2020 is turning out to be quite the year!

2020 is proving to be quite the year! It started out ok but quickly moved into pandemic mode which was nothing like anything we have ever experienced before. Before that was even close to over riots against police started breaking out in my cities and towns across the U.S. Protesters were calling for change after George Floyd, a black man, was killed by a cop kneeling on his neck and several others holding him down. The video that surfaced shows him laying still, yelling that he can't breathe and a cop kneeling on his neck until he is no longer breathing. This sparked outrage from so many people, calling for change in racism and police brutality. It is a hard thing to tell your kids about, especially since they will never be racially targeted. It is hard to believe that in 2020 people are still having to fight this battle! Lincoln NE saw its share of peaceful and violent protests. My heart goes out to the cops that do try to build community relations and are doing the right thing because some of the nights they have endured lately are scary. Crowds of 300-400 people throwing fireworks, water bottles, breaking windows and looting stores isn't something that anyone in Lincoln is used to!

We Have Ripe Strawberries

Robb planted about 6 strawberry plants last year and this year they have really taken off. They have sent out shoots and started a lot of new plants. The girls have been watching closely for the strawberries to be ready. Tonight they found a handful that were ripe. Most of them didn't make it inside, they just ate them as they picked them. 

Memorial Weekend

We have spent months inside and avoiding other people. Now as things start to loosen but and open up slowly it is hard to know when and how that process should happen for your family. Robb is still working from home and our kids haven't been to any stores in 2 months. We have slowly been letting them ride bikes in town with friends and Abby has had a sleepover with Addison. Everyone is ready for everything to be normal but we all want to stay as safe as possible. Megan and the kids have been going stir crazy because Lane is super cautious about everything. We decided that we would get together for a bit and stay outdoors. The kids were super excited to see each other! We feel like Cooper has grown up without us! He is walking all over now. Harper always takes a little bit to warm up but she was having a great time and didn't want to leave by the end. We played with water balloons, the water table and in the "pond" that our near flooding rain the night before created.

First Tornado Warning of the Year

Emmy notified us that we were in our first tornado warning of the year. The weather was stormy out but not bad enough that I was worried about a Tornado Warning. Her Alexa notifications had told her. We don't hear the sirens at our house so I guess it's good that someone is watching out for us! The dog and the rabbit both had to be safe too. I think this whole thing made Lucy a little nervous! Luckily, no tornado occurred but we got a crazy amount of rain in a short period of time.

Happy 38th Birthday Robb

Robb's wish for his birthday every year since I have known him, is to go to the lake and wakeboard for his birthday. This year we had to do it a day early due to work schedules. Andy came over and we took the boat to Blue Stem lake. The weather was chilly but nice out. Robb got his wish and got great water for wakeboarding. Caleb was also crazy enough to get in and tube. Andy and I were not getting in until it has warmed up a bit!

Caleb found a cute little tree frog. He was really disappointed when I told him that we couldn't bring it home.

Ever since back surgery, Robb has taken it easy with the wakeboarding but he looked great out there!

Happy Birthday! Bryce was in Norfolk with the Lutz's so he missed the first boating trip of the season.

On his actual birthday we had steak and oreo dessert. Emmy helped make them.

Planting the Garden

Our gardening didn't go so well last year so we have tried a few thing to hopefully make it more successful this year. Robb grew all of his own tomatoes and peppers from seeds and he kept them in his little homemade green house. Since he was working from home he could move the green house in and out of the garage throughout the day. His plants were huge by the time we put them in the garden. We also didn't till our garden this year. The last couple of years we have battled crazy amounts of weeds so this year we just planted the tomatoes and then tilled rows for beans. We also put grass clippings around the plants to hopefully protect them a bit. This gardening thing is a learning process. 

Long Overdue Quarentine Haircuts

All the boys needed haircuts around the 1st week of March. I didn't think too much of it, we would just get their haircut before Easter. Well....lockdown and quarantine happened and all the haircut places were closed down. We had some really shaggy boys. Bryce's hair finally got to the point that it laid down. Finally, after 11 weeks the haircut places opened up and you could get your haircut again, you just had to make sure you were wearing a mask. 

Last Day of Home School

If you would have told me that I was going to Homeschool our kids I would have thought you were crazy! Never in a million years would I have ever made the choice to homeschool but I actually really enjoyed it. If I was going to continue to homeschool I would do it differently than it was set up for this which was watching a lot of things on YouTube etc. I would want to learn about the topic and actually teach the material. This worked okay for short term homeschool though. Emmy's topics were more things that I got to present in different ways that were interesting to her. All the kids did a great job of adjusting to such a change in their lives. 

It was hard for Emmy because she missed her teacher so much. Mrs. Emeigh was such a great teacher. We all missed her. It was sad to not have closure to the end of her Kindergarten year but she will get to see all of her friends next year!

Abby didn't get to have her end of the year tunnel walk, they did a drive through one but it wasn't the same. This is also her last year in the intermediate school. Next year she will be going to Middle School. She is a little nervous because usually they would have got to eat lunch at the Middle School, meet the teachers and take a tour before they started the year there next fall. I can't believe she will be in Middle School already!

Most of the Middle school teachers understood the limitations of homeschool learning, except the science teacher! Every week they would have a super involved project that included a research paper, power point slides, evidence and conclusions. I have no idea how kids passed that didn't have parents helping them. To make it worse, after spending 5-6 hours a week on this one class, she would always have at least 1 if not 2 things that she had to knit pick at. The boys were super frustrated with her, for good reason. They would email her questions and never get an answer. I would email her and hear back within minutes. It almost became a game to see if she would ever respond back to her students or just a mom. Anyway, we passed! It was super painful but we passed!

It's hard to believe that the boys only have one more year of middle school before they will be high schoolers!

Lucy loves having us home but she hides to take naps now. 

End of Year Parade

The Elementary teachers did a last day of school parade for the kids. We waited in Roca for them to drive by. Emmy had made a sign for teacher. We got to wave and say Hi to Mrs. Emeigh. 

Fish...It's Whats for Dinner

 Caleb caught a crappie that he wanted to bring home and eat. One small problem. No one in our house knows how to clean a fish. I remember watching my dad do it when I was little but I wasn't the one doing it. Robb and Caleb watched a couple YouTube videos and figured out how to do it. We did realize that we do not have an appropriate knife so we will have to get a fish cleaning knife.

Robb looks pretty thrilled about this.

The deal was Bryce would fish with Caleb if he got to cook up the fish that Caleb caught. It was about 3 bites of fish but they said it was good.

Enjoying his fish.

Exploring the Trail

We have had to get creative lately! Quarantine has went on for 11 weeks now so nothing other than stores are open. The kids never leave the house and they are going stir crazy! It wasn't very nice out but I was annoyed with trying to keep everyone off of their electronics, so I decided we were going to the trial. Lucy and I walk the trail outside of Roca a lot but with the boys along we really explored it! We went down under each bridge and it was pretty cool! It was time well spent with the kiddos!