I had a wonderful welcome from my family upon my return from Australia. First, I was welcomed with a dozen 3d-printed roses!
And the next day we were able to do all our regular weekend things together, plus enjoy Castro Valley Cruise night, were hundreds of locals bring out their classic and fancy cars to cruise around the boulevard. This year we enjoyed the event by walking up the boulevard to have dinner near the beginning of the event, and then walking home during sunset to enjoy the cars. Unfortunately, little Aaron has been struggling with headaches recently and the noise turned out to be a bit too much for him, so we cut things short a bit, but it was still nice to enjoy a bit of the event.
Sunday we stayed close to home, which I was grateful for since it gave me time to unpack and catch up on laundry and chores around the house. As a result, it looked like a bomb went off in the playroom by the time evening rolled around, but that’s just how life is sometimes. MJ also had to spend part of the day packing for a red-eye flight to Philadelphia to take care of some things at the townhouse and pick up the van from the collision center, along with some family visits.
On Saturday the boys and I finally made it out to the theater to see Toy Story 5, and then stopped for pizza across from the theater. That evening we set up the tent in the back yard and camped out together, complete with s’mores! It reminded us all that we still haven’t gone on a proper camping trip, which Adam has been begging for. I feel bad about that since I had hoped to plan something this year, but with so much time spent in Philadelphia over the summer it’s so hard to squeeze it in while it’s still warm enough to sleep outside. I’ll make sure it’s more of a priority next summer.
The next morning we went over to the synagogue for a High Holiday Ritual Fair. Because their Sunday religious school starts after the holidays, they wanted to do something to prepare the kids for the events, so they hosted a small gathering and had various activities for the kids to participate in. The boys love baking, so we did both the honey cake and round challah creation.
They also had apple and honey tasting, including with some date honey that everyone enjoyed. The boys also each made shofar collage cards for Rosh Hashanah. We skipped the shofar blowing “class” because it was a bit loud for Aaron, but if they do this again next year I think Adam will really want to give that a try.
Once MJ was back in town, we finally all got to go to Kids Bowl Free together before the summer program ended. Our au pair was able to bring them a few times, but it was nice for all of us to get there together. We’re all terrible at bowling, but it’s fun, and it’s nice that we can just walk to our local bowling alley.
Labor Day weekend is also when we took the opportunity to see the Cars 20th Anniversary showing at our local one-screen theater. The boys love Cars, so I’ve probably seen the movie 50 times, but I usually don’t sit down through the whole thing. There’s also so much detail in Pixar films that seeing it on the big screen does end up being a different experience than seeing it at home. It was fun. And it was nice to have another quiet weekend, we got to start some Lego sets, including Adam’s first Technic set and Aaron’s beloved Derpy Tiger. And I got to finish my Home One Starcruiser build that’s been in-progress for months. And I won’t lie, there was a lot of video game playing happening, by both me and the boys.
We also saw another movie in the theaters this month, Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom! We went out to San Ramon for this movie in a fancy theater in City Center Bishop Ranch. It worked out nicely, because after the movie we were able to eat in dinner in the attached restaurant. Plus, I loved the movie, it might be my favorite Shaun the Sheep movie yet!
The Castro Valley Fall Festival landed over the weekend of Rosh Hashanah, so we got to enjoy that on Sunday. The boys got to hop on a bungee trampoline before exploring half of the festival and picking up some lunch to bring home. Later in the afternoon we met up with our au pair and one of our former au pairs to go out to do the rest of the festival together. We got to see the rest of the booths, pick up some cupcakes, and the boys did a petting zoo. It was also Aaron’s first full day with glasses. We’re hoping that a correct prescription is going to be the solution to his headaches, but that first day wasn’t his day, and once again he was struggling with a headache and I ended up taking him home directly after the petting zoo while Adam continued some adventures with MJ and our au pairs.
We attended services for Rosh Hashanah (and Tashlich!) and Yom Kippur. Our celebrations at home were a bit quieter this year, but we still made some apple cake from apples in our back yard, had a bunch of pomegranate seeds, and read a bunch of holiday books. I think we’ve simply shifted our observance to be more community-focused, which is probably the right path forward. We all enjoyed sharing the holidays more strongly with our new congregation.
With the Jewish holiday season continuing and us entering the autumn, we’re now heading into Sukkot. The boys have been really interested in this holiday, so we’re going to try to build a Sukkah in our back yard this year. Fingers crossed! We’re also planning on doing an activity or two over at the synagogue.