Summer {2020}

This summer we had hoped to go on some family trips, but with Covid, we ended up staying home. We were so grateful that our HOA found a safe way for our pool to open because that ended up being our main activity this summer. We went almost every other day (so our skin could regroup from all the sun and chlorine), and it was amazing to feel some sort of normalcy and get to see other humans again. The hours were reduced to 11am-8pm, and there was an attendant that kept track of the number of people there (max 30 were allowed) and sanitized high touch areas like bathroom doors, tables/chairs, and rails into the pool. No pool toys were allowed because no lost and found was going to be kept, but most people just brought a few things to dive for and it worked out really well.

The library ended up opening for pick-up of requested items, so we were thankful to have access to new books and movies. A lot of the rest of our summer consisted of video games, youtube watching, random house upgrade projects, and board games. 

Our school district offered the option of returning to in-person school with face masks (with the option of going remote if the cases in our county got too high), or doing remote learning with zoom calls for certain subjects. Both boys were adamant about not wanting to wear masks at school all day and we honestly figured that with how the cases had been going up that the in-person students would end up going remote before too long. So far the cases counts have been surprisingly low at MECC and Mason Elementary and not very many people have been quarantined. These are the numbers as of the end of September:

Pics:

We finally came up with something to fill this small wall in our kitchen that will also let us enjoy all the artwork that the boys make at school/home and also will be our new place to display Christmas cards.

We took 4 squares of corkboard and wrapped them in fabric so they are a little nicer looking. 

My container garden is the highlight of my summer. Here are all the plants.

First the yellow bell pepper plant.

Golden Jubilee tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes

Cucumbers

Yellow Squash and Zucchini Squash

More Cherry tomatoes

Sunflowers and Pumpkins

The extra yellow bell pepper plant I got as a backup because the first one didn't seem like it was doing well.

The whole garden

Some peppers growing in on the backup pepper plant.

Golden Jubilees

Lots of cherry tomatoes

Sunflowers and pumpkins growing like crazy.

The backyard patio garden.

We went to visit the beautiful sunflower field when TeeTee was in town.

This was as close as Brett was comfortable getting because of all the bees.

The field of sunflowers was so pretty!

My first peppers from the garden. I am so excited I was able to grow full sized ones this year without having them be totally rotten!

Brett doing some spin art.

The first sunflower bloom!

More garden.

Some water fun. This always turns into a fight before too long.

They called this a "spa day".

More of my plant babies.

Blake's first day of school.

Brett's first day of school.

Mimi and the boys in front of our patch of sunflowers.

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