Week one of our quarantine time is done! (We're quarantining because of Vermont's interstate travel restrictions due to COVID-19: anyone from outside their "green" travel areas are required to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. We signed a form upon checking in and everything. It's pretty official.)
Basically quarantine looks a lot like work (for Gregg), school (for Cal), playing with cars (for both kids), reading books (for everyone), and cooking and baking (for me). It honestly hasn't been that bad, especially since we learned that we can go outside, but only on the immediate property of our condo and only maintaining social distancing from anyone else who may be outside. So we've been utilizing the backyard grassy area and parking lot a lot this week! It's been a lifesaver! We decided that the small size of the home we're in is not really the problem; the fact that we can't go out and explore and walk and bike and hike is by far the hardest part. So our loops around the house and parking lot have been our saving graces this week. As have a couple of drives to see something besides our (completely lovely) view of the 1st hole of the golf course off the deck. It's been nice to get a lay of the land and peep at the leaves as they are bursting into amazing colors.
Here are the highlights (aka things we thought to snap a pic of) of week one (check!):
Sunday, 20 September 2020
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| Morning has broken! (You'll see lots of pics like this through the week, thanks to Gregg.) |
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| Cal made a Halloween costume for Min. |
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| In case you can't tell, she's a candy corn! |
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| Sam was so tired he fell asleep like this for an hour! (He even slept through cousin Cohen's zoom baptism that we got to be a part of, which he was sad about when he found out he missed it.) |
Monday, 21 September 2020:
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| Ah! Lovely sunrise! |
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| Time for school! |
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| We had numerous art breaks this week thanks to some video tutorials we found online. They were both so into it! |
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| Are you impressed?! I'm impressed! |
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| Handwriting/spelling/language arts work all in one. The last three lines are Cal's original poem as part of a lesson about creepy crawling bug poetry. |
Tuesday, 22 September 2020:
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| Another sunrise, another photo. |
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| And more art! (These next few drawings are from Cal.) |
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| And these are Sam's. He described it this way: "We are at Vermont. My picture is Sam train and pumpkins falling to the ground and people throwing pumpkins and a pumpkin patch on the last page." |
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| Now it's time for a Go Noodle "Run the Red Carpet" break on youtube on the deck. |
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| And back to the art. (Again from Cal.) |
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| This beauty is right outside our front door and I am in love! |
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| She's on a roll! (And I can see how those oak leaves are getting better and better with practice!) |
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| We took a drive and spotted miles and miles of blue tubing connecting a grove of sugar maples! |
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| Of course pictures don't do it justice, but it was a lovely drive! |
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| Just had to showcase Sam's art (we already saw those leaves, but check out his scarecrow!). |
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| And he did an acorn, too. |
Wednesday, 23 September 2020:
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| This one is my favorite! |
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| I call this parking lot P.E. |
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| The view down the road we are staying on. It leads to the Hotel Jay and the golf course and the tram. |
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| Cha-cha-cha-changes! |
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| Rose hips? They're so bright and big! |
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| Today's art was charcoal pastel painting (we used crayons instead) of blue jays in autumn. This is Sam's! |
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| And here is Cal's! (Seriously, they are amazing at following the directions of these youtube teachers.) (And then we watched another youtube video all about blue jays - like a science tie-in. Perfect!) |
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| Had to document this sweater on Cal for Laurel since it was a Melia hand-me-down. |
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| When you don't have a baking sheet for breadsticks, but you do have a mini muffin pan . . . you get bread sea serpents for dinner! |
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| Moody evening sky. |
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| It was a long time coming, but she worked up all her courage tonight and let Gregg pull out her snaggle tooth. Hooray! |
Thursday, 24 September 2020
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| Thursday morning we were minding our business when the doorbell rang and startled us! We looked out and saw a woman setting a Jay Peak bag on the porch and inside the bag was this jackpot of Ben and Jerry's. She said they were from Jay Peak (aka Gregg's friend Steve, the GM) and to enjoy. How nice was that?! |
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| So much color even near the ground! |
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| Pumpkin cookies were a must for this first-of-fall week. (And notice our improvised baking sheet solution - we covered the mini muffin pan with foil and it worked like a charm!) |
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| Another parking lot P.E. session. |
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| It's nice how empty the lot gets during the week (weekends have been a lot more busy, not surprisingly). |
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| We came down to bed and found the kids all snuggled up together on their bed. (Sam started out over on his side of that pillow barrier, but somehow worked his way over the hump right next to his sister.) Awww. |
Friday, 25 September 2020:
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| Another morning, another doorbell, another treat on the porch! |
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| They were amazing, by the way! And these weren't even Steve's idea this time. It was all Melissa The Messenger's (she had just recently gotten out of quarantine herself and knew how much donuts would be appreicated). Seriously. How nice is that?! |
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| Spelling time is still my fave - Sam reads the words and Cal writes them up. |
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| We took a quick drive around the resort to see what we could see. The view from the golf course is looking mighty fine indeed! |
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| I call this "Backyard Basking" and it was a significant part of our weekend. |
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| Bored Cal = create a giant "J for Jay Peak" out of Monopoly Deal cards in the middle of the floor. |
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| Gregg and Sam practiced some disc golf putts in the backyard while Callie and I whipped out a few homeschool lessons (to catch up/get ahead a bit before we are free to play next week). |
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| Another drive filled with oohs and aahs and "this is SO PRETTY!" |
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| We drove to Lake Willoughby, aka the "Fjords of Vermont", which was recommended to us by many locals that Gregg works with. It was hard to get a good pic since we couldn't stop and get out, but let me tell you, it totally lived up to the hype! |
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| At the south end where we turned around is a little village, beach access, campground with views of the cliffs we were driving next to the whole time and couldn't even see! |
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| Amazing! |
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| On the way back (we made a loop of it) we passed a handful of other smaller but still beautiful lakes. |
And that's a wrap! A few other things we did this week, but didn't take pics of: home church, Cohen's baptism, lots of facetime/facebook/zoom chats with grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and friends, numerous games of monopoly deal, fill or bust and yahtzee, plenty of hotwheels videos on youtube, Friday Pizza and a Movie (special fire oven flatbread pizza from the Foundry delivered to our door while watching the newest episode of Great British Baking Show on netflix), countless hours of cars pretend play (including acting out their own youtube videos (not on youtube, but they have dreams to get a channel going someday)), many books and snuggles on the couch. Not a bad week at all. :)
