All the way 2021

Summer

We spent fourth of July in Baltimore at cousin-palooza 2021, with Mike's mom and his two brothers and their families, after half of said cousins came to our place in Pittsburgh for a couple of days.

This included Tia Dallys' tie-dye bootcamp

A neighborhood parade

And an ice cream truck that kept coming back to the neighborhood knowing there were 9 kids in one house.

There was also travel to see Saba and Safta and Great-George

Which included a big haircut for Noa.

And some stops en route to see friends long-not-seen.

Back at home, the kids had a couple of weeks of camp (here's waiting for the bus)...

A series of recipes made from Eytan's class cookbook...

A couple of visits to you-pick places for berries and peaches (and also some agritourism kid stuff)...

Building projects

Wild turkeys with babies in the yard.

Chalk art

Including images of our two newly acquired sheep (I'll need to add photos of them here soon).

And tons of swimming in the neighborhood pool (where actually I didn't take any pictures -- here's a different swimming picture to stand in for it).

Eytan turned 10.

And the other kids built him an elephant out of cardboard...

We took our first camping trip with kids (and with lots of rain included)

And then everyone started school.

Fall

Oren started first grade (which has a ceremony where 8th graders give starting first graders a rose to welcome them)

And school resumed some more of its normal rhythms compared to the previous year.

And even the chickens got to wear masks (just kidding).

My school included two sections of tree class (grad and undergrad)

And also meat class.

Baby pig versus huge pig size comparison below.

Also the students made gravlax, which was new for me.

Outside of school, there were some playgrounds.

Some soccer practices (and one soccer field with construction equipment nearby)

Tashlich in the river that turned into a creek walk.

And our first time actually managing to sleep in the sukkah.

Oren's best friend switched schools this year so we've been meeting up with him for play time or outings on weekends.

Including at a nice waterfall park nearby.

In October, mama (i.e. me) had a birthday.

And Unc and Christy came to visit from Vancouver.  Li'el got a big haircut this time.

Pictures below from a walk we took together.

Late in October, we carved pumpkins that we had, for the first time, successfully grown in sufficient number in our garden.

And then we carved more pumpkins at a festival with friends.

Notes were written to the sugar sprite to pass along excess Halloween candy.

Chickens were wrangled.

And soon enough it was Noa's fifth birthday.

There were a few other fall parties too.  Ari's bar mitzvah in Boston, where the only picture I seem to have from the weekend is Li'el helping lift chairs with people on them at the party.

Another birthday of a school friend.

And another friend birthday at the Children's Museum.

One of my former students let us help test out her new business model of creating and delivering meal kits (like Hello Fresh or whatever those others are, but for south Indian food).

And in later November, I actually went to Yakima, Washington for a quick two days to sit in on the pilot session of a training certificate I had been working with others on since before we moved to Pittsburgh (and we've been in Pittsburgh 9 years, so you get a sense of the timeline).

And there was snow (which we haven't had much of yet at home).

Winter

Safta came to visit in December.

And then it was papa's (i.e. Mike's) birthday.

The kids created a carnival party for him, complete with tickets redeemable for coloring pages, connect-the-dots drawings, card games, candy, and honey-oats.

And then it became winter break.

Friends told us about a "try ice hockey" clinic sponsored by the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team and we went. They had the kids put on all the gear to skate. It was nice in that they were so padded it hardly hurt to fall down on the ice.

Also our cows have gotten a whole lot bigger. I didn't get to spend much animal time during the semester, as it was busy, so I'm trying to visit them more now to up the socialization quotient.

So, happy-end-of-2021 and almost-happy-new-year, and here's a river video from back when it was still warm.