was great. Dressing up in a holiday item for the event was on our bucket list, so we were all festive:

Glee Club

Virginia Gentleman

Lights out for Silent Night

Lighting of the Lawn 2022

Although we've come out for this event a few times in the past, we've never made it as far as actually seeing the lighting ceremony (it tends to be very crowded and there are two hours of student musical numbers before the lighting). We got smart this year and only headed over close to the lighting time so we got to see the light show, which was fun:

The scene before the lighting

Terrible selfie, but you can get a sense for our spot on the lawn

All lit up

Closer up, you can see the 1, 15 and 41 in lights

Still lots of memorials up two weeks after the shootings on campus

Flowers and candles at the Homer statue

Christmas Tree 2022

The boy scouts are out selling trees again (they took a break during the pandemic) and we were able to head to Pantops to pick out this year's speciman:

Christmas Craft with the Dukes

Holly invited us over to tackle a holiday craft (something we do most years). They just got new kittens, which were a big distraction and led to the craft taking a looong time (because we just wanted to pet the kitties), but eventually Benji and Dylan got to work, which included wiring a diode and using a drill press to make the base of a lantern:

Fezzik and Mable

And the final product:

The vellum can be switched out for different seasons

Thanksgiving 2022

We had a very relaxing Thanksgiving this year. We got up to watch the parade in the morning and then tackled turkey hands:

Ruth

Abby

Kevin - it's all of our school's initials

Benji meticulously measured out every line of the football field

After Turkey hands, we started some of the cooking, wrote our thankful 4s and got the table ready for Gammy's arrival at 4. Dinner was ready pretty soon thereafter and by 6 all the dishes were done and we were playing some cards!

Thanksgiving Eve/Welcome Home Abby

Abby got home smoothly after her first term at Dartmouth, and we picked her up from the Charlottesville airport (after a long day of travel) around dinnertime on Wednesday, just in time for our traditional Thanksgiving Eve fire and cheese plate. We added a cake this year to celebrate:

Greensboro Morning

Steve and Deb invited us to brunch at 11am Sunday, so we had a chill morning in the Airbnb waiting for that (checkout time was conveniently 11am). We played some more Mao (the card game Benji taught us) and ordered in from Dunkin Donuts (thanks to Alex's instacart account):

At brunch, the adults chatted but the kids went off to a field and played at swordfighting (Sage had a live action role play event later that afternoon and had brought swords):

Benji, dramatically playing dead and Sage and Soph taking the opportunity to gang up on him

Sage told them to "look menacing"