Adventures in July

Life continues in a pandemic. One of the blessings of having kids is that we still find things to do and be excited about, even if they are relatively small. Jacob took Micah along on the weekly shopping trip to Costco (pandemic life = no extra side trips to the grocery store when we run out of things; make do until the next weekend's shopping trip. The upside to "necessity is the mother of invention" = Amy discovered that homemade coffee creamer is way better than the store-bought kind, even if you have to use 4-year-past-expiration-date sweetened condensed milk to make it. But I digress...) 

Last year, during a Costco trip when their back-to-school items were displayed, Micah begged Mom to buy him a writing tablet. Mom, not an impulse buyer, said no. This month, Micah happened to be at Costco with Dad, who apparently did say yes. Surprisingly, it has been used a lot, from making fishing supply lists to dreaming about buying enough collapsible crates (another Daddy Costco impulse buy) to create an entire Nerf War Fortress. 

And Helen is really into silly selfies...

Our Illustrator Access (through Read Aloud Revival) this month was a live session with Christopher Silas Neal who illustrated Barb Rosenstock's book "Prairie Boy" about the life and work of Frank Lloyd Wright. 

We borrowed several books from the library about Frank Lloyd Wright this month. Boy, are we grateful for our library's reopening! The most devastating news about the pandemic for Micah was when we learned the library would be closed for an undetermined time! (No fear, we stocked up on over 120 books to get us through.) They eventually reopened for curb-side delivery only. Now we are able to go in for "grab and go" (30 min max). It's not the same as our luxurious libraries days pre-pandemic, where we could spend a morning browsing, playing, and exploring on the computers. But we're grateful for access to more books, especially now that the inter-library loan has resumed. We've all read a lot more since we've been staying home (which is saying something since we already read a lot... Mommy alone has read over 30 books through this thing, not counting the hundreds of picture books). 

The wooden blocks have come out this month as well. Here's Helen's design of a car wash - drive the car up and it can be washed OR have the tires repaired. (As NASCAR has been one of the few sports we can watch live during this pandemic, we have seen a few races and the kids have been most impressed with the pit crew. In fact, they created their own game - entitled, aptly, "pit crew" - where one of them rides a bike in a "race" and the others are the fast-moving pit crew, based out of the bed of Dad's truck.)

The blocks and the writing tablet both played a role in this activity: Construct a kind of see-saw/catapult, estimate the best distance and location from which to drop the weighted stuffed lamb, launch the block into the air. Then, using the writing tablet, measure and mark down the distance the block flew and calculate how to increase that distance in future tries. Engineering at its finest. 

Nature study: Henry (ever the careful observer) discovered this shed exoskeleton of some kind of bug hanging on a pine tree in the front yard. The cool thing is that this summer we've been doing a weekly online "Backyard Bugs" study, so words like "exoskeleton" are now a part of our vocabulary!

Puppet Theater presents... a random story about dragons. Puppets animated by Dad (a last minute understudy when Helen backed out), Lights by Micah, Sound effects by Henry (under the table).

It takes talent to replicate lightning and thunder!

Sunday, July 26 - we snuck through a hole in a fence, carrying our kayak and cooler on a wagon, and walked around Trout Lake until we found an opening to create our own personal beach. The path around the lake has multiple small sandy (or grassy, in the case of the place we found) areas where individual families or groups were enjoying the warm day. This was a new-to-us place and what a neat way to enjoy the lake with a built-in way of social distancing.

Fishing and kayaking simultaneously.

How many people can we fit on a child's kayak?!

When we got home, our power went out for several hours (thankfully, the girls had just finished their showers and the boys hadn't started yet). Once, a few years ago in winter, when we lost power for a few days, we all slept in the living room, snuggled together for warmth as the furnace wasn't working. So this time, as soon as the power went out, the kids started pulling sleeping bags, pillows, and the futon mattress from the basement into the living room. Even though the power returned before 9pm, they still had their slumber party in the living room. Because, well, why not?

Thankfully, the power outage didn't last long because Monday was the Detroit Tiger's home opener. Of course we couldn't go to the game (no fans, beyond cardboard cutouts at any MLB games this year, due to the Corona Virus). And we had previously cancelled YouTube TV when all the live sports had been Covid-cancelled. So we cast the play-by-play on our big screen, set up "bleachers" and popped some popcorn while singing, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Go Tigers!

Once again this summer, Thursdays are for swimming! Our sweet neighbors, Greg and Lidia, have invited us to a standing swim date each week. Due to the virus, they let us swim on our own, while they stay indoors or run errands. Thursdays this summer have been especially hot and sunny - perfect weather for improving our swimming. This last week in July, the boys took turns swimming the whole length of the pool.

During the pandemic, lots of people are getting cats or dogs, since they're stuck at home. We didn't follow the trend exactly, but we did meet a new friend - a neighborhood calico (we found out from Lidia that she belongs to the house on the corner). She visits us regularly and we don't mind since she loves hunting chipmunks and snakes, just like our kids. The kids started calling her "Huntress," though Mom wants a more academic name like Artemis or Diana (just haven't decided whether she's more Greek or Roman).  

She finally came back to visit again this week (we hadn't seen her since before our Schmidt Vacation). The kids all rushed outside to see her and Henry spent the whole afternoon outdoors. He came tearing back inside to excitedly inform us that she had killed a gardener snake. We've had an abundance of snakes this year (while working on our patio we discovered a whole nest of them had been living underneath - and were displaced when we had the patio filled/lifted). It's not legal for us to kill gardener snakes in Michigan...but no one told Huntress/Diana/Artemis.

And finally, when the weather gets too hot outside, you travel to Antarctica indoors - with a bobsled. 

And build an igloo! Our living room is constantly being transformed into something - Comerica Park, a glacier, a puppet theater, a slumber party site... it's never boring at the Roe house!