• Sharp Family Blog

    Sharp Family Blog

We arrived home from Virginia Saturday night and went out to get our tree on Sunday. We waste no time getting Christmas into high gear here. We headed to the same tree farm that we went to last year, called Yaegers. It includes Santa and a hay ride.

The girls with Santa before we went to get the tree. Lauren is still wearing those dress up glasses.

Hayride selfie.

The girls agreed on a tree pretty quickly, and Dave chopped it down with a little help from Sophie.

The team with their kill.

When we got home we realized that we got a little aggressive with the height of the tree and Dave had to chop off a significant amount at the bottom and top. But after some finagling and maybe some cursing, it’s up!

That evening we decorated it.

The girls and Lina putting on ornaments.

The final product. You can see that the star has been less placed on top and more shoved in there, but it works.

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We headed down to Charlottesville for Thanksgiving again this year. We left late Tuesday night and stayed until Saturday afternoon. It was a chilly weekend but really nice – not all of the leaves have fallen from the trees down there.

As always, it was a crowd with my parents house packed. Lina also came down with us and got to experience a Coughlin Thanksgiving in all its cramped glory. She slept on an air mattress in the playroom.

We did the traditional seafood boil on Wednesday night, which is always a fan favorite (at least for me).

Doug and Dave with the seafood bounty.

On Thanksgiving morning there is a mini Turkey Trot in the neighborhood. There were about 15 people who did it this year. The winner was a 4th grader, which Dave and I close behind him. The biggest difference between this neighborhood Turkey Trot and the big one at Boar’s Head is that Dave and I at least have a chance to place 😉

The Turkey Trot crew and helpers.

Dave did the cooking again, with some help from Nana this year on the stuffing.

 

The cooking fairy and his unicorn side kick.

The obligatory turning into the pot picture – of course I’m missing the most important person – Doug who has perfected the lowering after all of these years.

The girls put together a costume parade pre-dinner so that we were all in the right festive mood.

Here’s the group post-parade. It was truly magical.

The Thanksgiving table. Aleen and her mom, Yvonne, came over for dinner as well. You can see Lauren in the back holding up her turkey leg, which has become her favorite part of the meal.

Me and Becky. And the cousins. Lauren was given this pair of costume glasses and she wore them straight for about a week.

The day after Thanksgiving we did a long hike on the Monticello Trail and then his Pippin Hill vineyard that afternoon. It was an excellent few days.

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Over the last two weekends we have had the most amazing fall weather. Although I still have mixed feeling about living in the suburbs, one of the things I love is all of the amazing tress, especially in the spring and fall. Our neighborhood is just a rainbow of bright colors.

I took this shot at Chestnut Hill College when I was there for a meeting the other day. The sky was amazing.

Here are a few from a hike we did last weekend in Wissahickon Park.

And this weekend the ice skating rink at Dilworth Plaza opened, and the girls and Dave were one of the first skaters on the ice (I was happily on the sideline taking pictures).

The ice skating crew.

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We had the most amazing weather for Halloween this year. Perfect for Sophie’s annual school parade, where all of the classes parade around the athletic field and all the parents come to watch (and then take the kids home at 12:30 with a whole 5 hours to fill before trick-or-treating starts….)

The year the girls wanted to get their costumes at one of the pop up Halloween stories, and Sophie picked an alien abduction and Lauren picked a deer. As long as they’re happy…

The alien abduction herself parading around the filed.

Lauren with her friend Nora at her school’s fall festival.

The Tomasetti’s, who live next door, came over for some pre-trick-or-treating pizza and we got some pictures of the kids before they went out.

The neighborhood gang – Lauren, Maya, Emma, Sophie (unnamed alien friend).

We still had to wait about an hour after this picture was taken before they could go out. There was a lot of bouncing off the walls even before all the sugar was consumed.

 

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It’s pumpkin season and one of my favorite times of year!

A few weekends ago we went out to Milky Way Farm to pick pumpkins with Dan, Maithili, Kishore, and Ashwini. The farm also makes their own ice cream, which is amazing, so we waiting in a seriously long line afterward as our reward. It was worth it.

The kid crew at the pumpkin patch.

Sophie and Kishore decided to go to a part of the pumpkin patch where no one else was – to find the perfect pumpkins of course. They held hands the entire walk, it was really sweet. They also came back with arms overflowing with pumpkins, so I guess it was worth the walk.

Afterward we headed back to our place to do some carving.

Serious work here.

Sophie also got some good quality time in with Kish and Ash.

 

Second cousin snuggles and story hour.

I should have taken a picture of our pumpkins when they were all finished, but forgot, and now it’s too late because the stupid squirrels in our neighborhood ate them down to their stems! I couldn’t believe it. They were decimated in about two days. Next year we’ll keep the real ones inside and get some indestructible ones for outdoor decorating.

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On Sunday we celebrated my Nana’s 93rd birthday with a party at Doug and Vicki’s house. Nana just got back from a two month trip to Scotland, Sicily, and Greece. Not too shabby for a 93-year-old. Doug and Vicki were with her in Scotland, and then Diane and Richard were with her in Sicily and Greece. She doesn’t fly any more, so she took the Queen Mary II back and forth between New York and London.

Here’s the birthday lady. Looking dapper coming right from church to the party.

Becky, mom, and me with Nana.

 

She had a little help from the grandkids to blow out the candles.

Ari, Nana, Sophie, Lauren, Kishore, and Ashwini. What a cute crew!

More pics from the day – Becky and me, and mom with her grandkids

Earlier in the day we also went and visited Pappap’s grave at Valley Forge Park. He was buried there eight years ago, but never had a headstone. The kids and grandkids all chipped in and had one made, and it was just placed last weekend, so we all went to see it.

Although it took a while, it was really good to see and felt like good closure for everyone.

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Sophie decided to run for Student Council this year, representing her 3rd grade class. Each student who wanted to run wrote a speech and the teacher read each out loud to the class and everyone then voted. And Sophie won!

Below is the speech that she wrote (with perhaps just a little prompting from mom):

Hello 3D,

I hope that you will vote for me as your student council representative because I am an older sibling and I know it feels to have to negotiate. I am also good at making people feel like they belong. In addition, I am good at talking with others about things that are happening and listening to their concerns. I think that Cynwyd is a great place because it’s a school that doesn’t tolerate hate, and I’m proud to go here. I love being in 3D because everybody is so kind and I would be honored to represent 3D on student council. That’s why I think you should vote for me as 3D’s representative.

She was proud of herself, and we were too!

Here’s the third grader herself in her school picture (perhaps a little dazed looking).

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The girls are both settled into their school routines and for Lauren that means that field trips start. Kindergarten is the culmination year for Montessori students and the kindergarteners take a field trip once a month. I was chaperone for the first one, which was to a Colonial Plantation at Ridley State Park. The plantation is run just as it was in the 1700’s (with the excepting of working toilets, fortunately).

Here’s Lauren performing one of the traditional children’s chores – chopping wood. I can say with certainty that if we needed to rely on our kids for warmth we would be dead.

They also made their own candles by dipping a wick into a pot of melted bee’s wax (about a hundred times).

The Plantation also had a bunch of animals that the kids got to see and pet.

 

Chickens, turkeys, and an enormous ox. The ox works the fields just as he would have hundreds of years ago. Fortunately they don’t eat any of the animals any more.

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On September 30th, Dave, our friend Don, and I all did the Waterman’s triathlon in Rock Hall, MD. This was my first tri ever. Dave had done a few in high school, and Don has been doing them the last several years. We all did the sprint distance, which was a 750M swim, 15 mile bike ride, and a 5K run.

Dave and I trained a bit over the summer, mostly running and biking. We both had gotten very few swims in. I was extremely nervous about it – he was totally chill. We were fortunate enough to have the most amazing weather possible.

The three of us before the start. I wore a full wetsuit because I really didn’t want to get cold. It was surprisingly easy to swim in and did the trick.

Here is Dave and Don’s group,  men 44 and under, before the swim start. I went with the last group, which was novice of all ages.  I hated going last because my only thought was that I was the last person on the course! Even though I really struggled on the swim, luckily I was still able to pass some people (though not many!).

Next up was the bike. No video of me, but below is one of Dave coming in from the bike to run transition. Bike is both Dave and my strongest leg, and we both did pretty well.

Dave bike

Last leg was the run. Transitioning from the bike to the run is a bit like running in jello, at least for the first quarter mile or so. I was very wobbly, but kicked it into high gear. So did Dave and Don (although I wasn’t there to witness it, apparently there was some close competition on the run between those two).

Below are videos of both of us coming over the finish line.

Dave Finish

Jess Finish

We all ended up doing really well!

Dave came in 54th overall man and 6th in his age group with a time of 1:27:27

Don came in 65th overall man and 7th in his age group with a time of 1:29:23.

I came in 36th overall woman and I WON the novice group with a time of 1:40:20.

With my first place trophy (a wooden boat wheel)!

It was so much fun. I think we definitely have another one in our future!

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Summer has finally come to an end (sigh).
Sophie started third grade at Cynwyd Elementary on the Tuesday after Labor Day and Lauren started Kindergarten at Bala House Montessori the following week. Both had really good first weeks.

The first day outfits. Lauren has worn the same combo of shirt and shorts nearly the entire summer. I’m writing this blog post on her 4th day of school and she has so far worn it every day she’s been to school. It does get cleaned, but I’m definitely waiting for one of the teachers to say something to me. I promise, she does own other clothing!

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