October 2015: the Bistro, Papi's Birthday Celebrations, Another Bat Mitzvah, More Pancakes, and Halloween

We got involved as a family with our church's partnership at a soup kitchen in Newark called the 7th Street Bistro. We collected clothes in South Orange, and helped serve lunch with friends from church:

We had 2 celebrations for our dear Papi's birthday, first with friends and then with extended family:

Wendy went to her second Bat Mitzvah:

We went on not one but two pancake runs, first trying out Granny's Pancakes in Hamburg and then the Original Pancake House in West Caldwell, where we also checked out an (extremely small) nearby nature preserve. Jasper joined us for both excursions, though not for the pancakes themselves.

And finally, Halloween! Both girls did theme costumes: Fer and her friends were animals (she was a raccoon) while Wendy did a Dr. Seuss theme as the Cat in the Hat with two friends as Thing 1 and Thing 2. Wendy's friend's parents threw an intergenerational costume party, so for the first time in recent memory, Chris and I dressed up. He went (typecasting) as a golfer, while I borrowed a costume from a friend to go as a Druid.