Hunt Family Adventures : Covid-19 Quarantine and Isolation: Part II

Now that our backyard was our only recreation, I insisted we get a new sandbox for the kids to play in so one could play in it while the other used the swing. The kids had lots of fun with it at first, but they really haven't used it much since. :( Maybe they will once we can start inviting friends over again.

Allison now insists we give her banana flowers (cutting the banana peel to look like a flower).

Here's Tyler being creative with his trains and zoobs and Allison working on her farm unit for her first week of distance learning. In the picture on the left she's matching her cards with the animals on screen, and in the right they're watching a tutorial on drawing a pig. Tyler, who's a better artist than me, drew a perfect pig, which intimidated Allison and made her not want to draw anymore. I let her teacher know, and she told me to tell Allison she wanted a preschool pig, not a big brother pig. When I told her that she happily drew her own pig (while Tyler was otherwise occupied).

We ran out of flour, so I put it on my grocery list, but none could be found when I went to the store. This pandemic is bringing out peoples' inner baker! Fortunately there was some the next time I went to the store, but I had to buy a 25 pound bag It was the last one of those too.

We took Leela to the vet after several years where the vet discovered what she termed "a blackhead on steroids" on her neck (see the picture on the right for perspective).

Allison had fun doing her school unit on garbage trucks, particularly since we'd just learned about garbage trucks a few weeks earlier when I taught her a lesson on letter G.

We had a bunch of mediocre apples leftover from picking up school lunches the last couple of weeks, so I got my kitchenaid spiralizer out to peel/core/spiralize the apples in order to make applesauce in my instant pot. The kids were fascinated by the slinky apples and ate two each. I started making more use of my spiralizer after that.

Our primary leaders decided to do a drive by parade for all the primary kids with birthdays in May. Tyler felt really special.

Tyler's been on an IEP for social/emotional/behavioral skills since preschool. Initially the recommendation was to consider doing away with the social and behavioral aspects since he's made so much progress in school. I told them I would have considered it if he were still in school, but all this isolation has caused him to slide back into many of his old habits.

This is what Tyler did while we had his Zoom IEP meeting. He took out everything in the pantry that he could reach.

Here are the kids playing with Cade, a boy who waits at the same bus stop as Tyler. Allison and I saw him playing in the grass area near his condo after she accidentally threw a ball over our fence. I told Tyler to stay in the yard while we retrieved it, but he decided to join us halfway through and walked off to meet us in the wrong direction. I came back panicked when he wasn't in the backyard. I was crying and hyperventilating when a nice lady brought him back. She'd seen him on Center Rd and asked him to walk back home while she followed him in the car. He was only gone a few minutes, but my heart races just thinking about it.

Eventually we did go back to play with Cade. He showed the kids a tree he climbs and a pond in his complex. It was fun and made for a nice change of scene and new company for everyone, but it was hours before my heart recovered from the scare of not knowing where my child was.

Here's Tyler slithering on the floor like a snake and watching Daniel Radcliffe read the first chapter of Harry Potter for his homework. On Cinco de Mayo he made enchiladas and a churro snake.

I went to work for Mother's Day week while Oscar stayed home with the kids. He did as much work as he could now that he works from home, but he couldn't manage it full time that week. Allison went a little crazy with coloring, and not just with writing utensils...I went on a walk in Kirkland before starting my route. It was nice to walk in a different place for a change. Allison is really into Clifford these days and I saw a Clifford bouncer at a Kirkland playground. I'll have to take her there whenever it reopens.

View of Lake Washington from my walk

Tyler enjoyed doing distance learning much more with daddy. Oscar put a sock on his hand so Tyler could interview a sock for his writing project.

Oscar tells me he didn't authorize the kids climbing on the car, but that it was so cute he had to take a picture.

Tyler made K'nex versions of himself and Allison.

Oscar's birthday was on the same day as Mother's Day. Tyler spelled Happy Birthday out of Legos for him.

We couldn't find the computer all night long then found Tyler playing with it under his bed. Sneaky guy!

It was hot on Mother's Day. 89 degrees. I was okay since I had the air conditioning in my car, but as soon as I got home the house was so hot and stuffy I wanted to get back in the car. Allison played in her swimsuit in the wading pool and Oscar got to cuddle with her while she got a nap.

For his birthday Oscar made himself an onion cake. Fortunately no actual onions were in the cake. He made it out of gingerbread cookie mix that'd been sitting in our food storage for years.

Our swing's been getting a lot of love since the Pandemic started. Here Allison's placed some of her toys on the balcony and is waving at and talking to them while she swings.

Here's Allison having fun in the water after helping daddy water the plants and Tyler playing catch with daddy. This is when parks started opening up but playgrounds and facilities were still technically closed.

Here's Allison working on her virtual preschool lesson. She adored everything about the 5 Little Duckies unit.

With the YMCA closed I've been making good use of my Just Dance Xbox games. Sometimes the kids join in with me. Tyler and I have also been getting a great workout playing Kinect Adventures and Disneyland Kinect.

Until May 5th the Silver Lake parking lot was closed. After that the park reopened. The playground was technically still closed, but you wouldn't have known that from the kids playing on it. At least we had the beach! It was so nice to finally let them go play in the sand and water on a hot day.

We had a great FHE lesson on bearing each others' burdens. The kids tried to pick up this backpack full of pennies, but try as they might they could not succeed without mom or dad helping them bear the burden. I think the lesson really got across to them.

One of Tyler's distance learning assignments was on a book we already owned. It was always extra fun when that happened. They respond so much better to books than to screens.

Here are the kids getting ice cream from an ice cream truck (well, ice cream van technically) for the first time in their lives.

Tyler's 7th birthday was coming up, and the advice I got from others with kids' birthdays in quarantine was to decorate as much as possible. We set up the night before, though Fry seemed to think it was all for him.

On his actual birthday I posted to Facebook "My Tyler boy is 7 years old! We also spent 7 years waiting for him to join our family. Knowing he's now been with us for as many years as we spent longing for him makes the day feel that much more special to me. He's crazy smart, incredibly creative, and super sweet! I can't imagine loving him anymore than I do right now, and yet everyday I find I love him that much more."

He was super excited when he came down and saw everything we'd done for him. It made us feel appreciated to see him so happy.

He made this on his birthday and asked me "is this like a theme park ride, mom?"

For his birthday daddy got him a soda bottle rocket launcher and granny and grandpa got him space bedding. We also ordered a mold, which fortunately arrived that same day, so we could make him an Oreo cake (we also made a chocolate chip cookie with the mold just for the heck of it).

Here he is blowing out his candles. The cake didn't taste like an Oreo, but it was still delicious, and even tastier frozen. The cake tasted like brownie and the cream tasted like mint cookie ice cream. Yumtastic!

We took him to the park to do rocket launching that weekend.

On Sunday we went for a hike. In this middle picture the kids are "hiding" while I pretended to be distraught that I couldn't find them. You can even see me looking sad through the trees.

We tried to find Cade another day. He wasn't there, but we still played in his tree.

As a birthday gift we took Tyler to High Trek ropes course shortly after they reopened. Allison was old enough to do the kids' course too, but she really struggled. She did the first 3 obstacles just fine, but then she panicked on the next and then didn't even want to do the three she'd liked anymore.