162nd Day of Quarantine
The high today was 88F. It was warm during the day, but the nights still get cool.
Billy went to Lowes to pick up supplies for replacing our decrepit basement door.
For dinner Billy picked up Wendy's on his way back from Lowes.
Also, I started season 15 of
Supernatural. I'm really not ready for it to be over yet.
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161st Day of Quarantine
The high today was 87F, and it sure felt like it on our way to the DODC.
Today we finished up our last day of our first week of homeschool! Today had two elements that we hadn't yet encountered. The first was dictation, the second written narration.
I tried doing all 5 of them on dictation at the same time, and it was awful. There was whining and when I would work with the big girls the little ones were noisy, and next week we will try something different.
It was so much sweeter then, when we did written narration. I called them in one at a time for narration, and they picked a variety of books. Even Grace, who gives me minimal oral narration each time she is picked filled up 2 pages about
King Alfred and the Cakes. Since today was the first time, I wrote the big girls as well (they had to have a number of sentences greater than or equal to their grade.) We will work toward them writing their own, but the podcast I listened to recommended starting with oral and working our way up.
At the end of our school day, we walked down to the DODC by the kids' old school for our nature study. We were looking for "mini beasts." We saw butterflies and lady bugs and ants and on the way back Alice even found a myriapod!
For dinner we had a microwave Chicken Fettucine Alfredo kit & bueno nachos
And we watched the end of
Kim Possible. We also watched the cartoon movie (which should have followed the end of season three.) And we watched the live action movie. It was exciting, as the voice actor for the cartoon made an appearance! Also, the actor who played the grandmother in this was the mother from
the Torkelsons, one of my favorite childhood shows.
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160th Day of Quarantine - Alice's 11th
Birthday!
The expected high today is 84F.
We are still finding our rhythm and tweaking our school schedule, but now have a good idea as to how it will look each day.
In honor of Alice's birthday (and so that she could spend max time on her new
Sims 4 game) we bent the "no electronics until 4pm rule, and they were able to get on right after we finished reading chapter three of
Alice in Wonderland.
Billy walked down to the farmer's market and bought some rice and chicken for dinner (from the Thai restaurant.) It was very good.
We sang and ate birthday cake for dessert.
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Today is the 159th day of Quarantine.
The high today was 77F.
The most exciting thing that my children learned from our poet study today was that Shakespeare had twins (Hamlet and Judith.)
Alice and Emily were filling out a map as part of their geography. I was happy to have a map that Sarah made up (of Canada, none-the-less) to show them what they can strive for.
We had to leave for Ann Arbor around 1, so I left Emily in charge of making Alice's cake. She did a great job, and apparently Alice was excited about the custom "topper" that I ordered of her Roblox character. = ) Emily "painted" it with acrylic paint markers, and it looks a lot like her old avatar (I saw her changing the avatar on her account 2 days after I ordered it...)
The drive was fairly uneventful, other than several patches of construction. We waited in the parking lot for a bit, and the kids all caught a quick nap en route. They have finished some of the inside construction, and taken down walls so it is now a very different path than we used to take. There was no one at reception when we arrived, and we were scolded for not 'checking in' by the nurse. ugh. We ended up waiting for about 20 minutes which is a really long time, considering they no longer even play movies! (I totally get the toys being picked up, but you would think that a movie on in the waiting room would be virus proof?)
Grace and Juliet both received excellent reports. Grace even has a few wiggly teeth on the bottom! William's getting in some permanent teeth, and they already have issues. The problem is the same on both sides, so we will be making 2 more trips for them to cap his teeth until they are fully in place. Once they are fully exposed then they will put on a more permanent solution to protect them. Not the best news, but not unexpected, and the primary reason we make the drive to go to a specialty clinic for them.
Since the appointment wasn't until 3, we didn't get to leave until after 5 heading home. Traffic in Ann Arbor was awful (couldn't even make a right turn thanks to the back up.) We also came to a complete stop on 23 as we approached 96 a couple of times. Nothing too bad.
However, when we rolled into town at 6:15ish, and were due to stop at Wendy's to procure dinner, the line was all the way to the edge of the parking lot, which would have had me stopped out in the main lanes. I opted to run home, drop off the kids, and then went to a different Wendy's. They were busy, and slow, but at least I didn't have whiny, hungry children with me. With all of that, we didn't end up eating until about 7, which is really late for us.
It was also shot night, so once I unloaded, got everyone fed, I made up shots, then toothbrushes. It was a hurried bedtime, but everyone got to hear a little bit of whatever story they like, then quick kisses. Unexpectedly, the three little ones did go to sleep, so Billy and I were able to set up Alice's balloon décor uninterrupted.
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Today was the 158th day of Quarantine.
The high was a very cool 77F.
We started off the morning going out to find a "dew orb" that we read about in the big girls' recitation exercise by Shakespeare.
After some whining during math, and general slowness transitioning between subjects, we finished off the evening with chapter 2 of
Alice in Wonderland and playdoh play. The big girls told me that they really enjoyed it, since they don't get to play with playdoh at school anymore. = )
For dinner we had Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes.
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We are looking at the 157th day of Quarantine.
Today the high was 82F.
It was the
first day of school!
Billy had a late doctor's appointment and brought back Arby's for dinner.
Billy and I went for a short walk after dinner, a very short walk since the kids stayed home. Hopefully we will be able to make it a little longer next time. = )
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Today was the 156th day of Quarantine.
The high today was 81F with a very cool start to the day.
I woke up a little earlier so that I could clean up all of the paint supplies before online church. The kids worked on their packets and watched the video from Avia's church.
After church I rushed out the door to run the recycling by Sarah's and go pick up my grocery order. I stumbled on a garage sale after I left Sarah's and bought a few small Christmas gifts for my crew.
The Kroger gas station had small lines when I arrived, so I picked up my groceries first. This worked out in my favor, since the lines were going by the time I had my groceries. = )
After putting away the groceries, I listened to a few outstanding podcasts from
A Delectable Feast about narration and "things." I planned on shucking the corn while doing this, but ended up with a few cute, albeit messy, helpers. = )
Once the corn was cooking, it was time for baths, then making dinner. For dinner we had chili cheesed dogs and corn on the cob.
After dinner, Billy helped me measure and mark for the pictures to go back up on the wall.
There are still blemishes and it is not perfect, but I'm glad that there are no longer medium & giant holes in the wall! This will make being in the room for hours a day so much better! = )
later days
