I just realized that it hasn't even been a month since we returned from our epic summer trip.  Not even a month and it feels like we've been back forever, in some of the good ways and a few of the bad ones.  There are already days that I'm dreading a bit and obligations I'm coming to regret - but so dramatic! Really, with the turn of the weather this week it finally feels like we're no longer pretending it's summer.  So, it's probably time to play some catch-up before the leaves turn.

Some of the mornings when Eliza's off to school (for 43 minutes. 43.), Ani jumps on the chance to do something together, just us.  Sometimes it's whoopin' me at a card game, and sometimes it's reading one of the math books she loves (called, ahem, "I Love Math" books by Time Life), but sometimes she pulls me out to our stoop, me in my pajamas, to draw the flowers.  Those are probably my favorite mornings.

I can see the real shape of the flower when I'm drawing it! It looks different than I thought it did...She is drawn to the details, the counting of petals, the tube that draws the bees in deeper and deeper towards the nectar.  We don't always get the picture just right, but the sitting and the looking is Time Suspended.  I could use more of that.

We aren't seeing much of Dan these days; he's not only wearing his professor hat, but he's got on his director hat, so he finishes one and immediately starts the other.  We managed to snag him for a quick birthday celebration at the end of August just before rehearsals began...

...and when he has the chance to come home for dinner, before going back for rehearsal, it is an opportunity for celebration: tonight it was homemade spaghetti and meatballs, with garlic bread, salad and apple pie!!  Ani made it in her baking class at coop today and was so tickled to share it with us!

And speaking of baking (I know, this is all over the place, but that's what catching up is, right?), we came home from our trip determined to have a shabbat dinner for our family, in the spirit of the shabbat dinners we've shared with our dear friends in Seattle.  We've managed it once, complete with challah. In fact, Ani said that we probably shouldn't call it shabbat dinner since we aren't actually Jewish, but suggested that we could call it our Family Challahday.  Which meant we had to make challah. It made our house smell exquisite...

Must. Touch. The. Challah.

And that doesn't really bring us much closer to caught up, so I guess I'd better get on that.  I'm also thinking that while meatballs and apple pie were pretty awesome, it's probably time for another Family Challahday...