Summer 2020 Randomness

Summer 2020 was still kind of a weird time...things were kind of opening up, but mostly, not really.  Restaurants were still only doing curbside pickup (and that quickly became our jam), and some people would let their kids have play dates, and some wouldn't.  It was kind of a low-key summer, which means the kids were mostly whining that they were bored and wanted more screen time from morning until night.

To pass the time (and try to get the kids outside), Preston got a skateboard, and Arden was the one who played with it the most.  She has good balance and learned a few tricks.

There were some good sunsets, and we were home a lot so we saw them from our house.

Arden was so bored she resorted to poking more holes in her head than were there before.  She is up to five (two in each earlobe, and one on the top).  She would often get her hair caught in the top one which would make her scream, but she loved it.  

Our lawn was looking especially bad, so Preston ordered some ummmm...natural fertilizer.  I authorized it, but when I got home and saw the van-sized pile of poopoo on the lawn I was so shocked that I took its picture.

It took us quite a while to spread that stuff around the yard, but it did help quite a bit.  

I was still working from home exclusively, and had a little summertime system.  Cora had soccer practice early in the morning a couple of days a week, and I would go for a run during that, and then I would be super hot.  So I would grab my laptop and go sit on the deck.  Pretty often, this yellow bird would come and sing me a song:

And more often than not, the cat would want to come and keep me company.  This didn't help the whole "keeping cool" situation, but he didn't seem to care.  

Then it was the 4th of July.  The kids were super bummed because the big fireworks show at the golf course was (of course) cancelled.  Plus, fireworks are banned at our house due to fire danger.  So...we just went up to grandma's and did sparklers.  Next best thing, right??

It was pretty exciting when Xander and Emmy got sparklers...it was their first time and it was magical...until Xander burned his fingers.  Yup, fire is hot.  

Then, it was my birthday...again, not much to do about it, but the pedicure place had opened back up, so I took the girls down to celebrate.  We had to sit far apart from each other and keep our masks on, but it was still nice to "go out" and my feet were in pretty rough shape (as per usual), so I quite enjoyed myself.  

The girls are smiling under those masks, I'm sure.

Then we had pretty toes!!  Well, my toes are just weird, but at least the toenails are pretty.  

And guys, look at this cake Cora made for me!  So beautiful!  She is turning into quite a talented little baker.  

Then, before we knew it, "Summer Band" had started up.  Dax had signed up to play the trumpet after the junior high band teacher visited his 6th grade class (before the shutdown).  Arden wasn't interested in band, so this was my first experience.  Apparently the trumpet is really hard to play when you are a beginner, and Dax was surprised that he couldn't make any music-like sounds come out of it.  After a session or two of band, he came home and ran out on the deck where I was working, and showed me that he had learned to make trumpet-like sounds!  

Great job Dax!  But man, trumpets are really loud!  

We weren't sure whether we should go ahead with our annual summer cabin trip with the Wongs, but none of us had any covid-like symptoms, so we decided to go for it.  The kids loved having people to hang out with!

We went up to Bloomington Lake, and I really wanted to swim across the lake and jump off some cliffs.  Arden, Zane, Nash, and even Lincoln swam across.  There were a few logs floating in the lake, so we would swim from log to log to cross the lake.  I wished that we had brought some life jackets, as Lincoln was getting pretty tired, but we all made it okay.  It is hard to see, but here is Zane getting ready to jump.  It doesn't look that high, but it was pretty high when you were looking down from the top!  

The next day, the kids wanted to do an escape room, but there was a maximum of 10 people, so us parents volunteered to stay out and let the kids try and solve it themselves.  Us grownups had a nice relaxing time sitting at a nearby restaurant across the street and sipping some sodas and talking, and turns out the kids are super smart and escaped the room with just a few minutes to spare!  

We played a lot of tag, and I loved this picture of the kids running around, and Olive helpfully just running in circles around everyone.  Perfect moment.  

Another time that summer we had a couple of visitors to our salt lick.  It was a mother and her teenage daughter I think.  So cute.  

And just like that....summer was over.