How We Spent the Pandemic, part 2

August rolled around, without a reopening date, but what was another month or two while they figured things out?  I enrolled the kids in a “learning camp” for September (quickly renamed "fake school"), thinking it would bridge the gap until the school district got organized.  It was OK, but not great enough to justify the cost, and between the pandemic and recuperation from knee rebuilding surgery #2, Daddy would be working from home for the foreseeable future, so we decided it would be fine to spend October doing school at home.  We're just hanging around the house, there's nothing to post about.

Brennan DID build a chair at Fake School.  I’ve lovingly dubbed it My $1900 Chair.

It looks pretty good with the outdoor furniture I purchased so we could have friends over, when the air wasn’t filled with smoke from the catastrophic fires.

Also I bought a puppy, because by that point, I had pretty much lost my damn mind.

By the end of November, private schools had re-opened, Biden was elected, and Pfizer sought emergency use approval for the vaccine.  And I thought, Can't be much longer now, I'll get back to posting in 2021.  

We spent Thanksgiving in Palm Springs, which got us some sun and pool time without having to get on an airplane.  

We also used Lucie’s 4th grade National Park Pass to visit Joshua Tree.

Then California cases spiked, school re-opening was delayed, again, and I had several time consuming projects: 1. getting vaccinated as a "essential worker" who didn't fit into the standard categories (healthcare? agriculture? other?) 2. surviving the deluge of housebound people who now had time for their pets, or time to get a pet; 3. writing angry emails to local politicians and school administrators; 4. 7th grade math.  I'm too busy to post, so I’m just going to act like these months never happened.

Over the winter, we did get some skiing in, likely thanks to Governor Newsom’s business interests at Squaw Valley, but whatever.

We also spent some time exploring the Tahoe Donner trails with cross-country skis and introducing Rosie to the snow.

February 2021, I completed my first project - getting vaccinated - allowing me time for a new project: 5. Protest marches and collecting signatures for school board recall.

By the time school partially, pathetically re-opened for elementary students, I wasn't sure I wanted to bother with the blog ever again.

But then I decided, if I never came back, it kind of looks like we didn't make it, or are lost to a dystopian future with no internet.

So here it, Lucie first day of in-person 4th Grade on April 22, 2021:

How We Spent the Pandemic, part 1

In April 2020, my plan was to wait for school to resume:  I'll post again when things are more normal.  

FYI, this was our last "normal" weekend, spent in Truckee.

If I'd known on March 14th this was going to be my last meal in a restaurant for 4 months, I might have picked something fancier than the nacho & beer place:

If I had a different kind of job, we likely would have just stayed in Truckee.  On the plus side, thanks to being classified an Essential Worker,  I did manage to get my hands on the hottest spring accessory:

The school closure was extended after Spring Break, so we spent as much time as we could in Truckee, whenever I had a string of days off or telemedicine days.  Of course, there was no skiing, but we could perfect the sledding run and get outdoors with Roux. 

It was kind of nice to see winter change to spring in Tahoe - soccer usually keeps us in San Francisco this time of year.  We found a fun new hike at Chickadee Ridge.  The kids can kind of take or leave the hike, but they like all the chickadees who will swoop down and take sunflower seeds from your hand.

Somehow, we muddled through to the Last Day of "School":

And I thought, it's gonna be a weird summer, we should just try to enjoy what we can, I'm not going to worry about recording it for posterity.  In June, shelter-in-place restrictions started to lift, and our outdoor options expanded to:

Donner Lake State Park

the ropes & zipline course in Tahoe City

Fields of Light at Sensorio in Paso Robles

(which also gave us an excuse to visit Morro Bay)

The Tahoe Donner marina & pool, which were greatly improved by instituting a crowd control reservation system, IMHO.

Lucie kept up her riding lessons in Pacifica -

- and I miraculously managed to get my hands on a new mountain bike for Brennan’s 12th birthday.

Hang on for more pandemic hijinks in Part 2!

Mountain time, winter edition

We headed up to Tahoe for New Year's Eve.  We're able to make it to the mountains for at least part of winter break and 1-2 weekends a month through ski season. Unfortunately, Daddy's knees are still out of commission, so he has to miss out on the skiing part.  

We're lucky to have lots of friends who can join us at the Truckee house or meet us at Squaw Valley & Alpine Meadows.  

Sometimes, we have a big enough group to fill the entire lift chair:

We even meet up with our buddies Jackson & Xander, who moved to San Diego a few years ago.

Jackson and Lucie have been locked in a multi-year contest to be the craziest little sibling and are terribly competitive, which of course has led their classmates and big brothers to constantly harass them about being "boyfriend and girlfriend".   

While it's been a lot easier to connect with friends since we switched to the Squaw-Alpine season pass, one major disappointment is the lack of an ice rink.  Lucie loves to go skating and begs to go back to Northstar.  The Northstar rink is free, and if you are lucky, you can sometimes snag a comfy chair near one of the fire-pits and order a cocoa (or something stronger).  But it's a 20-30 minute drive from Truckee, and the parking there is a fiasco.  So guess how happy I was to discover the town of Truckee has their own ice rink at the park by the river?  It's not free, but pretty close to it, and WAY less crowded.

Sometimes, our friends are busy, and it's just the 3 of us -

- and that's still fun.

Sometimes, the middle schooler wants to learn to snowboard, and takes a lesson because I'm not about to try to teach that, and it's just Mommy & Lucie -

- and that's still fun.

Of course, we can't spend all our time in the snow.  Lucie's got the same 3rd grade teacher that Brennan had - Mr. Draven, the Man of 1,000 Field Trips.  She loves it.  Even the ones to Golden Gate Park, where they are really just unpaid child labor battling the invasive ivy.

She's also still riding every week or so, and helping her instructor socialize a new pony.  His name is Ducky, and she loves feeding him.

Brennan is a true San Francisco kid - there's nothing like a wet, gloomy day to get him all fired up to take Roux for a hike up a big hill.

He tried Futsal this winter, which I think he liked.  None of us were fans of the evening outdoor practice, but the games - 45 minutes long, indoors, always at 11 or 12 on Sunday at a nearby gym - are a piece of cake compared to driving across the city to shiver in some field for an hour and a half.

Of course, these days, we would give anything to be able to shiver in some unlovely field in an odd corner of the city with our friends.  Or pull ivy and find gross underwear in Golden Gate Park with our classmates.  Or go skiing, even if it's just with our mom.  We're two weeks into the emergency school closure and shelter-in-place, which two weeks ago seemed an impossible thing.  So we will hang in there, and daydream about next winter on the mountain.