As July began, we settled into our quarantine summer routine. As usual for our summers, the boys each have a list of tasks to complete each day before they can earn screen time. Mason has been learning how to do a lot more chores around the house and spends 15-20 minutes doing a reading lesson with me most days of the week. Spencer is also learning new chores in addition to practicing the piano, completing a large math review packet, learning cursive, helping me make our 2014-2015 blog books, and writing in his journal. We've stuck to these schedules a lot more than normal this year since we don't have many other places to go and they keep the boys from going crazy with boredom.
Pokemon trading with S. on Zoom! It was pretty easy to drive a mile to trade cards afterwards. :)
Impromptu underwear sprinkler run! Ha!
Mason lost his 2nd tooth! It took forever because the new tooth is so far behind the baby tooth that it didn't really push it out. The poor guy had to deal with a sore, wiggly tooth for a week or so. He definitely has some orthodontia in his future!
Alan couldn't bare to celebrate the 4th of July without a race so he designed a course just for us and his parents. Haha! It was a figure 8 course with a 1-mile top loop and a 2-mile bottom loop. The plan was for Mason and I to "run" the 1st mile, pick up his bike when we passed our car again and then ride/jog the 2nd mile. Alan and Spencer finished the entire thing at the same time Mason and I finished the first loop though and Mason lost all motivation to continue. Grandpa coaxed him into riding his bike around the finish line for a minute, but that was it. Spencer set a new PR though: 23:46! I'm not sure I could have kept up with him if I had tried! After medals and a picture, Alan took the boys home and I finished the last 2 miles on my own. Definitely not a Freedomthon, but still a fun, family activity.
We had a bbq with Darwin and Debbie in our backyard that evening. We ate the usual burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, watermelon, corn on the cob, and homemade ice cream. We did step-up our burger game though and made them from scratch. They were a hit! Actually, everything was.
Even though I really don't like the small fireworks you can buy in stores, I caved and bought some this year because there were no big shows to watch. Covid cancelled everything. (The numbers of cases had gone down in May, but started to come back up as soon as things began reopening in June. That halted all progress towards opening and normalcy. Boo!) We set up in our driveway along with nearly every other family on our street. It was almost like a block party, but not quite. Our next-door neighbors always buy the big pack of fireworks from Costco and are so nice and generous to share them with Spencer and Mason. It wasn't the same as a big show, but the boys had fun and the feeling of community among neighbors was neat.
This was Mason's first time holding a sparkler and he made us all nervous!
One of the biggest silver linings of Covid has been having Alan home so much. We have loved it! Not every dad has the time to snuggle on the couch and read stories after breakfast on a weekday!
I have wanted to bike the Banks-Vernonia trail ever since Uberthons started doing their summer marathon there and Alan told me what a nice bike trail it was. This was the year it worked for us to do it! Alan wasn't super excited since he has to bike it several times while setting up and taking down the marathon each year, but the marathon was cancelled this year so he was willing to go. Since we're novice bikers, we chose the easy route of taking two cars: one to leave at the bottom and one to drive to the top so we could just ride down. That made for an almost completely downhill 11-mile ride. We all froze for the first few miles because we were high up and the forest cover was thick. It was much more comfortable after we stopped for a picnic and the sun came out a little. The long catwalk bridge was a highlight for all of us. Our actual riding time was just a little over an hour because of all of the downhill. It was a fun adventure!
"Mom, can you see me?!"
Our neighbor girls (N and O) have been Mason's only playmates this summer. I moved some chairs onto our balcony while I cleaned carpets one day and Mason spent a long time out there spying over the neighbor's fence and talking to N and O. Funny, but sad that he is so starved for friends too.
Sunday evening walk at Cooper Mountain Nature Park. We were there at golden hour and the views and light were stunning. The only bad part was that the first half of the walk was all downhill and then we had to come back up. Mason barely survived. ;)
I'm counting it as a huge tender mercy that a friend in our ward began offering private swimming lessons in her backyard pool in July. The lessons weren't certified, but they were perfect for kids Mason's age who really just need to spend time in the water. He was over the moon to get to swim and did very well. Most of the teachers were teens from our ward so that was nice too.
Spencer was too old for the lessons, but he was thrilled when we showed up one day and his long, lost best friend was there! They got to spend 15-20 minutes talking to each other 6 feet apart.
This turf lawn was super warm and comfy after swimming!
One of my favorite summer activities: blueberry picking at our favorite farm! We weren't supposed to eat any berries while picking because of the virus this year, but that lasted about five minutes. None of us have that much willpower! Mason earned $1 and Spencer earned $5.
Since Mason had done pretty well not sucking his fingers during the day in May/June, we decided to try to break his night sucking habit too. I bought some yucky-tasking stuff to paint on his finger nails and he got to pick out a new, snugly animal to help him go to sleep at night. Not sucking at night was hard on this poor boy! It took him forever to fall asleep and then he would wake up early every morning. He was grumpy and clingy during the day. After about a week, Mason decided he wanted to suck more than he disliked the taste of the stuff I put on his nails and just sucked anyway - right after I put it on! We gave up at that point and are now just totally ignoring his sucking. He is sucking more than ever now, but I found myself getting upset and shaming him a little and decided that his self-confidence and my relationship with him was more important than trying to prevent damage to his teeth. I'm at a loss about what to do at this point.
Spencer's best friend since kindergarten moved at the end of July! We received another tender mercy and the boys were able to spend about two hours swimming at the same pool where Mason took lessons just a few days before they moved. This was the first time they had been able to play together since March and it was so good for Spencer! Thankfully, S. family only moved about an hour away so it wasn't goodbye forever.
I had registered Mason for a preschool camp in town at the end of March. It was supposed to happen the same week that Alan and Spencer were on High Adventure and I thought it would be a really fun thing for Mason to do while they were gone. High Adventure got cancelled, but Mason's camp didn't. I was pretty torn about whether or not I should send him, but in the end I decided that his mental and emotional health was more important than the small risk of getting the virus. I was really worried about how he would do being separated from me since that hadn't happened in five months. Mason did great though and wound up having a super time! The camp ran from 9:00-1:00 Tuesday-Thursday. Mason was in a group of 10 kiddos and Miss Shelley was so nice to arrange for him to have two other kids he knows from Church in his group. Mason loved the pirates/fairy tales theme and made a new friend (although he never asked his friend's name! Haha!).
We took our annual trip to Silver Falls on Pioneer Day. Sadly, this trip turned out to be least favorite of all the times we have gone because it was SO crowded. There are so few activities for people to do these days that trails like Silver Falls are very popular. We hiked a 3-mile loop and had to keep our masks on the entire time because we were constantly passing people going the opposite direction on the trail. The waterfalls were still gorgeous and the weather was nice though. Like usual, Mason almost didn't survive the last mile. ;) It was also a bummer that the dam in the creek had been removed so the whole swimming area was very shallow. The cool water still felt good on our hot, dusty feet though. Hopefully coronavirus will be over by next summer so it won't be so the park won't be so crowded next time we go.
Alan and Spencer bless and pass the sacrament for a widow sister I minister to every Sunday. E. is so sweet and sometimes has little gifts for the boys. One Sunday she gave them marbles and encouraged them to go outside and play in the dirt like she did as a child in Mexico. I discouraged the dirt, but we had fun playing on the carpet in Mason's room. We were all terrible to begin with, but have improved a little since then. :)
Spencer spent a morning completing his Rubix Cube!
In June, Mason set a goal to learn to ride a bike without training wheels by the end of the summer. He had been practicing on his balance bike, riding his bike with training wheels, and riding on the back of our bikes on his WeRide for a month or so before Alan took off the training wheels and started really trying to teach Mason to ride solo. The first night was a little rough and he wound up taking the pedals off so Mason could just practice balancing some more. We did that same thing with Spencer and it worked like a charm.
Jungle kitty
Visiting George Rogers Park was on our summer bucket list so I took the boys one hot day while Alan was working. There were quite a few people there, but we could still socially distance ourselves from them so it was alright. We got lucky and got a picnic spot in the shade and that saved me from a migraine. Luckily, I had thought a little ahead and had order a life jacket for Mason from Amazon. It's nearly impossible to find any sort of outdoor recreational equipment in stores this summer. Everything is sold out. Anyway, Mason LOVED swimming around and chasing a momma duck and her ducklings around the shallows in the river. Spencer was a party pooper and wouldn't get in the water. He still claimed that he had fun though. We discovered that both boys had outgrown their swim suits and stopped and Old Navy on the way home for new ones. They only had one style left in stock, but they were on clearance so it was a win!
