School's out!

The strangest school year ever is over at last. The official last day of school was Friday, June 19th, but elementary school report card pickup was Tuesday, June 16th. Jay and Rose finished their last assignments on Friday, June 12th. They each had one last class video meeting on Monday, June 15th before they were officially DONE. Confused yet? Welcome to "distance learning!" Hah. These ambiguous end dates wreaked havoc on my traditional "last day of school" pictures and end-of-school survey worksheet, so we decided to call Friday, June 12th our last day of school. We took our front porch pictures and filled out my homemade worksheets a full week before Jeff was officially done with his school year as a teacher. 

Snow Lakes

Last week it was high time for another Shaina trail adventure, but the weather forecasts in the mountains were cold, rainy, and stormy all week. I used the time to research possibilities, scouring maps, trip reports, trail descriptions, and weather forecasts for days before finally choosing my forest. This week the weather cleared. On Tuesday night, I threw together my gear and went to bed looking forward to an early start the next day.

Quarantine Hair

Jay was determined to wait until the school year ended before getting a haircut. Consequently, he grew an impressively luxurious strawberry mop of hair. The last time I trimmed his hair back in February was the best haircut I've ever given. My February fading and layering job on Jay's hair made it grow out in an almost-perfect way. The back didn't look bushy and mullet-long because I layered it so well and because the top was so much longer. It was satisfying to see my quality amateur work grow out so nicely. But the situation was getting intense. Jay developed a head-jerk-side-sweep to swoop the hair out of his eyes every few seconds. He voluntarily wore it in a ponytail on two separate occasions. He was feeling ready to see clearly again.

June Joys

School is winding down down down. There are still a few more things to be done before school is officially out for the summer, but it is rapidly waning. This week we had some oddly cool weather, with some storms and humidity. It made for some dynamic sky views--my favorite. 

On Monday my adult sized scooter came, so Jeff and I were able to enjoy scooter rides together. That same day, our ward primary had a kids' virtual talent show where each child could perform and share a video on our Facebook group or create art and share a picture of it. Jay played one of his favorite piano songs from Lord of the Rings. Rose did a flip on the trampoline. Amber drew a picture of a rainbow. It was fun seeing what talents the other kids in our ward shared, and helped us feel just a little more connected. 

Weird week

It was a weird week. I was in a funk. Intense events were happening nationwide. Social media morphed from a cozy place to touch base with friends to a polarized battleground of guilt trips and calls to arms. Inside my own home, all of my usual activities sounded either difficult or uninteresting in the most irritatingly relentless fashion. 

Just now, as I sat down to type this blog post, Amber destroyed a tree Rose built out of "brain flakes" building discs. Rose screamed and cried and shoved Amber away. Amber cried. As natural consequences, I had Rose apologize to Amber for the shove, and Amber had to clean up the busted pieces. Amber thought this was the most unfair edict ever, and in anger she tornado'd the blocks around the room, scattering them far and wide and making her clean-up job that much harder. For the next fifteen minutes or so, I endured Amber's endless protestations and outright refusal to clean up. Her main argument was she wanted lunch before she cleaned up the mess. I refused. She whined and moaned and kicked more pieces around. I told her whiny kids get naps instead of afternoon screen time. She got more mad. 

Happy Jeff-Day

June 1st was Jeff's birthday! We love him! I gave him an adult sized scooter. He gave himself a new video game controller. The kids made him cards. My mom sent him a book about a French snail named Escargot. Jeff requested Cajun shrimp for dinner and brownies with ice cream for dessert. I made my best batch of Cajun Shrimp ever, and even accessorized with several colorful side dishes. Side dishes are my nemesis, but I managed to slice a watermelon, heat and butter a can of sweet corn, cook the rice, and toss a heart of Romaine lettuce into a bowl. It was such a lovely summery meal, we ate it outside in the front yard. Lighting the birthday candles was a challenge in the breezy outdoors, so we don't have pictures of that portion. We lit a 3 and an 8 shaped candle, and one of them blew out before we could sing Happy Birthday at top speed. Jeff blew out the other one and we called it good. After dinner, Jeff's parents paid us a responsibly distant visit. They sat in our yard while we sat on our porch and chatted for half an hour. Happy birthday to the best husband ever!