November 2019

Thanksgiving, and indeed all of November, has come and gone! Some highlights of the past month are below.

We've spent lots of time with friends, especially special ones visiting from out of the country for a too-brief while; we've gone to Mexican-Pakistani restaurants and laughed our heads off and generally enjoyed each others' company.

Marcus is loving his independence and his time with school friends; they often hang out on Wednesday mornings, when he doesn't start until 8:40 (instead of 7:15 on the other days), though sometimes Robert brings him to Blackbird for a pizza donut.

Robert took a quick weekend trip to Chicago and a jaunt down to Mount Sterling, to get to spend time with some Illinois family he doesn't get to see very often.

Helen's soccer season ended--she's already planning for next year.

There have been plenty of books, bears, and tea parties, of course.

Samantha ran in a really cool obstacle course race in Fenway Park one Saturday--she had a blast! We all went to the H-Mart for free samples and ramen afterwards, because clearly that's how you celebrate.

 

Our lives are filled with music! Samantha gives Helen lessons on the cardboard cello, even using a coaster as a rockstop and helping her make a taped-up packet of folded paper into a rosin. Helen got to try a real little cello when she went with Robert to Johnson Strings to exchange Marcus's cello (he's on a 3/4 now). Marcus's ensemble played the prelude for a BSO chamber concert in Charlestown, and one evening Robert took Marcus and Samantha to hear a great ensemble at Jordan Hall.

Marcus earned an entire box of Magic cards in exchange for a Veteran's Day spent doing about five years of shredding for Robert at his office. (He also cleaned up.)

Subway, fundays.

Marcus and Robert went camping with the Boy Scouts to a cabin in central Mass two weeks before Thanksgiving; they deep-fried three turkeys and cooked the rest of the dinner (plus breakfast pancakes), and Marcus managed to find time for lots of card games with older boys, but very little sleep.

Two aunts and three cousins came to Boston the weekend before Thanksgiving, and we all celebrated with a lovely traditional turkey dinner at Richard's house. The kids played together beautifully, and all spent Saturday night at our house.

Samantha loved the "Women Take the Floor" exhibit at the MFA, especially their textile rooms and the kids' craft they were running one Saturday.

While inspecting the brand-new contraflow bike lane on Bay State Road (I swear I must have told thirty people or more about it) I came across these gorgeous trees. Goals! (Samantha and I have plans to do this in the spring to our trees--or, hm, perhaps now is a better time to do it, and admire the paint all winter long? We'll get right on that.) One of my enthusiastic pronunciation students took the picture of our little all-women group this fall; that's been a really fun class to teach, and I'm doing it again in the spring too.

Samantha went to her friend Nmachukwu's birthday party, along with one of the birthday girl's little cousins and four boys Samantha knows from orchestra. They had a blast.

Caption: "Cat Baby is wa-wa-ing [nursing] because I'm her mom. Well, actually I'm one of her moms--she has two moms."

Thanksgiving weekend, at the end of the month, was action-packed and tons of fun. First I picked up our heritage turkey by bike on Tuesday.

That night Robert grilled a duck to kick off a traditional Thanksgiving season, and Samantha made cake truffles.

Over the longweekend, Marcus made rainbow jello for his D&D friends, Helen made little yeast buns with me, and I made a Stella cranberry-filled jellyroll.

We spent Thanksgiving Day with Sarah, Sean, and Evie, eating turkey and a whole fish in a salt crust.

Fun cookies were decorated, and some video games were played.

We spent the Friday After Thanksgiving at the FAT at MIT, which they were billing as their last-ever chain reaction event because the MIT Museum is relocating and "reconsidering their programming" next year. Hmph. We had a fantastic time, as always, and the adrenaline of last-minute engineering successes was strong. Afterwards we had dinner out with Sarah, Sean, Evie, Debbie, and Chris, and then everyone came back to our house for dessert and some rounds of Telestrations and Encore. It was midnight when Debbie and Chris left, and it was a great night with friends.

On Saturday Robert took the girls to the ICA for a playdate/art activity (Samantha did some washi-tape journal entries, among other things) while Marcus and I chilled out at home and then he did an escape room with a friend.

That afternoon was the Roslindale Christmas tree lighting and ornament-making, and then Sarah hosted a low-key dinner back at her house.

On Sunday we went to the Museum of Science to round out the weekend.

And finally, a few miscellaneous shots from the month--Marcus is trying out the clarinet in music class; Samantha is in love with Iorek, rightful king of the armored bears (we are watching His Dark Materials together, if you can't tell...) and also made her own aleithiometer; the girls love their handmade-by-Aunt-Mary tote bags; and we got a new red chair for their bedroom. Random, sorry.

Onward to December!

 

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Created: 11/30/19. Last Modified: 12/5/19.