Spooktacular

The weekend before Halloween is always a bit of a blur, but this year we decided to pack even more in. While Owen's baseball game was cancelled (again!) due to weather, both kids still made Youth Orchestra, (and Nora got a special "spa treatment") after which we headed up to the Brown's "12th Annual Hottern" Hades Chili Cookoff/Suds Revival" costume party. While Owen donned his Thor Ragnarok costume and Nora her "Holiday Confusion" ensemble (with Allen and I recycling our "Cereal Killers" masks), we couldn't really compete with Mario Cart or album covers or whatever this is. After partaking of the festivities, we headed to Katherine and Lees for dinner and a sleepover.



The next morning, we headed home in order to eat, change and were then off to the Kennedy Center where the kids had volunteered to help in the petting zoo before the National Symphony's Spooktacular Concert. It started off a little slow (the kids weren't supposed to bring their own instruments and the organizers were down a cello), but once the costume hordes entered, the kids really got into it. Both enjoyed showing off to budding musicians how to hold the instrument, the different strings, and proper plucking and bowing techniques.

Nora & Grandpa

Everyone looks good in Professor Marshmallow's glasses :-)

Professor Marshmallow's Magical Beans

Nora had the title role at Play-in-a-Day Camp today. And as her interpretation largely defies description, you should probably just watch it yourself. We hope you like it!

Food Prints

Wonderful morning of FoodPrints making Butternut Squash Provençal, Aloo Palak, Roasted Rosemary Chickpeas and Pumpkin Bread with Nora’s class at SWS :-)

Family Selfie in Portrait Mode :-)

Family selfie, now with more tounge ;-)

#SR15

Earlier this year, State Department convinced me to sign on as an expert reviewer for the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C, and after two rounds of reviewing hundreds of pages, they included me on the delegation going to Incheon, South Korea for the 48th IPCC meeting, and the approval session for the Summary for Policy Makers of the Special Report. The first three days of the meeting were relatively normal, then Thursday things really ramped up, and we went 20 hours straight, took a four hour break, then came back for another 38 straight hours of negotiations during which Typhoon Kong Rey blew through and delayed my flight home for a day. There were lots of fascinating stories from inside the negotiations, but probably best to just ask me about them instead of recounting them on the blog. Suffice to say, I mostly ate little seaweed rice and spam sandwiches from the connivence store, and I didn't see much of Korea beyond the hotel and the convention center, but we got the job done :-)

Dead Girls Run

Allen was originally supposed to get back this past Saturday, and we were set to celebrate his return by Nora and I running a 5k followed by a election postcard writing party with lots of adult beverages at the Telfair-Chas. Alas, due to Typhoon Kong-Rey, Allen didn't actually make it home, but that didn't stop the rest of us.

The race, called Dead Man's Run, is held annually at the Congressional Cemetery around dusk. Costumes are strongly encouraged, so Nora and I chose a cat and mouse theme... with capes (which might have been a mistake: polyester on one's shoulders -- on a humid night while running -- does not make me happy). Mirabel joined us though not in spirit as she wisely removed the cape early and didn't want to wear our extra set of ears.

I hadn't run with Nora in a while (she ran her last 5k with Aunt Katherine) so i was a bit surprised with how much better she's gotten -- it probably didn't hurt to have Owen there to cheer us on as well as the creepy guy in costume that jumped out at us from one of the gravestones (which I think was sanctioned, but regardless, did make us run). We made reasonably good time and would have probably finished under 40 minutes if the girls hadn't collided around the 3k mark resulting in Mirabel falling down and injuring her arm.

After the race, we headed back to the Telfair-Cha's for pizza, some election outreach, Halloween candy and Marvel movies while intermittently checking in with Allen to make sure that he finally made it onto a flight home. He did!



(To check out all the pictures, click here.)