Catch of the day

 Simon continues to be completely obsessed with fishing, but he easily expands his obsession to frogs and anything else that moves and can be caught.

Taking the Bait

 Simon often "gets into character" and likes to pretend he is various animals. He was a cicada for at least a year and would flap his wings wherever he went. These days he usually pretends to be a cow, cat, dog or whatever wild animal he just saw on a National Geographic documentary.

So his fish obsession has been interesting, because other than when he's at the swimming pool, it's hard to act like a fish.

But he sort of found a way. He threads his pasta onto his fork like worms onto a hook. He rolls his bread into little doughballs and pretends he's a carp. 

We're not quite sure what he's pretending to be here though...

Fire Pit Progress: 4 months

 I cannot emphasize this enough: I had no idea how much work this would be for Zac.

The fire ring is finished!

Creek Creatures

 I forget how it started, but the kids now sometimes fish at the creek too. And they actually catch little fish! 

Due to the creek catches, we bid farewell to our bass (he's back in the pond) and we now have a creek chub and two tiny catfish in the big tank.

Heading down to the creek...

On our walks down the greenway to the creek, we sometimes spot some other wildlife too.

First day of school, pandemic version

Let the fun begin: Online learning! 

So although the kids technically did online learning in the spring, it was fairly laid back. Alice had a live meeting for about 30 minutes once a week, whereas Simon had live meetings with his teacher every morning for about 25 minutes. Then they had some independent work to complete.

Well, Wake County got the idea to be more serious this fall, so there are way more live meetings. Also, they  had the brilliant idea to make the first two weeks orientation: week 1 as grade level and week 2 at the classroom level. What this means in reality is that for the first week, the kids were in google meets with about 80 other kids and several teachers and it was complete insanity. Simon was bored out of his mind because he couldn't even tell what what going on, and Alice kept getting frustrated because she couldn't get things to work properly. It was awful.

Here are pictures from the first day of "school."

We are alive and happy and healthy and safe, so life is good. Also, life is awful.

Fishing at Eno River

 Since it was a little too cloudy and cool for the pool today, I took the kids to Eno River this afternoon to try some river fishing.  They tried hard, but only Simon caught one fish the whole time.

 It's impossible to see in the photo, but Simon is holding the fish he caught from the tree trunk. He was very excited to catch his first river fish.

On the way back to the car, we took a slightly different path and Simon was so excited to discover this tree.

Big Fish in a Small Pond

 Since Ellie moved away, Simon spends 80% of his free time fishing and the other 20% of the time talking about fishing.  His dedication paid off when he landed this big guy, or as he called it, "a freakin' monster!"

8/1/20

On most days, he just catches normal pond-sized fish.

You know why it's called a large-mouth bass?

The tale of the catfish tail is now the stuff of legend in our house. Simon snagged this huge catfish with his hook by its tail. It was huge. And he caught it by its tail.

Some fish (sun fish?) are very beautiful!

Occasionally they use the seining net to catch minnows to feed our pet bass in the dining room fish tank.

One time, Simon caught a frog (Big Bertha) with his bare hands.

We're still working on his fish holding poses...

Not sure what the story is here...

Alice is so annoyed that Simon (weeks later) is still talking about his huge bass. She demonstrated, with her cheese bagel, how if you hold things in front of you, they are closer to the camera and appear larger.

Simon is undeterred and still emphasizes that he caught a huge bass.

Signs of the Corona Times

 We went to Izzy's birthday party, held outside but still with masks. It was futile though, because once the eating and drinking started, the mask came down. Then add in lolly pops for game prizes, and cake inexplicably served without forks so all the kids were licking their fingers...we're just not good at this.

Alice had fun at Anna's drive-by party (to spread out the people). Everyone is trying their best, but this sucks.

One of the saddest things for me (besides the death and mass unemployment and loss of social life and public schools and so on and so forth) is the empty playground I go by on my walks.

My school year has started, and instead of the normally fun Orientation Day where students stop by classrooms to meet their new teachers and pick up textbooks, and drop by their old teacher's classrooms to say hi, all while wandering the halls and seeing their friends...we had a drive-thru supply pickup and teachers manned different rooms piled with textbooks while runners came by with carts to collect the books for students who came through the carpool lane (that's the brief version--it was very well organized).  I sat in a room alone all morning (my shift) and didn't see a single student. It was sad.

This is we're I'll be teaching from indefinitely...my spare bedroom office. 

Sure, we'll adapt and get through this and eventually this time period will be a distant memory, but right now it is so hard to see how this madness and sadness ends. I remember when I was in the depths of my own personal illness, and I couldn't fathom how I'd gotten there or how I would ever get out again. But here I am, two years later and feeling fine, so one day American life may return to normal too?

Pool Portraits

 I still take the kids to the pool as much as possible, since it gets them out of the house, they can sometimes find kids to play with here, and it's fairly safe because of the sun and wind and chlorine.

Simon's Giant Bow

 Simon was so excited when he found this large stick. He knew right what to do: make a bow of course! (Needless to say, it's completely inoperable, but he made himself a project, and that's the important part.)

Family Visit

 Tom and Eleanor and Julian came over for supper. We ate outside and spent most of our time outside, and yet it's still the horror of the coronavirus that you're always wondering, "Am I getting it right now? Am I spreading it right now?" whenever you are around someone.

Tom brought the kids birthday presents: Simon got a really awesome drone with a camera and Alice got a box of all the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books (which she's been devouring ever since).

As always, we failed to take many pictures but we had a nice visit.

In the garden

 Today is my last day of "freedom" before "going back" to work tomorrow. Everything belongs in quotes these days because nothing is real. This can't be real life. But here we are.

I went down to the kids' garden with Simon this morning, and it was full of swallowtail butterflies. They were beautiful.

Another day we saw this cute little guy hanging out on a leaf.

Kids on Wheels

 

Annoyance

 Simon loves to annoy Alice. Most days, besides catching fish, it seems like his only goal in life. Here is a picture from lunch today where he figured out the grossest way possible to eat a carrot specifically to irritate Alice. It worked very well.

As the summer break winds down and I prepare for the upcoming hell of online teaching and online learning, it strikes me as extra tragic that these two are going to continue to be stuck together nonstop without much of a break that would normally be provided by spending the school days apart. Fun times.

(It should be noted that although this picture looks sweet, Simon is mushing his face into Alice to annoy her.)

Alice's Lego tour

 Alice goes in phases where she'll play with Legos a lot. Here's a tour of her latest creation.