September 2020

We decided to celebrate getting through the first week of hybrid with a marshmallow roast. It was a nice relaxing way to end a very long week!  I think we will end up liking this hybrid schedule but it is harder to get used to, especially with all the restrictions they have at school. It's hard on the kids but will hopefully pay off in the long run!  Kaylee especially loves fires and wants to be in charge of the whole thing from start to finish.  

Brooklyn lost her first tooth!  And she already has her two adult teeth halfway growing in behind the baby teeth. She hadn't mentioned it being wiggly or anything so I was really surprised that it came out so easily! And she wasn't going to slow down, just a few days later she lost the second one.

We decided to get a zoo pass this year for the first time in years. We figured being on more flexible school schedules would allow us time to get out and we would need somewhere to go when we are sick of the house!  It has already been so wonderful and I'm sure we will get plenty of use out of it.

For Richard's birthday, we decided to work on the scavenger hunt that we had started clear back on my birthday! We went to the Park of Roses and a ton of different spots around Franklin Park. It was fun to have multiple clues in the same big park and it made for a fun morning.  That was one of the times I have loved having flexible learning!  We went in the morning and then Richard had some meetings in the afternoon and the kids did school.  Then we grabbed some dinner and ate at a random pond by the library.  We ended the night by picking up some churro empanadas from a lady in our ward as a surprise birthday treat. They were filled with either Nutella or Dulce de Leche and they were super good!

We were so close to finishing the scavenger hunt that I convinced the family to finish it with me the next day. We got to see the Topiary Park, search for a deer statue by COSI, run across a bridge, and find a few clues to finish it off at the Grange Audobon Insurance Center.  It ended up being a lot of fun! We will probably do another one in the future. 

I thought it would be fun to make rainbow spaghetti after Kristi told me about doing that for a Trolls party she did. The red, green and blue were so bright and fun! The purple didn't spread as well and looked pretty disgusting, it looked a little too much like worms! And I must not have rinsed the noodles well enough because when I added the red sauce, it all mixed together in a very unappetizing brown color. It was hard to get past that to enjoy the taste too much but it was a fun experiment.

Scott introduced us to a new feature on Google that inserted 3D animals into your camera so you can take all kinds of fun pictures with them.  It entertained us for a very long time! 

We finally made it to Hocking Hills! I was worried that we wouldn't get there this year since we didn't make it over the summer but we went on the most perfect day. It was gorgeous and I took way too many pictures of every angle because it is all breath taking!  We went to our two favorite hikes and made it to a new place, Ash Cave. The cave was absolutely enormous and had sand underneath from all the sandstone being eroded.  The girls played there for almost an hour and could have stayed longer if we had let them! It was the best day ever!

August 2020

Once the libraries opened up again, nobody was actually allowed inside and you had to request books online and then call in once they were ready and the librarians would bring the books out to you.  My friend decided to leave messages written in chalk on the sidewalk to try to cheer up the librarians in her city and I wanted to do the same. We headed over on Sunday night and filled up the whole area in front of the library with happy messages.  I was crushed when we woke up the next morning and realized a random light sprinkle of rain had washed 90% of our messages away! We only had a few that survived right in front of the door so I hope they at least knew we were thinking about them! And it was a fun project for us even if it didn't do what the goal was. 

Brooklyn and Tess have a lot in common and love a lot of the same things. So they asked if they could do a FaceTime playdate but I wasn't sure how long it would last.  I couldn't believe how long they played! They ended up being on together for about 4 hours and played Barbies, hid in the closet and told secrets, played a drawing game and who knows what else! When they got off, Brooklyn was the happiest I had seen her in a long time.  She was SO bubbly and bouncing off the walls with excitement.  I love that she had so much fun with her cousin but I was also sad that this was the only social interaction she's had for months!

We realized that we had only been to Battelle Darby Creek in the winter and early spring when everything was still dead. So we decided to head back and check it out when everything was green and beautiful. Normally the girls want to keep hiking and exploring, but this time they were content to play in the creek most of the time. We haven't gotten much rain this summer so the creek was really low and it was perfect for them to explore!

We finally made it to the first day of school and it was all online. My kids were really sad about that but we converted our playroom into their school and I tried to make it the best I could. I made them a special breakfast and made them name tags for their desks. I also wrote them each a letter telling them how much I loved them and that we would make this year great, no matter what it looks like.  I couldn't believe how long they expected the kids to sit on zoom and just listen to the teacher but they did great! We celebrated making it through the first day by ordering out from Texas Roadhouse.

We had planned on working more on the scavenger hunt we got for my bday but we misunderstood a clue and ended up downtown.  We decided to put the scavenger hunt on hold again and just walk along the Scioto Mile. Brooklyn decided she really loved this random, creepy deer statue and it was funny hearing her talk to it as if it was her best friend. I guess she really has missed being around people! We sat in the swinging benches, watched people paddleboard down the river, and even splurged and let the girls each take a short ride on an electric scooter right as a big downpour started.  We were pretty close to the car but by the time we got there, we were all soaked through! It was a very chill night but the weather was great and it was a night we really needed!

COVID numbers in Ohio had just gone down and the schools were determined to open up as quickly as possible so we only had one week of fully online school and then they announced they would be switching to a hybrid plan!  The poor teachers were left scrambling and working through the weekend to get things ready but my kids were so thrilled to be in school.  The Friday before it started, the teachers spent a lot of time on Zoom explaining all the new rules and how school would look during COVID times.  It was very overwhelming and stressful and my kids were freaking out!  It was a very long, emotional day and it made me really worried about how they would do at school.  It was even harder than usual to watch them walk in and I stressed about them all day! But they came running out after school with the biggest smiles on their faces and all talking so fast and excited. It made me really happy that we made the decision to start school, my kids really needed it!