Quarantine week 9-ish
Maui is under stay at home orders until the end of June at least at this point (and 14 days quarantine for all arrivals and inter-island travel), but they are also opening things up so things are shifting. Stores are open although we didn’t go. Beaches opened yesterday and we did go (last pics)…where we went was not crowded so felt very safe but the hour drive to get there every other beach we passed as mobbed and the surf spots were mobbed which doesn’t make sense as we have been allowed to surf all along.
Lots of good this week, including:
Social distancing with John and Jo on Mother’s Day
A walk on the boardwalk, with the kids visiting with Lazy Cat
A monk seal napping on our beach, so fun to see
Bodie’s graduation in Colorado which we are sooooo sad to miss. We did make him some signs and a little movie to help celebrate. Hoping we will be able to celebrate properly in August
Surf
Early-morning duck pond (a new routine of ours)
Friday after-school PJs and screen time (there are only 2 more weeks of school, so crazy)
Bears vs Babies with kids teaming up against me (and winning)
The aforementioned beach trip, so delightful
Also my job continues along, Jeff is making us lots of yummy meals and doing all the work of homeschool and running the household, we are watching “Bering Sea Gold” as a family (very entertaining), garden is progressing although a potion of what I planted was eaten, phone calls and Zoom and FaceTime with people we love…
All is well…just trying to stay positive and healthy and helpful…
Happy Sunday!
XO
Stuffies go rock climbing, corn dog pizza + a cool T. Rex
Some pics from the last few days (the one of Jeff and I is from last weekend) and a few lovely things:
Jeff expects a lot of the kids with homeschool and they have really stepped up
Field trip #2 with the stuffies today…they went rock climbing…
Kids making pizza as a cooking project for science class…they wanted to make corn dog pizza so Jeff put together a ketchup-like tomato sauce and everyone said it was yummy (I wasn’t brave enough to try, haha)
Zoey’s T. Rex from her diorama…it was 100% her idea to make a 3-D model…I just helped with the flour/water paste to make it sturdy
We were on the other side yesterday and got some starter plants…birds have been eating my seeds…just got everything in the ground and fingers crossed that things start growing…
Surf planned for this weekend and Jeff is making a meal for me for Mother’s Day…and I know the kids have been working on stuff for me in school which I am sure that I will love…
Happy Friday!
XO
Zoey cooks, an early-morning hike + office organization
Today I’m grateful for:
Zoey wanting to cook with me. We pick a treat and make it each week. This week was multi-layered popsicles…they turned out so pretty
We tried hiking first thing this morning before it got hot and everyone but Zo was surprisingly energetic and cheerful. Went up to the duck pond, so great to have such lovely places to hike here…
Work isn’t quite so busy today so getting caught up on office stuff…I just started doing that first time ever in the New Year and now if I don’t get it done everything feels off…
Vegetarian tacos and home-made margaritas (for the grown-ups) tonight for Cinco de Mayo…
Grateful for how hard our school has worked to make online school possible…
Happy Tuesday!
XO
Quarantine week 7-ish
Some lovely things this week:
Kids riding their bikes while we walk the beach walk. Usually bikes aren’t allowed but nobody’s really down there and the few security guards we’ve seen don’t seem to mind…
The anniversary of my brother Luke dying was Wednesday, gosh it’s still such a hard day. But met Jerica at first light and saw the beautiful sunrise pictured here and then went to another spot to surf, small waves but still fun and a turtle popped his head up right next to us and there were some foot-long black fish frolicking on the surface, fun to watch I’ve never seen that…good way to start the day for sure…
Zo got a 3-pack of little sheep dog toys with her allowance and sends them to daycare while she is at school, along with their BFF the lego piggy. Last week it was Daddy Day Care, this week Mommy. I got a checklist with their schedule and they built with blocks and played hacky sack and colored and napped. And on Friday they took a sailing field trip, which delighted Zo and was fun for me…it was a half hour out of my day but taking stuffed animals sailing so I could have pics for Zo and she knew I really cared about her day care request was fun to do, added a little variety, everything feels same same same these days…
LOL dolls are the rage with girls these days and Zo and I (and Luke a bit too) have been playing with them, it’s been really fun. I loved playing dolls growing up, so fun now with my kids…
Today’s Saturday and we’ve played LOLs and are playing the video game “Fishy” on TV right now as a family (taking turns with the controls), think I’m going to make lemon pasta and a salad for dinner, talked with my parents earlier, took Newton for a walk to S-Turns and there were turtles right at the shoreline…we’ve been reading Winnie the Pooh and will probably do some of that tonight and I’m still making progress through The Brothers Karamazov (slow progress, but progress)…it’s windy and a little stormy and kind of a good inside kind of day…all is well…
XOXO
Quarantine week 6-ish
Another week safe at home. Some highlights:
Hikes with the family and surf with Jerica (we meet but don’t get within 6 feet)
And one day I tried to surf and nothing, so I sat in a tree downed in the water and watched a turtle swim around
Lego madness with the kids
Kids made dinosaur dioramas which turned out awesome, they did 100% of the work (aside from a little requested hot glue assistance)…the one pictured here is Lukes (with the asteroid coming down in the middle)…I’ll post pics of Zoey’s next week
Lounging on the couch with a good book
Grateful we are all safe and really loving all the time we are spending together!
XO
COVID quarentine week 5-ish
Another week in isolation and all is well…it’s really nice this time together actually although not much to report. Hikes and surf and school and work and yummy food and reading and games and some sort of fun TV together most evenings (right now it’s The Voice)…oh and we all have to wear masks starting this week so that’s new…and we saw some nesting seabirds on one of our hikes and Zo found a bird’s nest while cleaning up palms…and Thursday night is now “kids night” where the kids get dinner on their own (that we fix ahead of time) and then iPADs upstairs while we do a weekly video happy hour with Maui friends and then watch a movie kids wouldn’t enjoy, fun to have something a little different to look forward to. And surf yesterday we saw 2 turtles and either 2 big seals or the same one twice…love seeing wildlife out there…saw just a glimpse of a whale before we got in the water but they are leaving and any sighting could be our last. And just learned the kids’ teacher, whom we LOVE, is going to be the new principal at their school which is great. So I guess some things did happen this week. :)
Happy Monday!
XO
Easter dress-up
Been a while since I put on a dress and shoes other than flip-flops, did my hair and makeup…felt good…
XP
Easter eggs
Kids were so cute dying eggs Saturday, especially when they started mixing colors…
A few more pictures from the week...and a quote I keep thinking about...
From Will the Circle Be Unbroken? by Sean Diedrich via The Next Right Thing with Emily P. Freeman:
“I’ll be honest with you. The variables that construct my existence are confusing, like handwritten math equations jammed together on a sloppy page of homework. They don’t make any sense. One math problem leads to another than another and so it goes. One day, you realize that your life is one whole page of problems, and nothing ever gets solved. One ongoing equation with no equal sign at the end, but it occurred to me, beneath the canopy of a starlit heaven, that I’d been looking at my life all wrong. It wasn’t a math equation. Things weren’t supposed to add up. There was no solution. In fact, there was no problem.
Life’s variables and numbers and pages of chicken scratch weren’t mathematical marks. They were art, a drawing, an abstract painting. It was meant to be beautiful, not sensical, and embedded within the mess of it all were miracles. Small ones. I’d never paid attention to them because I was too busy, but it didn’t make them less real.”