March is kind of sickening to think about, honestly. A virum spread from Wuhan, China, and the number of cases in the US was spreading so rapidly that schools decided to move to remote learning rather than in-school learning for us right after Spring Break. It was actually a pretty great month of hiking and learning and trying something new for us, but the fact that I am typing this in December and the problem hasn't gone away is so sad. Remote learning was not amazing and we had to have kids do it throughout the rest of the year. Then it started back up in August and our kids couldn't go back to school in person until October 8th for Cason and October 11th for the rest of the kids. And now, we've had kids in school for a while but the plan in our new district is to have all the kids do remote learning for the first two weeks after the winter break and that will be a challenge. They are forcing the kids to be on their computers the whole school day, which will be a new torture for Cason, especially. Luckily, the preschool will be pretty low-key. So here is our March with the few pictures that uploaded to this computer.
Us one one of our daily hikes.
The kids made an avenger man out of blankets one day--very creative.
This is how one side of the Cason and Isaac room looked. Cason couldn't reach the highest shelves, but this worked. You can see a dream-catcher Brooklyn made for Cason. His quilt was the reverse side of an owl quilt Brooklyn loved when she was younger. It's sad to me that Brook doen't want it now when it is so cool.
A lot of the pictures from these few months of remote school are of Lucy taking selfies. She discovered this "amn-bun" and insisted on wearing this style pretty much every day. Why was I critical of it, you ask? I love Lucy's beautiful hair and I hate having it hidden. She almost never wears it down anymore, and I miss the days of making my girls' hair look so pretty. Neither one has much interest in the hairstyles of days gone by.
I'm guessing we were at Apache Wash here.
Mocking the man-bun.
Cason before a badly needed haircut. He has a cowlick at the front of his hairline that makes hair stick straight up. The only way I have learned to deal with it is to keep his hair short and gelled.
On pretty much every hike, I'd swing Corban up on my back when his legs got tired.
Corban enjoyed dressing up his bear with his siblings one day.
Here is one view of our remote learning station. That dining room table became the learning hub.
And Corban often played with legos or playdoh while the kids worked. Cason only started with a few hours of remote learning a day, so he became Corban's buddy in play after that.
My beautiful Brooklyn on a great hike. . . before they closed it because of COVID.
So cute. Same hike.
Kiddies enjoying the playground before people wrapped it in yellow tape and forbade children from playing at playgrounds.
Cason got to play with playdoh for one of his spelling assignments.
Some excellent art for his friend on his birthday
Brook's great artwork she did with her class remotely.
This is one of our first hikes in March, before COVID changed everything.
I don't want to sound too negative. We have made incredible memories this year, but I don't like how the kids have been forced to do things that hurt them, like staying away from parks and playgrounds, being banned from school, and being kept away from friends and some sports. I will say we have been SO lucky to have our kids continue in most of the sports they love, even with a few rules that changed things a bit (like wearing masks, having limited spectators or no ability to watch kids practice). We're luckier than people in a lot of other states. Covid is as bad now as it was at the height of the surge in the Spring and even though there is now a vaccine, it will take time before most of us can get vaccinated.
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