Well, obviously writing monthly last year didn't happen. Here we are, a year and a half later.
Samuel is 7, Levi is 4. We bought a house last summer and moved, a lot of other stuff happened (Samuel lost two teeth, Levi potty trained, and they both grew a ton!) and then a global pandemic closed schools for the last 3 months and we have been essentially quarantined since March. That mostly brings us up to speed. (I do keep a bunch of other journals and photo books, so it's not like we are missing out on a whole year and a half of documenting or anything).
Life right now: A lot of Star Wars origami and Pokemon trading cards. Levi is obsessed with Doc McStuffins this week, and making "waterfalls" with the hose. Samuel's thing of the week is this bridge building game Eric introduced him to on the computer. And riding his bike, but that's an always thing.
We've been through a lot of phases since quarantine started: playing in the culvert nonstop, the Wii and then Super Mario, soooooo much art - especially several weeks of non stop Pokemon drawings, Levi writing letters to his BFF, learning to draw people that thankfully no longer have super creepy eyes, watching lots of Pokemon, Ryan Defrates and Octonauts (SO MUCH OCTONAUTS), Z Bars and Cheese crackers during Google Meets every day at 10, crazy science projects we had to figure out how to do at home, trying to sell various things to our neighbors (rocks, origami puppets), stop motion videos, mud pies, SO MUCH SWINGING, trampoline forts and regular forts that cause fights 3-5x daily, Levi's obsession with bike pumps, the water table, frosted coffee and corona memes and watching nightly kitchen covers (me), Eric shaving his beard off and wearing glasses and looking like a totally different guy and Levi giggling like crazy for the first week or so every time he saw him, smoothie popsicles multiple times a week, “working on bikes”, fishing, nailing pieces of wood together, puzzles, catching caterpillars and watching them build cocoons and turn into moths, staying up way too late, mud slides, building with magnets and decorating Easter eggs, baseball and soccer, paper airplanes and keeping Amazon in business, gardening and legos and learning how to wear masks everywhere we go.
We have been finding places to hike almost every day since school ended. We joined a pool and went for the first time today, trying very hard to stay 6 feet away from the few other people there because "social distancing" is our norm now.
Eric is on a hospital week, which means working a bunch, but it's almost over, so that's good.
I've been running a lot and doing tabata videos at home. And trying to read more and not bake all the things because I have to wear a swimsuit to the aforementioned pool.
We miss the library. And the Nature Center and little chidren's museum and eating out in actual restaurants and the bookstore and the gym and school and church.
Life is weird right now. A little lonely sometimes, tiring because kids 24/7, but overall pretty good. I'm really grateful to live in a place with lots of outdoor activities and mild summers so we can get out and enjoy nature - it's made all the difference!
Anyway, maybe I'll post again in another year and a half. We'll see.
