August 2020 Recap

I'm catching up on blog posts from mid-2020. As I write this post, it's April 2021, but I'm back-dating everything so that they appear in chronological order and can be found more easily in the future.  

Looking back on August 2020: what a tough month this was! We were still at the beginning of the pandemic and we had to make schooling decision for the three of us in school. It was hard to know what to do and what felt safe. My district decided to go back to school in-person after a three-week delay. August for me meant deploying Chromebooks to students and getting ready for meeting the needs of both virtual and in-person students while trying to uphold safety standards (masks and social distancing). The boys went back online for quick awhile before slowly transitioning to a hybrid learning model.  

Here's what the first day of school in 2020 looked like, all set up for virtual learning!

Will's first day of 9th grade:

Henry's first day of 7th grade:

More pics of virtual schooling:

Will's 14th birthday was August 18. We celebrated with sushi and Crave cupcakes!

As always, we spent a lot of time cooking. Some highlights: pizza night and codfish.

During the pandemic, I cut everyone's hair at home. I am not very good, so one thing we are all looking forward is professional haircuts!

Even though August is the hottest month, we got outside whenever we could. We visited the Arboretum a lot!

Henry and I visited the new Eastern Glades at Memorial Park. It was lovely!

The kittens truly were a highlight of 2020. They brought us such joy, every day, and we took lots and lots of photos of them.

Snickers was fixed and we made him wear a fancy collar to prevent licking.  

And that's a wrap for August 2020!

July 2020 Recap

I'm slowly but surely getting caught up on blog posts.  July was more of the same -- morning walks at the arboretum, play time with the kittens and lots of good food.  

Here's a quick recap of our July, in chronological order:

We saw so many night herons during our 7am walks at the arboretum.

Armadillos

And gorgeous flowers

Curious, sleepy, playful kittens

Baseball came back! Henry watched an inter-league game on his computer.

We found the back way down to the owl mural at the arboretum. There's a Memorial Park trail, outside the arboretum, that takes you down to the mural.  

It's pear season in Texas, so we made a pear pie with our haul from the farmers market.  

More kitten pics -- these two have brought us so much joy.

Growing kittens -- Oreo at just under 4 pounds while Snickers was almost 6 pounds (at 4 months).

Henry and I visited the MFAH to see the "Soul of a Nation" exhibit, which was phenomenal.

Gene got me the best birthday present this year -- my own plank on one of the boardwalks at the Houston Arboretum! It was so thoughtful and it makes me smile every time I walk over it.  

At-home birthday dinner, with pre-dinner cocktail (sparkling water with a lime.) Sweetest waiter ever!

Crave cupcakes, always.

One of the perks of being a librarian is that I sometimes get surprise ARCs (advance reader copies) sent to me. I gave AstroNuts to Henry and he read it right away!

Food is always a big deal at our house. We are continuing to shop at the farmers market as usual, but we also started back with our CSA through Wood Duck Farm, which means that every Wednesday, we get a box full of fresh seasonal veggies. 

Roasted chickens

Fajitas!

Portuguese Gomes de Sa

Flank steak

So much baked bread!

We picked up a fish platter at the MFAH this summer and we use it all the time for our fish dinners. Cedar-planked salmon is my favorite

but Henry loves flounder.  

Gene decided to go sailing one weekend and took Henry along for the adventure -- but first, they had to get Henry a new hat.  

Sailing adventure

They rented a boat down in Clear Lake and were off!

It was hot but Henry's first sailing adventure was a success. They had the best time!

Our July was far from normal, but considering we're living through a global pandemic, it was pretty good!