Embracing the Differences

 Partly because of homeschool and partly because of COVID, our lives look very different this year.

 

For one thing, we are still going to the beach. September and October are usually still great months for the beach (sometimes even the best months), but once school and soccer start, we don't have time to go. Not this year! It's the end of October, and we still go almost every week. Hannah, in particular, is quite happy about this.

Because we are doing homeschool this year, we decided to get zoo passes. We haven't gotten zoo passes in years, but this year we definitely have more time to go. One day TCA had a school-wide "Go on your own field trip" day so we headed to the zoo. We had to wears masks the whole time, but otherwise it was a lot of fun. We're hoping to go to the zoo at least once a month.

We started off at the Reptile House which was a big hit.

Another favorite was the red panda.

This little guy was pretty cute too.

The most random thing that we get to do because of homeschooling, is have the kids join a swim team. Andy has always wanted the kids to be on a swim team, but with soccer, basketball, and baseball/softball we've never had the time. With the kids being done with school extra early, and all sports cancelled for now, it was the perfect year to join a team. If you had told me a year ago that I'd be at a pool with all three kids at 2:00 in the afternoon on a school day, I would have thought you were crazy!

Chloe ended up joining the same swim team, so now we carpool together. The girls were all cracking up when they tried on their swim caps for the first time.

One of the things we love about homeschooling is the flexibility it gives us. We had a couple of girls from church stay with us for a few days. I didn't know how well they would play on their own, so I mentioned to Hannah and Ellie that it might be a good idea to get all of their school work done early that week, so that they would be free to just hang out and play with the girls. That ended up being perfect because all the girls wanted to do was play with them.

We even got to take them to the park one morning instead of doing school.

Unfortunately Jazzercise is not back to normal yet as we're still doing classes online for the most part. In addition to that, Andy had to move our WiFi router up to our bedroom for work, so I can't do Jazzercise in the garage anymore. That means I have to do it downstairs while the kids are doing school. I use ear buds, so it's not as distracting. They do a great job of just ignoring my sweet dance moves. ;-) I miss doing Jazzercise in person, but with the kids at home doing school, it does work out well that I  don't have to drive to and from the studio for classes.

Recently our power randomly went off right before we were going to start school. The kids had things they could have worked on without the internet, but instead we decided to go for a hike. We haven't hiked much since the spring, and it was a nice cool, cloudy day.

It was nice having the flexibility to change up our plans on the fly. When we got home around 10:30, the power was back on so the kids got back to work. They worked a little after lunch to finish everything up, so the delay was no big deal!

So while we miss how things were, we're really loving a lot of the unexpected changes that this year has brought.