October 2020

We weren’t totally sure what would happen with Halloween this year. While our township did not ban trick-or-treating, they were not encouraging it. We decided to just walk around our block and see what the neighbors were doing. It turns out fewer houses were celebrating, but those who were felt bad for the kids and went overboard with the candy – either full size bars or separate bags of candy. The girls were very pleased 😉

They both went as witches this year.

Most houses either set out an unmanned table with candy on it, or some neighbors got creative with social distance candy distribution.

After trick-or-treating we went over to the Devine’s house and watched Hocus Pocus on projected to a screen on their garage door. The kids did some candy trading and then ate until they were ill. As Halloween should be! All in all it was a fun night and not all that different from past Halloweens.

Emma, Ava, Sophie & Lauren watched Hocus Pocus outside

October 30, 2020

Happy 95th Birthday, Nana!

My Nana turned 95 of October 28th. She had wanted to have a big party, but since that’s not possible this year, instead we all went to the beach! Nana rented the family four houses close to each other in Ocean City and we all spent time together outside – on the beach or on porches. Since the girls are now in in person school, we went town for a few days, came back for school, and then went back down.

Unfortunately we only had one nice day of weather – pictured below – where the girls were able to get in bathing suits and play in the sand.

The rest of the time was cold and rainy, but we still enjoyed it as much as possible!

one day we were the only people on the entire boardwalk!

We had two mini “parties” for Nana, since not everyone could be there the entire time. One night we had one at our beach house with cupcakes and balloon hats.

Our girls and Ari had to do virtual school while they were there, which was somewhat challenging. Who wants to work while you’re at the beach?! But Ari did participate in Lauren’s class Halloween party, which was pretty fun.

While the weather wasn’t great, we all tried to spend time on the beach, especially Nana who love to just look out at the water.

On the last night we celebrated Dad and Julia’s birthday, which are both the first week in November.

It was really a fantastic week, filled with family and celebration and reflection. While we couldn’t have a big bash this year, in my opinion this was so much better. We all got to see each other, which hasn’t happened in a while, and we all got to be in one of our favorite places. We were able to spend time together, and alone, and really appreciate where we are right now – which is not where anyone expected to be, but also finally together at last.

October 18, 2020

Happy Birthday, Mom Mom!

At the beginning of October we celebrated Kathy’s birthday with a small celebration at our house. Gotta love the low key COVID birthdays. The weather was beautiful so we ate outside and I made chocolate peanut butter brownies. I was a lovely family evening.

October 12, 2020

First Day of School – Take II

first day of school

Because the positivity rate of COVID cases around us has gone down, the public schools have started opening on a hybrid schedule. At the elementary school they’ve divided classes in half and half of the students go for three hours in the AM and half of the students go in the PM. The girls are both in the PM cohort, so they’re there from 1-4PM. Lauren started the week of October 6th and Sophie started the week of October 12th. Even though it’s only 3 hours, it’s made such a huge difference for them – especially Lauren, who just can’t work that independently yet.

It’s the first time they’ve gotten to meet their teachers in person and one of the few times they’re interacting with other kids. Half of the desks have been removed from the classrooms and there’s no moving around the classroom – all work has to be done at their desk – and masks have to be worn the whole time. They also have lunch at home so that no kids are eating at the school.

We’ll see how long this lasts, but I’m hoping that we’ll make it at least a few weeks (months?) before cases get bad again, which is what’s predicted. And the best part is Dave and I have three glorious, uninterrupted hours a day, which hasn’t happened in 7 months!

Laurens second week in-person & Sophie’s first. Note the newly dyed hair ; )

October 10, 2020

Pumpkin Picking

It’s become our October tradition to go to Milky Way Farm to pick pumpkins. It’s about 45 minutes away and they do a great job with farm animals to pet, hay rides, and the best part – homemade ice cream. It was a little more of a low key affair this year with COVID – we had to buy tickets in advance and there was no hay ride, but otherwise it was the same. It was also unseasonably warm – about 75 degrees – so didn’t feel all that autumnal. The girls picked out huge pumpkins that we had to carry back (since there wasn’t the hay ride to take us back), so we were all sweating. Thank goodness for the ice cream 😉

October 1, 2020

Welcome to The Family, Petunia!

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This weekend we decided it was time to adopt a new dog. Over the last few weeks we’ve been checking out adoptable dogs through a local rescue, Savedme.org, and knowing that we have months of time at home still ahead of us, we finally decided it was time. We made appointments to meet three dogs on Saturday, and the second one we met ended up being our dog.

She’s a 2-year-old mixed breed who looks a lot like Benson. Since she’s a Philly rescue she’s definitely a little Pit, maybe a little American Bulldog, maybe Boxer. Who knows? We like to refer to them as the “Philly Special.”

We’re not sure if she’d ever been in a car before – she certainly didn’t act like it.

She’s a sweet girl who has a lot of energy. We don’t think she’s had a lot of time with grass because when she went into our backyard she completely lost it and ran around like a mad dog for about 15 minutes. She’s already figured out how to escape the one small spot in our fence, so we’re going to have to get that taken care of.