1058 and All the Puzzles

That's how many blog posts I've done over the past 13 years. Just saying.

We've put together, shared, loaned, mailed, gifted and been gifted so many puzzles the last few months, it's been fun to keep track. 

Washington D.C. puzzle in January, pre-pandemic.

Mimi got her very own Suffragists puzzle for her birthday in February.  I had to hold back from working on it while she was at school!  

When the lock down hit, Mimi found a few puzzles to do on her own. 

These are a couple of space ones from Nana. 

My sister got me this as an early birthday present.   Very cute. 

Yoda got this one for Valentine's Day, but didn't put it together until lock down.  Then he decided to flip it.  So silly.

Video

By May it felt like we'd never get to go anywhere, so we started doing quite a few puzzles.  Here's our 2000 piece that we usually keep to do over New Years break. 

I got this cute, boat one for myself for Mother's day.  

Mimi and Greg picked out our new hardest one for my birthday, it was beautiful but very difficult!  Van Gogh's Starry Night.  We started it on my birthday and didn't finish until the next month.  

Then we needed a classic, quilts on a summer day, ahhhh... (this was a birthday present from my sister either last year or the year before.)

 

I used some of my birthday cash to get this puzzle of Fallingwater.  It's double sided and Yoda couldn't help himself, he flipped it over and over again! 

 

Greg got me this puzzle for my birthday as well.  It's got all sorts of our favorite things: quilts, s'mores, snowshoes (we did that once a million years ago, it stuck with us), hot cocoa....

Now that the kiddos are busy with remote school at home I don't know what to do with myself.  I can't really get into cooking, cleaning or a project, because of the noise.  Or because if I do, someone will likely need my help, usually there's something wrong with the computer or something.  So I got myself a new puzzle to do when I need to keep myself quiet, but busy.  Mimi jumped right in.  She loves camping, stars and learning about astrology lately. 

Apples and Peaches

We went to our favorite fruit picking place and came home with so much produce, it's been hard to eat it all.  

We've made: apple sauce, apple slump, peach syrup, peach cobbler, apple coffee cake, apple turnovers, pork chops with cinnamon apples, and probably something else that I can't think of since I'm all jittery from all the sugar :)
 

 

First Day 2020

(sorry this is very late) 

Just trying to keep things together amid this nonsense pandemic.  First our school district was going to be hybrid, then we were told we would be all remote until the end of October.  Now we are planning to go back at the end of Sept, we'll see...

For now this is how the kiddos are doing their school work:

Yoda is in this little nook between the laundry room and the kitchen table, we moved out the cubbies that held coats and stuff.  He is using a table we bought when we first moved into the house (off of Craig's list).  It's purpose changes all the time: game table, puzzle table, now a school desk.  He's using the computer that we bought specifically for school work and Skype a few years ago. 

Mimi is on the comfy couch in the living room, on a desk that we lucked out finding on Craig's list.  I wanted something pretty, not a folding table.  It looks a lot like the table Yoda is using.  Her computer is a loaner from school that she usually gets, even without a pandemic to help her with her reading and writing. 

Parker is on our previous kitchen table in the office/dinning room, it keeps getting moved around too.  In the spring he and Mimi were both using it in the living room on that comfy couch, but that was when video chats were rare.  Now that they have classes all day they need to have some space between them.  We brought back the little comfy couch that used to be in here years ago.  And he's using Greg's laptop. 

Music

One of the fun things we get to do these days is listen to lots of good music.  

An awesome 80's song came on the radio, Yoda says, "I feel like this is a song you know and like"

Me, "you are correct!" and I started singing along, loudly.

Rolling down a giant hill

 

Hitting the trail

2020 means no traditional High Adventure.  So Greg thought maybe he'd just take Parker, and maybe Mimi on a backpacking trip.  I suggested he take Yoda too and I could get some odd chores done around the house.  We figured out the best few days and they did it!

About 16 miles of hiking, 2 nights of sleeping and just about a 1.5 hour drive away.  They prepped a little, by now they know what works and what doesn't, and went on a Monday morning, just after Parker had his senior photos taken.  And they got home on Wednesday night ready for pizza!

The first photo is before they hit the trail, the last photos are just before driving home.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My other sister's visit

My sister Sonya also came for a visit this summer.  Because she can work remotely, we were able to have her around for over a week! 

While she was here we did a bunch of walks and hikes at State, National, Town and Metro Parks...

On the 4th of July we BBQ'd and she made a patriotic dessert. 

 

Parker had to work that night, but made it home for some sparklers and some of the neighbors shooting off fireworks (he's pretty tired here!)  

Since all the movie theaters can't open, they are having drive-in movies! We went to see E.T.

Rocket Videos

All the videos I took of the rocket launch day were duds!  So here's a fun one...

And here's a couple of the failed rocket launches...

Parker took the lead to help with the launch. 

Yoda was perched from a play structure.  Greg and Mimi were using trigonometry to calculate how high the rockets went. 

my sister and nephew

My sister and nephew came for a visit last month and it was so fun see them! 

 He found a fun little creek that the town turned into a wadding spot under a bridge and had a blast. 

 Snack time!

 Play dough

 We made a train cake

 This kid climbs all over his mom!

 My sister taught Yoda to knit!

I asked my sister what food she didn't want to miss while she was here.  Besides candy Buckeyes, there really isn't much that's totally local to Ohio, but she remembered that Cincinnati Chili is pretty unique so we got some of that.

 And they dressed up like robots :)

 Duck Doughnuts

 He ran some errands with me.

 And we checked out some outdoor art

 I couldn't believe the fine-motor skills on this kid! 

Painting nails and carefully breaking eggs, so talented!  

We also launched some rockets, I'll post those soon.