Life was a whirlwind in April with spring break, the long-awaited start of in-person school for Griffin and Maggie, three birthdays (plus Piper’s), a cabin visit, and much that I’m forgetting. Lacking the time to write everything up in detail, here’s a selection of photos to remind us of these many events.
Bonus! Two videos.
As mentioned in prior posts, Oliver was in preschool this year for a few months at the beginning of the year. Now he is back at an outdoor preschool for three mornings a week.
Griffin and Maggie, however, have been in full distance-learning since last March. They’re used to it now, but it has been a major blow. A normal day in their Montessori school would involve 6-7 hours of constant interaction. Working with classmates, moving around the classroom, attending mini-lessons from the teacher, playing at recess, lunch, the school bus, etc.
Now they’ve got Zoom meetings, independent work, and an occasional minecraft game with their friends. I’m not knocking the school; they’re doing a great job. But the social gulf between this year and last is enormous.
It is with joy, therefore, that we dove into a program at their school where individual classes come to campus once-a-week for a few hours of all-outdoor social time. Maggie had her first day yesterday and Griffin went in this morning. (We only have a picture of Griffin at this point.) Hopefully this is the first step on the long road to normalcy.
Maggie, just now:
“Pannakukken is just like a pancake except it’s way bigger and not flat. <pause> And, it tastes totally different.”
(See our pannakukken recipe.)
These two are on each other’s nerves constantly. Constantly. So times like these that they have patience for each other, and clearly are delighting in each other, are pretty amazing. Oliver is very excited for his birthday in eight days, so Maggie is helping him make a paper chain to count down the days. Pretty amazing. 
Dog
Cute, beautiful
Sniffing, running, digging,
Make me feel safe
K-9
This week we discovered, to our dismay, that we have an interloper in our midst: COVID-19. Here’s how things have played out for us thus far:
Meanwhile, also starting on November 3, I noticed a bit of a scratch in my throat. Not quite a sore throat, but it wasn’t 100% either. Sarah had similar symptoms. I reported this in my health monitoring app for school and they told me to stay home on Tuesday (which was a teach-from-home day anyway). On Wednesday, I felt 100%, so I went to school. Same on Thursday. By Thursday evening, however, my mild sore throat had returned. I attributed it to the dry air, but I reported it on the app in the morning and, out of an abundance of caution, I stayed home again. Sarah was in a similar boat but we weren’t too concerned. This sort of thing happens as winter kicks in.
Once we got the call about Oliver, of course, we started wondering if our throats were indeed related to COVID. Indeed, every stray itch seems like it might be an ominous sign. We can’t be sure until we receive our test results.
At this point, we feel grateful that we are all healthy. Oliver has no symptoms at all. The rest of us have a few mild question marks, but certainly don’t feel sick. We are hopeful that we are either negative or that we’ll be in for a mild brush with the virus. Of course, we are 100% quarantined. I’ll post more as the situation evolves.
And, to my delight, as someone who appreciates a properly dark joke, a friend and colleague from the Bahamas shared this meme with me today (the Bahamian flag is at the bottom):
Our COVID Halloween wasn’t as bad as we might have expected. Indeed, at one point today, the kids exclaimed, “This is the best Halloween ever!” A few weeks ago we reluctantly told the kids that we weren’t comfortable going trick-or-treating this year. But, since Halloween was on a Saturday, we could spend the whole day doing Halloween activities. To our surprised delight, the kids were like, “Yeah! Let’s plan a schedule!” And they did. Starting with pumpkin pancakes in the morning. Then making piñatas, hanging lights in the yard, making rice crispy treat monsters, building a fire in the backyard, having our bubble-friends over, eating dinner, smashing piñatas, and finally watching the Over the Garden Wall animated series in the backyard curled up in blankets around the fire.
It might have been my favorite Halloween too…
We’ve had our puppy for two weeks now and we want to tell you about the second one. She has gotten to like us much better and is way more attentive. She loves playing with Coco, the dog across the street, but is scared of Josie the Great Dane. Piper has gotten bigger. She also has more of an appetite. She loves the liver treats and also she goes on some walks. We got her a bigger crate also. She is still the cutest thing ever. And she gives us delight. What else can a person ask for?
The latest addition to our family is Piper, an eight-week old goldendoodle puppy. We picked her up on Monday, June 15. Griffin and Maggie describe her like this:
We just got a puuuuuppppy!!!! She is a goldendoodle and she is a really great sweet dog. We named her Piper and she loves to play but doesn’t really like her crate yet. Piper loves outside, especially the bush. And she loves digging besides the house. She sleeps a lot and she rarely barks unless she’s scared. She is the cutest thing ever!
The “bush” that they mention is a clump of phlox at the edge of our yard; she likes to nap in the shade there, nearly invisible.
We had been idly considering a dog at some point in the next few years, but were in no rush. Like many people during the pandemic, however, we realized that the requirements of social distancing and a summer without many of our usual activities is an excellent time to focus our energy on a new project. Puppies are a lot of work, but we’re enjoying the journey so far.
Pictures from our first few days together followed by two short video clips:
