Passing Time

I'm not going to lie, July was tough. Not strenuous tough, but mentally challenging as we have achieved a rut where most days are pretty much the same. What day of quarantine are we on now...? 140 days!! Lately, it's been either too hot and humid or too rainy to offer much of a change of scenery outdoors. On some days, a small group of moms walk and kids bike 3 miles in the nearby park, but we're home before 10am and drenched with sweat. However, it's worth it to be active and to have people to discuss the crazy school options we're faced with for this fall. On one particular day, Owen was desperate to get out of the house, so I took him out for some 1-on-1 time. His choice: Donuts! His pick: a coconut cream-filled donut as big as his hand.

We have tried a few more online classes for fun to break up the monotony, but they can be a little lackluster, especially if the kids aren't super interested (RIP, Mandarin and Anatomy). It's also glitchy to watch videos over Zoom (So long, Harry Potter movie club and Brain Games). One that we made them watch was chess. They love it, can't you tell? Ha ha! Maybe some day they'll appreciate having some chess knowledge...

We did make it back to Surfside for another beach day. It makes for a long, sticky, dirty day, but it's great for a change of scenery. We learned our lesson from the last visit and reapplied sunscreen a few times, which made the following days much more enjoyable. They were having a lot of seaweed wash up on the beach that day, but the kids didn't care about it at all. Personally, I did not like the feeling of seaweed clusters brushing up on me in the water, but it was slightly better than the partial breeze that was covering everything in sand under our umbrella.

It could be worse, right? At least we are stuck with people that we like most of the time.

All of this time together has really shone a light on personality quirks. For example, Hadley declared at lunch that she was "eating Ruffles, not potato chips." We told her that Ruffles were, in fact, potato chips, but she claimed we were wrong. I found the bag, showed her where it says "potato chips", and asked her how she explained that. She nonchalantly, without skipping a beat, says, "that's just a typo." This is my life! So many questions... how does she know the word typo? how is she so brazen and flippant already at age 8? what does this mean for future arguments? Stay tuned! (I will also have it noted that she was excited to turn 8 "because that's almost 10, which is closer to being a teenager." And she is saving her birthday money for her first apartment. What? I don't even think I had birthday money at her age, but if I did, I was probably saving up for a Barbie or something... Sheesh.)

July 2nd Times the 4th Equals 8

Hadley turned 8! This year she was very interested and involved in her cake making. She wanted chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, and some piping decorations. We made the best chocolate cake ever, and it was! We had some leftover vanilla buttercream (dyed orange) from Father's Day cupcakes, so that was what she decorated with. She was so excited to use a piping bag!! But I think the frosting was too loose, so any detail was quickly lost, and it became more of an abstract piece.

Since 2020 is the year of no parties, I told Hadley that she could be the boss (within reason) on her birthday. She said she just wanted books and cake for her birthday, oh and a drive-by parade, if possible. We also went for a yard decoration, as we'd seen a few around the neighborhood over the last few months.

Now, about that parade... It was a tough time to be on a Thursday before a holiday weekend, but we did scrape together a few cars to come by. It was plenty for Hadley, as it was searingly hot! Bonus that the fire truck even came by, sirens blazing!!

 

Finally, it was time for cake! Uncky Dan and family came over to share in a birthday dinner and the birthday song before cake. The cake was a delicious end to the day!

Speaking of deliciousness, here are the last couple of days' goodies from cooking camp. When I asked her if she wanted to do cooking camp on her birthday, she replied, "of course I do!" The first two pics were on her birthday, doing what she loves to do - even with sticky pizza dough, and yes, she is wearing a leotard under her apron because it was her birthday. Why not?

Cooking camp's red, white, and blue everything bled on into our 4th of July. Now that I know you can dye just about anything, we had red and blue pancakes for breakfast, though in pastels, they looked more like they belonged at a baby shower.

Then we dyed some vanilla frosting and iced our rice krispie treats to take to the neighbors', where we BBQ'ed burgers and hot dogs and cooled off in the pool.

After a brief intermission, we reconvened for street fireworks, starting with sparklers, Roman Candles, and snaps. Several houses on our street had big fireworks (including where we were), and we were pretty surrounded from other neighborhoods with big shows all around. It seems like people were making up for not being able to go to city displays this year. But amazingly, it all shut down at a reasonable time.

How's this for a patriotic pic? Happy birthday, 'Merica! 

In other news, our neighbor is home from college for a few more weeks and teaches private tennis lessons to kids in the neighborhood. We figured since we can't swim this summer, at least we could make use of the tennis courts, which are still open. So, the kids have been to a couple of lessons and have really enjoyed it so far.

It's too hot during the day, but we might make this a family activity in the evenings every once in a while. It's really nice to be active together! We're missing our hikes...