Summer 2020

This summer can pretty much be summed up as pool time.  We spent a lot of time in the pool swimming at least twice a day.  Usually after lunch the girls and I would swim for a long time and then after dinner we would all jump back in.  We really started looking at houses in 2018 because we wanted a pool and the timing could. not have been better buying this house in August of 2019.  I'm not sure what we would have done all summer stuck at home without a pool.  It really was a life-savor and I am so, so grateful for our time here!

every day

matching

I tried getting the girls up and moving as much as possible which meant lots of walks and bike rides around the neighborhood.  You have to go early when you live in central Texas otherwise it is way too hot.  We are just a block or so away from a really nice park with hiking trails so we took advantage of that as much as possible.

she wears sweatshirts in the summer and shorts in the winter, don't ask

we walked down to the lake for some picnics when it wasn't too hot

We continued to get our monthly Kiwi Crates, and I also signed up for a local art subscription box.  A sweet teenager put together boxes with all the necessary materials and delivered them to our doorstep.  The boxes included a QR code to step-by-step videos for each project. 

I got a late start on our garden because right when I wanted to start planting, we were in lockdown with very few places open.  We got lots of good veggies though!

so many jalapeños, we now have several batches of poppers in the freezer to quickly throw in the oven, as well as pesto from my giant basil tree

forgot about the abundant squash until I pulled up these pics

someday this could be a secret garden, the sides are already filled in with jasmine covering the trellises and more roses

I don't can, but i did freeze a bunch of tomato sauce from our tomato jungle

carrots were very successful and I think I will be able to grow more throughout the winter

my favorite corner

a view of the whole garden

Cursive was taken out of the state elementary standards a while back and just added back in about 3 years ago.  They still don't spend much time teaching it though so my girls really never learned it.  Mom to the rescue!  I bought them Zaner-Bloser workbooks and we did a couple letters each week this summer.  So fun, they just LOVED it! 

Our church put together a virtual VBS which was great.  We picked up our bag of supplies and did activities each day one week.  Not the same, but so grateful for our children's pastor and others who organized it.

Sadly we didn't get to do our dance recital this June.  The studio still held it but we, like many others, opted out.  We did still pay for our costumes though so I tried to convince the girls to put them on and perform for us, but they weren't really into it.  Later this summer they choreographed put on a sweet dance show for Gaga and Grandpa's anniversary via Skype.

Ada cooperated with her jazz costume

beautiful dresses and a self-choreographed dance for Gaga and Grandpa's anniversary

Other fun summer shennanigans:

spent a little time in the sun.  with my chacos.

tried to find covid-safe activities so we picked blackberries in June

we filled several buckets

and made lots of treats and even froze a bunch

the Waco public library put together a scavenger hunt which we completed one sweaty morning

we made s'mores in a solar oven in no time

Our church put on a couple drive-in movies this summer and fall in the parking lot

we took a long time to sand and stain these logs for a coffee table and I love it

looking at pics, it seems I started this project in March and we didn't put them inside until around our anniversary!

we snuck out for a couple kid-less hours for our anniversary

That was actually a much bigger deal than usual even.  We have pretty much been home with the girls 100% of the time since March with the exception of work.  So for me that means 24/7 except Tuesdays while Steve is home with them.  Not only have we not had any date nights, I can't even run an errand without them unless it's an evening or weekend when Steve is home.  It's hard.  It makes me feel for single parents even more and appreciate the time the girls are in school or able to hang with friends or babysitters.  R and A aren't quite to the age yet where they are comfortable with us leaving them alone but we are starting to work on it by going for short walks around the neighborhood without them.  On our anniversary they swam outside with our good friends the Hoppes, the one family we have done consistent outside hang time with during this pandemic.  God bless the Hoppes!

I was super bummed that we had to plan a virtual baby shower for Sam's first baby arriving in September, but it turned out cute and we had fun with it.  We went with the Little Cutie theme as the gender was a surprise.  Mom sent out a set of recipe cards with orange-themed snacks and drinks to all the guests ahead of time and ordered these adorable cookies.  Ruby and Ada insisted that we make everything for the party!  We played some games and set up an online baby pool to guess the gender, birthdate, and stats.

We snuck away to Lake Whitney just a couple hours from here for a couple nights in attempt to have a change in scenery.  We borrowed some kayaks to take with so we did that, fished, and swam.  

the airbnb we stayed at was up on a ridge above the lake

beautiful view from the dock below

not a lot of luck fishing, 

I think Steve needs a boat

caught a couple sunnies

As the summer wore on, the state of Texas (and most other states) failed to make plans for the upcoming school year.  Even the very last week of July we were uncertain about what school was going to look like.  TEA, the ed commissioner, and governor did a terrible job leading in this area.  School districts didn't do much better.  Instead of planning and training teachers for high-quality virtual instruction, they just sat idly waiting for someone to tell them what to do.  Obviously what resulted was a mess with teachers picking up the slack.  Steve and I could see pretty clearly that we were not going to be sending Ruby and Ada to face-to-face school so we started devising a plan for at-home learning and working.  Thankfully, my classes were 75% online meaning I'd only have to be on campus one day a week.  Steve was also able to easily switch to working from home that day.  We searched for desks for the girls so that everyone would have some dedicated workspace.  Desks were sold out everywhere so it took a trip to the IKEA in Austin and one in Dallas to get all of the parts we needed. (For those of you not in Texas; Waco is in the middle of Austin and Dallas.  So it is about 1.5 hours south to Austin and 1.5 hours the opposite direction north to Dallas.). We decided to set up the desks downstairs so that we could help and the girls wouldn't be up in their bedrooms all day.  However, before we made that decision we decided to get a loft bed for Ruby.  She has the smallest room so when we moved in I had told her one day we could get her a loft so she'd have room for a desk in her room.  We also searched and searched for a loft bed that would work and about 4 hours after I ordered one my good friend texted and asked if we would be interested in her daughter's loft bed.  Her daughter was redoing her room and no longer wanted it.  It was a very nice wooden bed with drawers in the steps and was actually built by Clint Harp well before Fixer Upper.  Knowing it was very good quality and much nicer than the one I'd ordered we said yes and quickly cancelled the order.  

It actually just fits perfectly, another inch and her closet door wouldn't open

Ada's is set up in the piano room but she is eager for the day she can go back to school and this can become her Lego desk in her bedroom

We tease Ruby that she is Ruby Potter because her desk is under the stairs.  It keeps her in the main living area with a little buffer between her and Ada.