May Randoms

The month of May was still pretty odd with things being shut down and everyone still in quaratine.  We did our best to get out in nature a ton and do fun things together at home.

Some neighbors down the road had a couple baby llamas that we got to go down and feed.  Tom and Laura came up and help us with our yard project of taking out some flower beds and prepping for sod.  Boonie discovered the art of cup stacking.  The girls played and used their awesome imaginations.  I went on weekly hikes with my friend Toni Nelson where she introduced me to some fun new trails.  One trail that I just love now is called Wayne's Loop in Mendon.  It's beautiful and I've been there 3 times since.  We were on that trail with the pictures of all the flowers and the kids.  Wyatt solidified his love of chocolate milk and drank plenty each day.  We got a couple new roosters for free.  One of them looks so crazy.  His name is Dobby after the dwarf troll in Harry Potter (being Boonie is so into that right now).  It's the perfect name and he's just hideously glorious and provides us with so much entertainment.

Mason has started training to ride in LOTOJA in September.  The city opened up their soccer league with social distancing guidelines.  The girls got to play... well I guess I should say Marae got to play.  Adelyn sat on the sidelines during two of her games and then we called it saying we were done wasting that time.  She liked the drills and practices, but as soon as the whistle blew she would run to the sidelines and sit.  She didn't like the competitive side of it.  Marae on the other hand did great this year and scored quite a few goals!

The end of school 2020

It was so weird to end the school year.  The kids had been away from school and doing it remotely since the middle of March.  It was difficult to manage all the things they were asked to do and it honestly felt like a waste of time.  Many of the things Boone was asked to do, I didn't have him do... I had him research and write reports instead.  Boone would have weekly conference calls with his teacher a couple other students.  Marae would do it 3 times a week.  Other than that they just had a lot of websites they needed to go to and complete assignments.  Imagine making sure and encouraging your kids to do all that and their chores... I felt like I was nagging them ALL DAY LONG.

The whole school did a teachers parade on the last week.  The kids made posters to show some love for their teachers.  It was fun to see them all again.  Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of Marae's teachers.  She didn't really get to say goodbye like Boonie did.  Oh well.... dumb COVID-19.

The one I feel the most sad about is Adelyn though... She didn't care, but I did.  I wanted to see her preschool performance.  I wanted to watch her nervously walk across at graduation.  She's the one that missed out on the biggest milestone with all this.  Luckily they put up a little sign and had a hat for us to snap a picture in front of.  She's just the sweetest thing ever.

And then it was the last day of the 'lunch bus'.  Oh how we enjoyed the lunch bus.  Such a gamble as to what would be in those bags.  Sometimes a delicious treat - othertimes chicken food fodder (we'd send the gross stuff to the chickens).  But it was always a highlight to our monotonous days.  Wyatt LOVED running out there and sometimes would climb on the first step.  The lunch ladies and bus driver were the sweetest.  I was so thankful for a little less work.  They did this all over the state but most people had to drive to a location and pick up the lunches.  We were certainly lucky to have it delivered right to our driveway.

There were some fun activities that the kids missed out on.  I mean, the end of school is always so fun anyway.  But we tried to do our own fun things along the way.  The biggest let down was for Boonie.  The whole third grade always does a HUGE Harry Potter unit.  They get sorted into groups with shirts and everything.  Well they still got the shirts (Boonie was sorted into Griffendor and was in heaven bc that's what most of the kids wanted) and they read the first book.  He then went ahead and listened to the rest of the series on audio books from the library for the rest of quarantine.  Thankfully during the last week of school restrictions were starting to ease up.  The third graders were able to get together and have their Harry Potter shop and wear their shirts and see their teachers one last time.  The picture of Boonie with the sheep is from his Don Quiote play they did in Spanish.  He was a sheep.  They did it online but the kids could take a picture with their part at the Harry Potter party.