The Night Before...

 Ready or not, here we come, online school year!  I know we've had the kids home since March and it's really been an extra long summer break, but now that we are here, on the eve of the first day of school, it feels too soon!  I am remembering my senior year of high school and how I chose the quote "Stop the world. I want to get off." for my yearbook entry, which sounded like I was depressed, but really I was enjoying life so much and when it came time for that chapter to end, it just felt like the world was spinning too fast.  I think it's always like that with change.  At least for me.  The kids seem to be adjusting to the idea okay, though Allie has been tearful and shouting about things that wouldn't normally set her off.  I think the older ones realize it's not as big a deal as if they were preparing to be getting up early and leaving the house all day again.  I think Joshua might be a bit relieved not to have to walk into that big high school just yet.  

The last week has been tiring, but good, as I've gotten to see what my new job will be like from here on out and I've enjoyed it.  The kids are super cute and I'm getting to actually teach them some--how to write their letters and numbers and begin to read.  They make videos of their work, which I check online, and some are just hilarious as they wonder big thoughts out loud, like why in the world animals are reading books in their story anyway, since that can't happen in real life.  It's been a bit of a learning curve figuring out various features of zoom, like sharing the screen of my cell phone camera so they can watch me draw on the whiteboard on my desk.  The first day of that, I had texts from Matt coming up on my screen as well, asking me what I wanted to do for our anniversary (which parents could read) and once I put in the incorrect password and had to awkwardly wait a minute before it would let me sign in, but overall I feel like I've got it now.  

As for the kids, we have set up the their learning spaces, posted their schedules, planned their wake up times, assembled their supplies, and had one crazy night of open house online in which we ran from kid to kid trying to take notes and not miss anything important.  So I guess we're ready??  The girls will ease in slowly the first few days and have some small group orientation time and some time off.  I am online with a group of kids just about every half hour so I'm glad Matt will be there for the first day to help make sure everything is going smoothly.  Allie met two of her classmates in the neighborhood this afternoon.  She was a mix of clingy and chatty, depending on the moment.  Overall, I'm so thankful that she seems socially on target for her age and really enjoys other kids.  

Here's how the end of summer has gone...

After enjoying their time with cousins on our VA trip, the kids got together to make Part 2 of their movie, The Mask.  Gray was former scientist, Dr Phil, helping avenge his twin brother's death (himself in part 1).  He later got on a Bible Study zoom with the marker beard, not realizing it was still on, but sadly (in my opinion) did not turn on the video feed so no one got to witness it.  

Mama and Daddy were so kind to take the girls for my first week of school, which made my week so much easier since I had to be gone a lot of the days to work at the school.  The boys are so independent and once Matt left for his friend trip, I really took it easy in the cooking department, which was such a nice break.  We played a game a few times and had some marathons of the The Office.  Meanwhile, the girls loved their time with Mimi and GrandGene and would have been glad to say longer.  I worked a ton and by Friday, my teacher didn't have much for me to do, so I set off to the hospice thrift store, where I happily shopped for 3 1/2 hours and found the furniture needed to set up school areas for the kids, plus other odds and ends like 50% off Christmas decorations.  Bargain shopping is my favorite!  I even got to work on refinishing one of the tables that night while watching one of my favorite old movies, as the boys were doing a movie night in the neighborhood.  

Saturday morning, Gray and I headed to VA for a lacrosse tournament.  It was so weird being around that many people again and I felt a little uncomfortable because most of them weren't wearing masks (we were outside of course) and it's just been so long since I've been in a crowd.  

It was a super hot day and Gray had fun but we were glad to finish up and head home.  

The next day was Joshua's turn to play.  He had a great time, as several of his good friends are on the team.  

Matt enjoyed his annual Galax trip with his buddies and then drove with one of them (who also had a lacrosse player) over to the tournament to watch Joshua.  His friend's kid is a senior and had late games so they had a really long, hot day that ended in a bit of sunburned necks. 

This past week was fairly uneventful.  The kids played with friends. I worked all day and tried to keep everyone fairly quiet and busy.  

 

Allie continues to show her knack for learning things quickly and can now braid.

Here she is meeting her teacher on the zoom Open House.  Later, she got her iPad for school and is sooo proud to have a device of her own.  The kids were all so excited about it and crowded around to let her show them.

Julia was thrilled to get back on the ice yesterday for a free skate.

Katelyn met her there to show her the ropes.

Matt and I have our 17th anniversary today and went out last night.  Gray bought himself a new nerf gun this week and that has revived everyone's interest in nerf wars.  The kids had us hide the guns all over the house and they all 4 battled while we were gone.  There were rules, eye protection, tears from Allie and her exclamation that "They 'hud' them too hard!".  In the end, the kids seemed closer to each other when we got back and we were thinking we should do this more often.  We were going to pick up food and eat outside, but the weather wasn't great to so we dined in at a place downtown...the first time we've eaten in a restaurant in forever.  It was a long meal, but so good, and we appreciated the time to talk, just the two of us.  Afterwards, we drove to pick up milkshakes for the kids.  Great ending to this weird summer in which things were nothing like I ever thought they would be, but full of blessings at the same time.  Holding my breath that we'll say the same about this virtual schooling!!

Crazy Days of Summer

We got back from our beach trip and things got really busy really fast, as I started my new job and had full days of training, we hosted Jeannie and fam for a couple days, went on a whirlwind trip to VA, and my school started up this week.  There were many last minute changes along the way that have had my head spinning trying to figure out how to be at all the right places at the right times and do everything I need to do for my jobs, family activities, and getting the kids ready to start school.  Thankful the girls could get away with my parents a few days to limit their time running feral at home ;).  And at this moment, the boys have run off to tennis and it's oddly quiet around here.  

Here are some highlights from this very full last week..

1) Eno River hike with the Moores as soon as they arrived.  We walked and chatted, skipped rocks, got in the water, and (some of us) showed how directionally challenged we are. :)

2) Spur of the moment, everyone pile in the car to witness Joshua driving to get Raven around the corner at Matt's parents'.  Yes, Gray is wearing a mustache sweater on one of the hottest days of the year.  Yes, Julia is sitting in Allie's carseat.  It's a short ride.  Joshua has been eager to practice driving around the neighborhood lately.  I think I'm a pretty calm passenger (ignore the face in this picture).  I just give him lots of grave reminders on what can happen in the blink of an eye.

3) Trip to Whitt's in which 5 of 6 kids got a root beer float.

Then the Moores left, I did a ton of training and got to know my new coworkers (it's an awesome place to work so far, by the way), and we packed up for the next trip...

4) Last fall, Matt's sister planned this 50th Anniversary trip to celebrate Matt's parents.  We got to the lake house in Abingdon late Friday night and headed down to ride the Creeper Trail the next morning.  About a quarter of us were fairly sure we'd fall off.  You can see from Julia's "before" face that she was one of these people, having never ridden with hand brakes.  After a week of training for my new job in things like "growth mindset" and how to encourage students to step out and be challenged, I was kind of happy she was forced to be stretched.  

5) We had an hour shuttle ride in which I enjoyed chatting with the cousin kids, which doesn't happen nearly enough, then arrived at the top of the trail and got on our bikes.  Right about then I was losing my optimism about this adventure because Allie's bike (hooked to Matt's) was ginormous for her and every time Matt moved, her whole body went to the side like she was going to fall.  Matt was having visions of riding the 17 miles with her in his backpack, but this little firecracker came through.  She gripped those wide handlebars, tiny legs just dangling there, and held on for dear life.  In minutes, she was all smiles, and by the end she had even figured out how to pedal a little bit.  

6) And my big girl?  Well she managed to figure out those hand brakes just fine.  She was so brave and tried to keep up with the big kids.  She had a great time!  (And was the only one wearing a helmet, though at times, many of us wished we were!)  

7) We stopped for lunch on the side of the road...in retrospect, we would have enjoyed going ahead to a spot by the river...particularly after a FedEx truck came around the bend like it was going to run Gray over.  At different points along the trail, the people in the front (mostly the teen cousins) would stop and wait for all to rendezvous for a minute before gleefully shouting "on your left" and passing the rest of us as they headed on down the trail.  I loved seeing the kids having such a good time together.  

8) And as for me, my view most of the ride was of these cuties.  When Matt would hold out his legs, Allie would imitate.  She did a lot of chatting on the ride and occasionally made requests to pull over and take a quick break, at which point I could get some pictures, since I could only let go of my handlebars for a quarter second without just about losing control of the bike!  

9) We all made it to the end and then had to tell our war stories...there were falls while biking, near misses, taking out of fences while crashing, falls while climbing rocks on a break, mud splashed on clothes and faces, and my personal favorite-- a story of Joshua losing control of his pedals and riding on his handlebars for a bit, to the cackling delight of his observing cousin.  

10) In the afternoon, we checkout the lake.  It was just beautiful out there with the trees, mountains, and water.  Allie continued to show her bravery at 5 by swimming in the lake and going all the way under the water without crying for the first time.  She is usually so cautious and was incredibly proud of this moment.  She even went tubing later.

11) The boys enjoyed taking out the kayaks.

12) This party raft was pretty cool too.

13) Fresh off her lake experience at camp, Julia was loving every minute.

14) Later, we took out the boat.  Allie was loving her cousin time!

15) Clearly, tubing was pretty boring.  ;)

16) Matt really loved driving the boat.  This picture was of our "sunset cruise" after a nice dinner we made for Barnette and Cindy.

17) The happy couple!  We enjoyed talking with them at dinner about their 50 years together and the keys to making it through.

18) I think Sophia took this of me.  Proof I relaxed and had fun!  It was perfect.

19) Allie rode the tube in various siblings laps and even went one time on her own side of the boat.  I was a little afraid of what would happen if she flipped out, but it was pretty unflippable with people in both sides.  We know because the boys made it their mission to flip each other out later.

19) Just relaxing as we went out to explore the area...all the way to Tennessee on Sunday morning.

20) The older three each got a turn to drive the boat.  Matt even took a turn in the tube and *almost* got dumped out.  

And then it was time to come home and back to reality again.  Matt and I had to be up to leave the house/start teaching at 6 Monday morning, but we were so thankful for the time we had to enjoy the weekend.  This week I've been heading into work for very small "meet the teacher" type days and it's been good to feel more connected to the school and staff and to begin to get to know the kids.  Starting next week, I'll be teaching 8 classes a day of small groups of kindergarteners some days, so it's going to be something!  I've been trying to brainstorm how to set up school spaces for my kids at home and make them as independent as possible so we can all get our meetings and work done at the same time.  Whew.  We're going to need a Julia spa day (see her creation below) when this is over.  :)  Or another trip to the beach would work too!  I'm sure there are going to be a lot of ups and down, tears and triumphs this year.  Here's hoping we all come out on the other side with many lessons learned and a smile on our faces!

Birthday and Beach!

Allie's birthday finished up great!  She had a few of her friends come to the deck for a slime party.  She and Julia have a slight slime obsession so they were both in heaven and Julia was happy to be an assistant with her friend Addie.  They did a great job!

We also had buckets of water beads.  Within minutes, they were in the buckets.  Just cannot get enough of the sensory experience!

Julia and Addie helped make the birthday brownies- oreo on one side, peanut butter M&Ms on the other.  

When her friends left, Allie didn't realize she hadn't opened any gifts from us!  She was excited about her pedal bike and by the next day she could ride it fairly well.  I was pretty surprised, considering how cautious she is.  Having that balance bike enabled her to skip the training wheels and made the transition a piece of cake!

As the birthday excitement settled down, we geared up for our Mom/kid beach trip.  The kids did great on the ride down.  Gray snuck this picture while I ran into the grocery store on our way in.

By afternoon, our friends had arrived.  We didn't have Robyn's oldest, but otherwise, all the neighborhood "adoption group" kids were there.  Yes, we knew we were taking a risk here.  It's still the times of coronavirus and though we had seen these families outside on an almost daily basis, we had not been hanging out inside at all.  This was a conscious choice to envelop each other into our "covid pod" and just be normal for a week.  The first thing us moms did was give each other long overdue hugs.  It was just so good to not worry about quarantine for a few days!

We went right down to the beach after an early dinner and made the kids take the obligatory age order group photo.  Then they were released to play.

There were girl chats.

There was some game where Gray took the football and everyone else tried to get it.

These girls were so happy to have days and days together ahead. 

When everyone was in the ocean, we did a lot of just watching them, both out of concern for their safety and because it was so fun to see them play together.  We also did lots of counting kids!

Gray spent most of this trip covered from head to toe in either water or sand or both.  He also chose the dog bed as his sleeping arrangement.

The next day there was more beach in the morning.  Allie's little birthday party crew flocked together to play in the sand. 

It was fun to see the different groups of kids enjoying hanging out.

These two goofballs stuck together a lot.

This day, we went out for a second time.  We were beginning to get into a rhythm of sending Lisa down on the "rickshaw" bike with the kids that could get ready a little faster.  Usually Kim and I brought up the rear with Allie and Molly, in various states of mood, sometimes on their bikes, on foot, or on scooters. 

These girls really bonded and had so much fun jumping off the ledge that had formed all up and down the beach that evening.

This ledge was as tall as Allie and could be a challenge to some of us.  Many of us slid/fell down or up it throughout the week.  

These two spent a ton of time together, building their sweet friendship, with just a touch of romantic moments.  ;)

Speaking of romantic moments, Caleb is always responsible and ready to set Allie straight when she goes off track.  :)  It's adorable.  

Us moms did a lot of mom-ing this week...cooking, cleaning, managing, sunscreening, counseling, carrying, washing kids, doing laundry, and whatever else is involved with keeping a household of 20 running and happy!  But the times we could sit and watch our kids and chat made it all worthwhile.

We even managed to settle the older kids upstairs with a movie, the younger kids downstairs with Allie's beloved Frozen 2, and sneak off to the middle floor pullout couch to watch our own movie- Crazy, Rich Asians.  

These friends are so crucial to my sanity and such a gift!

Speaking of mom-ing the crew...this is how we did dinner.  Get it cooked and put various amounts of the main dish on a bazillion plates, then let the kids go through and grab a plate and vegetables.  It was amazingly super smooth.

This is snack time on the beach.  There was an exorbitant amount of snacking this trip.  As you'd expect.

This is what it looks like to take 16 kids to Sweet Spot for ice cream.  We all wore our masks and went in by family.  Again, surprisingly pretty smooth.

This is the only pic I got of my 4 together.  They did do things together but also with their friends, which kept their arguments to a minimum.

From our walk to ice cream, we headed to the pier.  The older kids were so great with helping out the younger ones on long walks or in the ocean.

These girls were spotted hugging by the social distancing sign.  

The pier was a big hit, particularly when the kids spotted a medium-sized shark that had been caught on the deck below.  One of them said, "Just when I thought my day couldn't get better."  That's kind of how it felt to me most days of our trip.  We would have a great time on the beach, enjoy beach house time playing games, then end our day watching, more often than not, "The Middle", which I find hilarious and the kids did too.  Every day was just such a good day, ending in laughter and smiles.

These three stooges are something else.  They sometimes argue, sometimes shout, sometimes wrestle, but always come back together, happy to be friends.

More beach fun...that is Gray down there under the sand.  He then started a series of sand burying of other children.

Yes, he wanted everything but his nose and mouth under the sand.

More beach fun- Sharks and Minnows on our last day.

These two put in a lotttt of time together.

Beach house fun... All the kids had just as much fun at the house as on the beach.  There were pretend games, long conversations about all sorts of things, games of Uno and bananagrams, parties in Allie's playpen, basketball, tv watching, oh- and of course snacking.  

On the last day, I brought Joshua's phone down to take some pictures on the beach in portrait mode.  I  always take a little too many, but it's one of my favorite things to do there!  The last night, some of the kids helped make breakfast for dinner and the moms ended the night with a kid-free chat on the deck after everyone went to bed.  We woke and cleaned and packed and cleaned some more and headed home.  What a great trip we had!  And now it's time to embrace the changes ahead.  I start orientation for my new job Monday and the kids at my school start the following week.  I'm still not quite sure what my duties will be in this quarter of virtual learning.  And I'm still not quite sure how it's going to work when my kids start their virtual quarter and we're all logging on to our meetings all day.  I'm sure we're going to have some stories to tell when this is all over!  For now, trying to take it one day at a time and feeling thankful for the memories of this strange, but good summer and for the people we've gotten to share it with.