Virus Vacation: Month 3 (May)

A daily structure finally emerged in May as the girls were assigned distance learning (DL) work five days a week, with virtual class check-ins on two or three of those days. Judging from the community Facebook group I am a member of, I was in the minority of parents who were actually pleased with how DL turned out for the end of the school year. Maybe the girls' particular teachers put in more effort than others, or maybe I just had my expectations set reasonably low for this unprecedented turn of events. In any event, aside from the firm Zoom class meeting times, I appreciated how organized the girls' Google Classrooms were and how we were able to set our own schedule to complete DL work. Our "school time" at home ended up being 10am to 1pm (sometimes running a bit later), with Avalon working mostly independently while I worked one-on-one with Eloise. As for Eddie, our little "TK Dropout" (lol), he enjoyed diligently completing some great learning worksheets I found online for "homeschool" time. Plenty of arts, crafts, cooking, backyard fun, walks in the park and other general silliness rounded out our days and the month of May seemed to fly by.

Ellie in her usual spot for Zoom class meetings

Proud of his work!

Eddie still loves building with his giant blocks

Who doesn't love a dabbing dog on a hoverboard?

This is what a good sport looks like. Meet "Edna"!

Eddie doesn't particularly enjoy it when his sisters dress him up like a girl, but he sure loves all the attention it gets him!

May 3rd: Blank garden space at 10am...

...and at 3pm, with the bed frames completed!

Another shot of the completed garden beds the next morning

Just passing the time with a little light reading

And now for something completely different

Eddie was the lucky recipient of some hand-me-down toys from Shaun's co-worker's son

Garden soil delivery! 

Happy Birthday, Papa! Our first big outing post-lockdown was to Placerville to celebrate Papa's 66th birthday on May 6.

Posing on their hoverboards. Avalon used her birthday money and giftcards to buy one of her own.

Not really sure what was going on here, but it was photo-worthy. (Edit: Avalon says they were playing "blindfolded hide and seek")

Avalon made me special cupcakes for Mothers Day! <3 

My amazing Mothers Day spread!

...complete with DOUGHNUTS! 

Hovering around with a maple bar

On this day the kids did a "challenge" they saw on YouTube where they competed to see who could stay at the kitchen table the longest. As far as the kids can remember, Ellie won... after MANY hours at the table. I have to say, I kind of liked this game! At least all their usual messes were concentrated in one spot in the house!

Hanging out at the park with the neighborhood ducks

We returned to the park with Dad...and more oats for the ducks... a few days later

The park is so peaceful. It's so enormous that it never feels crowded.

Another shot of a distance learning school day

Next best thing to a trip to the beach

While the kids were digging in the sand, Shaun dug into the dirt pile in our front yard and got our garden beds filled and prepped for planting

First swim of the season

Painting fun (more fun for the kids than it is for Mom-hehe)

As of May 20th the garden was officially in the ground! Last year we didn't plant until mid-May due to our Transatlantic cruise and Europe trip, and still had one of our best garden years ever; some plants even produced into November! Considering how the garden is flourishing again this year (pics to come), we're pretty convinced that "late" planting is the way to go in our neck of the woods!

Last day of school pic! We walked over to the girls' new school on the last official day to pick up a certificate from Ellie's teacher. The girls can't wait to be back to school on campus!...Someday... :( 

How perfect that surprise gifts from Oma arrived on the last day of school! Another reason to celebrate!

Spa night! To celebrate the end of the school year, the girls asked to stay up late doing mud masks and watching a movie. If I look tired it's because we took this pic way past my bedtime! Lol!

Peace out to the month of May!

Virus Vacation: Month 2 (April)

Have nearly 4 months really gone by since my last post? You would think that time would seem to stretch out during these long, strange days of Covid-19. Many have described these months as feeling like a series of repetitive "Groundhog Days" where, absent the usual benchmarks and events of a typical year, daily life feels stagnant and lackluster. I, however, do not fall into that category! Life has continued on in the Kelish House somewhat normally throughout these last four months, after accepting the minor disappointment of having to put our inaugural suburban summer plans on hold until next year. (Community pool and swim lessons! Day camps! Library visits! Playgrounds! Fireworks in the park!) I am very proud of the kids, who have continued to take it all in stride. Even Avalon, after a couple tears, was very good-natured about not getting to have her long-promised 10th birthday bash. 

The first big event of April was Easter--our first in our new house!--but the Covid lockdown restrictions didn't affect it too much. We spend most Easters at home, usually with a visit from Nana, Papa and Uncle in the afternoon, which, sadly, we didn't get to enjoy this year due to lockdown restrictions (and our own abundance of caution against spreading a virus we may be asymptomatic to). Avalon's missed birthday bash, though... that was, without question, my biggest disappointment of the last four months. It isn't our usual practice to throw a big party for each kid on every birthday; we typically take a special trip/outing of the birthday child's choice and then have a small party with family only. Reaching "double digits", however, was a milestone that Avalon was looking froward to celebrating with her friends at a "Harry Potter"-themed party that she largely had begun planning on her own. In the end, however, it still ended up being a special day. On Avalon's actual birthday of April 26 we hosted a party with Nana, Papa, Uncle Jesse and Gretta, which was the first time we had all seen each other in at least two months.

By the end of April, Distance Learning had officially commenced and the weather was warming us up for summer. Since 2020 will no doubt go down in the history books for many reasons, I thought I would take a month-by-month approach of posting pics so that I have a good record of how our family survived and thrived through these strange times. Stay tuned for pics from May, June and July before I hopefully get around to posting pics from our Pre-Corona Era (barely!) January cruise and more Before/During/After house pics.

In April the kids continued to be the lucky recipients of many gifts from generous Grandparents to help them weather the boredom of being out of school and having no place to go! Here Avalon and Eddie pose with puzzles Nana sent to help them learn their geography.

Eddie stopped to pose for this pic with Dad before finishing his world map puzzle. I think he has stolen the "Puzzle Master" crown from Eloise. This boy loves his puzzles!

Nana also sent this cool "Buy It Right" game to help the kids learn how to count money in a fun way.

Enjoying their new tetherball set from Grama Judy!

Making giant bubbles in the court with Dad (thank you Nana for the bubble kit!)

Shortly after waking up and digging through their baskets on Easter morning

First egg hunt in our new (much smaller) back yard. Avalon's baby "Jasmine" took part in the hunt this year.

Eddie scampered around the yard in an attempt to keep up with the rapid egg-finding pace of his big sisters.

Ellie was having a great time...

...until she wasn't (check that face). 

Still on the move

All smiles again as she counted her eggs after the big hunt

Avalon took the egg inventory seriously and dug out the calculator to assist

Eddie ended up with far fewer eggs than his sisters, but displayed his usual happy-go-lucky good-naturedness nonetheless. (Next year I hope the Bunny will go with a color-coded hunt, with a different color for each kid.)

The last few months have been filled with many visits to the park across the street (Elk Grove Park)

Sign of the Times

No playground, no problem. They kept entertained by racing each other between this tree and picnic table.

Eddie writing...something. He's big on writing notes and making lists these days, and on this day even insisted on taking paper and pencil to the park.

Taking a break from all the fun

During the 6+ week void between school closing and the beginning of distance learning, I tried to keep the kids busy with worksheets and lessons I found on Pinterest and perhaps the coolest website ever, Teachers Pay Teachers.

In what was perhaps more of a lesson in patience than science, the day finally arrived for the "big reveal" of the kids' homemade rock candy.

Yum!

Timberrrrrr! Avalon poses with the first casualty of our landscaping "to do" list... a tree that was planted so close to the house that it had started to damage the siding and gutters.

In April Shaun knocked another high priority item off the new house to-do list... clearing space for our garden!

Another view of our garden space. With how the garden is currently flourishing, it's hard to imagine that this was a big, blank space only four months ago! Stay tuned for more recent pics!

A little old-fashioned fun on the teeter-totter (which will soon be donated, as, sadly, the kids have nearly outgrown it)

One thing they will not soon outgrow... establishing a pretend business and setting up shop in a cardboard box.

Avalon working on a sewing project. It is literally impossible for this child to get bored, and I love it.

Even when there's nothing to do, she finds something to do. Can you tell what is going on here??

We kicked off Avalon's birthday weekend on Friday, April 24 with a take-out sushi dinner from our favorite restaurant Mikuni's, which is now only a mile or so down the road from us! It used to be an hour round-trip from Clarksburg to Mikuni's and back!

The happy almost-birthday girl

Avalon chose to spend the Saturday of her birthday weekend baking her own birthday cake! This was something she REALLY wanted to do completely on her own (my only contribution was taking the cakes out of their pans). I neglected to get any pics during the baking process but caught her right before she frosted her cake (with scratch-made frosting).

Posing with the finished product!

She decorated her cake in her favorite colors, green and purple

Officially double digits!

Maybe not quite the party she had in mind, but the VIPs were in attendance! Avalon chose cheeseburgers for her birthday feast. :) 

Cheers to 10 years! Nana held the only "Corona" welcome at our party! 

Hanging out inside during the present opening. This pic gives you a pretty good view of our "open concept" living room and kitchen with the door open to the den in the background. I promise to post more house pics in the near future!

The birthday girl posing with her gifts

Her very own mask, hand-made by Nana's friend in Hawaii. Honestly, at the time, I thought of this mask as little more than a funny photo prop for Avi's "quaratine birthday".  I don't think any of us had any idea at the time of what a big "thing" masks were to become over the next few months. Avi has worn hers out in public several times now since they've been mandated by most businesses.

Uncle, Gretta and Ellie watching Avi open gifts

Just hanging out

The kids especially enjoyed spending time with Gretta, whom we hadn't seen since Christmas!

Eddie and Papa

Cake time!

I love this sequence of pics...

Everyone was excited to dig in to Avalon's homemade 4-layer cake. Delicious!

Playing chess with Gretta

I just had to include this pic of the adorable labels Eddie made for our garbage cans for the party. For some reason he wanted help spelling "recycling" but felt confident in his own spelling of "chrash kan".

Hanging out with Uncle and Gretta in Eddie's bedroom

I caught Nana and Papa two-stepping in the living room while everyone else was partying in Eddie's room

As the festivities were winding down, Ellie showed off a bit on the hoverboard she got for her birthday (but only recently got comfortable on, thanks to the hard floors throughout our new house).

It wasn't long before Uncle decided to give the hoverboard a spin

I think we know what we're getting Uncle for HIS birthday!

Wednesday, April 29 marked the girls' first official day of distance learning. For 5 weeks to follow, this was the typical scene between 10:00 and 1:00, Monday through Friday.

Eddie participated with his own "Mom School" curriculum on most days, but on this day he chose to just hang out and read the blog books. All three kids are pretty much obsessed with reading the blog books now, which has also served to encourage my return to blogging. They are all so bummed that the blog "stops" with the 2017 volume! (Since I blogged so little from 2018 to now, I haven't had anything printed since then.)

I snapped this pic of Ellie in a moment of frustration during distance learning. Avalon was pretty independent in her schooling but I needed to walk Ellie through every single lesson and assignment, every single day. It was a bit much for both of us sometimes.

Getting their zen on by taking one of Gretta's online yoga classes (while rocking the matching Ohana Moon Yoga shirts she gave them!)

This pic is just too cute not to post. I walked into the living room one evening to this cute sight... Eddie's favorite stuffed friend "Foxy" just standing there, propped up in Eddie's boots.

Eddie heard me cracking up and came running into the room to claim his work and pose for this pic

We topped off the month with our first Slip 'n Slide session in our new backyard

The month of April ended on a warm and sunny high note :)