November 2019

November 30, 2019

Thanksgiving 2019

We headed down to Charlottesville Tuesday night before Thanksgiving. It was the usual crowd this year – Doug, Vicki, Quinn, Carley, Nana, and our family.

Since we were last down in Va. Becky has adopted a new pet – Penny, who is a purebred Great Dane. She’s only 6 months old and already over 100 lbs! We were a little worried bringing Benson down because he’s such an old man now and pretty frail. In their first meeting Penny knocked him down, but after that he held his own, even playing a bit.

Thanksgiving morning we had the now annual Glenaire Turkey Trot starting at the top of mom and dad’s driveway and looping around the neighborhood. This year Lauren ran it with Dave and me! We had to do a little run/walk action, but she made the whole thing!

After the trot we headed back to the house and Dave started cooking. He’s been cooking for so many years now that he’s got the schedule down to a science and the whole day is pretty low stress – totally acknowledging that the person writing this is also the person sitting in the living room, reading a book and sipping wine 😉

Doug deep fried the turkey again, which has been our tradition for maybe the last 6 years. It great – frees up the oven, takes about 45 minutes, and tastes delicious!

Doug pulling the turkey out of the deep fryer

The day after Thanksgiving we enjoyed another tradition – hiking and then wine tasting. It was a beautiful day and we hiked Sugar Hollow and then headed to King’s Family Vineyard in Crozet.

Hiking in Sugar Hollow. We brought Penny and the Rainer’s dog, Jasper, with us. Penny loved jumping in the creek, Jasper, not so much.

The long weekend wouldn’t be complete without some good family pictures

Mom and Dad’s Christmas card picture this year

November 21, 2019

Excellence Award

award

In November I received a very cool honor. I was named the 2019 Young Entrepreneur of the Year by The Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia. The award recognizes someone who has achieved business success before the age of 40 and demonstrates a high level of entrepreneurial spirit, leadership, perseverance, creativity, and determination. I’m so proud to be recognized and also acknowledge that this recognition is possible because of the amazing people in my life – endless support from family, an amazing business partnership with Rebecca, and a dedicated, smart, and driven staff.

My parents and Becky came up for the event, which was held at Rivers Casino.

I got to give a short acceptance speech and was also the last award recipient of the night, so was basically sweating bullets for the entire event!

The Maven staff: Veronica, Alexa, Rebecca, me, Emily C. and Emily K.

November 2, 2019

Halloween 2019

Halloween

It’s Halloween! Last night was like Christmas Eve in this house. The kids were too excited to go to sleep and were up by 6 this morning.

This year I am a classroom parent for Lauren’s first grade class, which means I was responsible, along with another mom, for putting together the classroom Halloween party. We brought in a craft and then the kids broke into groups for a game of wrapping one of the group members up as a mummy. It was pretty funny.

Lauren’s team wrapping their mummy
Ms. Gorodesky’s First Grade Class

After the party the school holds an all school costume parade. Unfortunately it was raining so instead of having it out on the field and open to all parents, it was held in the gym and open to only classroom parents (happy I volunteered this year!). Lauren decided at the last minute that she didn’t want to participate (apparently her dress was too long and she was afraid she was going to trip on it), but Sophie the vampire marched happily.

Sophie the vampire walking in the school Halloween parade.

On Halloween evening we invited some neighbors over to the house for pizza before heading out to trick-or-treat. It was a quick get together because every kid was bouncing off the walls to start trick-or-treating.