Author: eaumaison (Page 22 of 207)

I finished my birthday sweater earlier last month.  Less than two weeks to complete – I love working with bulky yarn for big warm sweaters!

Although we had some snow days since I finished the project, I haven’t worn it yet.  No where to go, no one to see, and couch days are not worthy of hand-knits!

How appropriate for Earth Day! It was a strong double, with a faint yellow-green-blue below the violet. Does that make it a triple?

I scrounged around and found some razor scooters for the kids. Most places are selling out especially in their favorite colors, but I scored some non-pink scooters to help get the kids outside.

It worked! They have gone out 3-4 times a day circling the neighborhood over and over. Lots of bumped ankles and some tumbles, but they seem to love it anyway!

Yeah, all the pictures are them zooming away from me. They don’t pause for me!

Look who has a bright new pair of peepers!

I’m impressed that the look and fit are very close to the virtual try-on from Zenni Optical, and that they got to us one week after ordering them!

Jack seems nervous and delighted.  He says it’s like looking through a magnifying glass.  He says it’s weird seeing everything so sharp 🙂 I think he looks quite sharp himself!

Here’s a long update of the last two weeks.  I probably should have split this into a couple posts. Ah well.

Like everyone in the country, we have drastically altered how we are living.  Ben and I are extremely fortunate that we can already work from home, so we have job security and I have been able to fully help the kids with their school-work-from-home.

Walking Ralston Creek

Walking Ralston Creek

A little spring sunshine

A pair of owls have been visiting the house

The other owl.

The schools scrambled to get everyone set up. We already have chromebooks at home, so we could leave those for other families to check out. Sam’s teacher sent him home with notebooks, pencils, crayons, etc, just in case.

We did one week of remote learning before spring break.  The kids took to it really well.  I’m not sure they are learning as much as they would have in a regular class, but I’m satisfied that they are learning SOMETHING and staying engaged and have a schedule for each day.

Music class

Morning meeting with his teacher and classmates.

Go Noodle for indoor recess.

Outdoor recess in the snow.

Art class – Sam loved this and did 3 instead of 1 picture, and continued drawing from videos over spring break.

Jack’s workspace, occasionally interrupted by Nimbus knocking down all his doodads. 

Even Jack’s piano class has gone virtual, using Skype with his teacher.

After the week of school, and after the winter storm abated, I took the kids to Grand Junction.  Ben and I and my folks debated the safety and ethics of coming.  We are virus-free, as far as we know, and so are they.  We wouldn’t stop on the drive over and wouldn’t be going anywhere but house-to-house, so I couldn’t see any harm in coming.  In the end, I’m really glad we made the trip.  It would have been a LONG week of no schedule and nothing to do at home.  At least they could putter around a different house with different toys and books.  Then the same day we got back to Arvada, the state issued a shelter-in-place mandate.  So once again, we were doing something at the last possible time (previously done for the zoo, a movie date, and then a local trip).

Seeing Betty from a safe distance outdoors.

An impromptu eye check and we discovered Jack needs glasses!  Grandpa figured out his prescription and we ordered frames from Zenni Optical.  Quickest (and cheapest) glasses initiation ever!

We went for a hike on the Mica Trail.  It was so cool!  Quartz and mica shimmered everywhere, and lots of interesting terrain for Sam to scramble over.  It was moderately busy, as everyone was trying to get out of the house where possible.  But everyone kept a good distance apart, even when passing each other on the trail.

We taught the kids Rummikub and they loved it!  Requested that we play it every evening.  

Sorting their massive coin collection.

On the look-out for another visit from the Masons.

We made spaghetti from scratch.

Dad and Sam and I made an apple pie.

Sam filled 1 1/2 notebooks with art while we were there.

Now we are back home for a few days before remote school starts on Monday.  I’m being relatively lazy with the kids.  I’m sleeping in.  They get to play video games later in the morning and earlier in the afternoon than I usually allow.  It’s a shame the weather turned cold again or we would go on more walks.  Oh well.

We got the new Animal Crossing game and are all infatuated with it.  I was hard core into Animal Crossing on the Game Cube back in 2002-2004.  This new version has lots of good updates but is the same game at heart.  The kids are loving its exploration and creative aspects.  It’s really great for all ages and a good way to pass the day inside.

We had a chilly but fun morning at the zoo. They were limiting capacity, closed all indoor exhibits, shows, and most restaurants. But we had a nice venture out of the house and saw some great animal interactions.

Nimbus had a fun time picking up the kids from school with me.

This is how I kept the cats from messing with my knitting while it blocked overnight.

Sam had a session of swim classes and made some big improvements!

My parents came out for a fun weekend of eating and shopping and visiting.  We love having family visit!

The Alamo theater had a fun photo spot for Onward.

The kids loved the movie.  It was a bit too stressful for us grown-ups, but it had a lot of great laughs.

Playing Marvel Champions with the family.

The boys both had friends over to play after school on Monday.  The cats were super jelly of the backyard time.

With my birthday money I bought some gorgeous yarn to make a sweater for myself.  It’s bulky yarn on size 11 needles.  Since this photo yesterday I’ve finished the body and started a sleeve.  I love fast knits!

And, like everyone else, we are so sick of talking about the coronavirus.  The schools announced they are closing and doing remote-learning from home.  There are terrible rumors flying amongst the kids at school that I’ve been trying to squash.  I’m actually really happy they are shutting down school and church and other gatherings BEFORE it got a strong foothold in our area.  Our plans to watch a local high school’s performance of Spamalot tonight was canceled.  We hope that tomorrow we can take the kids to the zoo – I figure it’s a wide open park that even on busy days doesn’t get too crowded.  As long as places are open for business we are going to try to help the economy if it’s reasonably safe to do so.  We have movie tickets to see Emma tomorrow night and a babysitter set up, we’ll see if the movie theater stays open too.

We talked to the kids a lot about the school closures and got chromebooks set up with their school accounts.  Sam stayed on to play Prodigy (a math game) before going to bed.  An hour later he dropped this note on me from the stairway:

School at home might be fun! I wonder if I finish math I can play prodigy? Just the COVID-19 makes us do school at home.  Love Sam. P.S. I’m excited!

Well put.  And yes, we will have fun, and you can play Prodigy.

Thursday was my birthday and I now 38 years old.  Getting up there, aren’t I?  😉

I had a relaxing mid-week celebration.  Ben worked from home so I could have “time off work.”  He made the kids their meals and took them to school and parent-teacher conferences.   First we opened presents; I got many thoughtful things.  Ben got me this tortilla blanket that has become a family favorite.  (And a Le Creuset pot and Kate Spade earrings, and many other lovely things.)

I had a massage at a nearby spa, followed by a lunch date with Ben at Hops and Pie.  Love that place.  Every meal I’ve had there is delicious.

Mom and Dad were planning to come up this weekend, but alas, another snowstorm has blown through.  They made the safe and reasonable choice to stay home.

My penpal Steffi also had her birthday this month.  I asked her what sort of cake she had, and she said she made a “Donauwelle” cake.  Despite my years watching Food Network and GBBO and collecting cookbooks, I have never heard of this cake that she claims is very popular in her country.  Intrigued, she linked me a recipe and I made my own!

Delicious!  I found “Morello cherries” imported from Germany at Trader Joe’s (Thanks, Amanda!) that looked like the ones I saw used by German youtubers making the cake.  My chocolate layer is not very dark, and the sponge was a bit dry.  Maybe I overbaked it or added too much flour (for high altitude).  But Ben and my friends, who came to share, all loved it.  Unlike American cakes, it was only mildly sweet.  I loved the pudding buttercream layer.  I’ll have to try this one again someday.  I sent a picture to Steffi to see if she approves 🙂

After a fairly dry January, we had a string of snowstorms blow through Colorado.  One week had a delayed start Tuesday and then a snow day Friday.  The kids gleefully got up earlier than usual to watch Star Wars in their jammies.

Later that day we put them to work, helping Ben shovel out the walkways.  I think Ben shoveled 4 times on Friday – the snow just kept coming!

Saturday was warm, helping to thaw out the ice a bit.  The Sunday we had another storm big enough to cancel church and my Oscars party.

We had a few more flurries during this past week, but not too much more.  Here’s the kids in the yard on Valentine’s Day showing off the accumulation that came up to their knees.

I fulfilled my last room parent party duty by organizing and hosting the 4th grade Valentine’s party on Thursday, Friday the 14th being a teacher work-day. Tomorrow is also off school for President’s Day.   Between this four day weekend, the previous week’s snow days, and extra volunteer time in the school, I’m pretty sick of my kids.  Love em to bits, but man, can’t wait for them to go away.

Sadly, Jack has been fighting a cold all weekend.  He’s got a productive cough and had a fever of 101 this afternoon.  Feeling better tonight after some ibuprofen and a hot bath.  I hope after his day off tomorrow he’s ready to go back to school on Tuesday.