This and That

We made our first family outing on Friday. We decided to take a trip to Ollie's. It was the first time the kids had been to a store since March 15th. Everyone wore a mask and chose a book. I was thinking maybe it was time that we could start venturing out a little more, but the cases in Florida have been rising again. There is still so much conflicting information that things are really hard to figure out. Regardless, we will continue to take it slow.

The first week of no-school went okay. We gave the kids a list of tasks to do each day. It is similar to what they had to do when school was in session: an hour of physical activity, an hour outside, time with Luke (or if you are Luke, time with each of his siblings), some math, reading and writing (not a lot, just enough to avoid summer slide). They didn't do everything we asked everyday, but it is a work in progress. The time with Luke is basically forcing the older kids to babysit, but they haven't complained about that one. We did give them the opportunity to write their own schedule and warned them that whatever they came up with would likely be preferable to what we came up with, but only Kara took us up on it. They have all said they would rather be at camp, even Jack, which I feel bad about. But, hopefully, we can make it up to them once Covid is behind us.

Work is still busy for Thomas and me. I sometimes feel like our days are busier now than they were before this began. It is definitely harder finding balance, but we both still prefer teleworking to physically going to the office. It is so nice not having to make the commute and having more time at home, even if it does feel busier. And, of course, wearing comfy clothes all day is a nice benefit. We had thought that we were going to have the opportunity for significant telework when this ended, but now it is looking like maybe one day a week. That wouldn't even be worth the hassle. We will wait and see what happens.

Kim and her family came over a couple of weeks ago. We played games and the kids swam and it was nice. Then, the following weekend we went to Marta's house. Her pool is huge and we had a ton of fun playing in it. They even stuck a kayak in. Jack has been begging us to get one, but we haven't figured out the logistics. Today, Kim and her family are coming up again and we are going to celebrate JD's graduation. It is really nice spending all this time with family. Hopefully, today I will think to get a picture with the Mottas. 

Jack was really smart and combined his outdoor, exercise and Luke time into one pool session.

Kara put time to practice contortion in her daily schedule.

Luke lost his first tooth!!! He was so excited for the tooth fairy to visit.

Kayaking in the Tilley's massive pool

And, the final picture requires a little bit of explanation. Somehow, Anna and Kara convinced Thomas to let them dye their hair. I wanted nothing do with it, so they went on a bike ride to CVS and Thomas let them pick out their colors. Only, when they came home, Anna had picked out a permanent silver color. Kara had chosen a semi-permanent purple. I explained to Anna that the permanent meant that the color would not come out until her hair grew out. Fortunately, she made the decision to use some of Kara's leftover color to put in purple highlights. Kara's purple came out really nice. However, it mostly came out after her first pool swim. She enjoyed it for the day it lasted. It is still a little purple, but nothing like this picture. Anna's is harder to see, especially in pictures, but it looks nice.