End of September Catch Up

- Both kids are doing well at school so far. Hannah's enjoying the challenge of first grade, and is excited to be taking both karate and pottery during After Care this year. We went to the Back to School picnic and curriculum night, and later this week is the After Care potluck. Hannah also had her first "sharing day" today and she had to bring three special items. She chose her Torah from last year's consecration ceremony, her purple karate belt, a picture of her "Mary Poppins" Broadway show snow globe (no way was that being brought on the bus!). Max really enjoyed the JCC sukkah and is remembering more about his days at school too. I also attended curriculum night there, and did well on a quiz to identify each kid in the class. Max's clue was "I have an older sister and I love Thomas trains" - definitely accurate.
- Yom Kippur had a couple of nice moments this year. I took a vacation day the day before, so we had plenty of time to eat a meal together before the holiday began. Hannah joined me for Kol Nidre services, where I got the very special honor of holding a Torah scroll during the main prayer itself. I was pretty nervous, especially about how my back would hold up, but it went well. All four of us made it to the concluding services this year, and the kids loved receiving glow necklaces during Havdalah.
- Sukkot was a great success this year too. Fillis and John came to help us put up the sukkah, and we had plenty of time to get it all done in advance of the holiday - I even used the staple gun for attaching decorations this year. We had some very nice meals in the sukkah, including dinner with Julie and Mike, and threw our annual sukkah party. We had a great time catching up with so many friends and neighbors, and it was wonderful to actually get to be outside this year, on what turned out to be a very hot day! It was especially great to have Rachel and Jon bring my niece and nephew, Evie and Nate, to our house for the first time!
- The annual synagogue BBQ was also during Sukkot, and it was another great event. We rented an extra large bouncy house this year, complete with a basketball hoop and slide (thank you DifferRentals!). Once again, Ana did an excellent job with face painting, and the balloon twisters are always a hit. I also had a great craft this year, with more details to come in another post. (Marc also took Max to Touch a Truck while Hannah and I got everything ready at the BBQ!)
- Finally, Simchat Torah began on September 30. Marc let the kids take a day off from school on October 1 to join him at synagogue.

September was totally crazy, celebrating all the holidays during the start of the school year, but I think we managed to do everything we wanted to do and more (like getting the kids their flu shots, and getting our dishwasher, oil lines and sprinklers all fixed and/or maintained - oh joy! [Thanks, Marc!]).