I thought it might be interesting to capture what kind of suppers we ate during summer pandemic times (ok, so there is the odd breakfast and lunch in there. Typically we have cereal for breakfast and pasta or sandwiches for lunch) Some stuff is probably missing if I blogged about it elsewhere but close enough.

Seems like we eat a lot of dairy, especially cheese lol

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After our big beach trip last weekend I was contemplating skipping adventure day. We went hiking at Mer Bleue. For some reason the road was closed leading up to the parking lot closest to the boardwalk (nothing on their website and Google showed it open), but P21 was open and not too crowded so we turned around and went back.

The trail was beautiful but very buggy. We walked along the trail for about half an hour and then turned around - the full loop is 7km or something so it was obvious we weren't doing that.

Highlights included:

• Erika complaining that she wished mosquitoes ate plants instead of blood and Brendan pointing out that then cows might eat blood instead of plants. Then he moo'd and all the kids ran like wild things.
• Garter snake crossing the trail in front of me.
• Matthew pretending to be a moose.

We did manage a music class this week looking at different eras of classical music (Renaissance, Medieval and Baroque). We talked about Bach in particular. Then we made zucchini muffins as part of a cooking class focused on measuring skills.

Matthew is working on his two times tables. Elizabeth finished off her fractions book! Everyone did book reports (in french). Matthew was excited to "type" his on the computer. Amelia did a paper bag book report where you put things in the bag that were in the story and then explain why you chose each one.

Amelia and Michael's playgroup made fruit skewers this week. No one got stabbed. Elizabeth made BBQ hotdogs and steamed some frozen veggies for supper. Notable because it was entirely independent.

Elizabeth was away for a sleepover at Erika's house from karate on Wednesday until lunchtime on Thursday. They made cookies and had an "awesome" time. The rest of us went for a bike ride and stopped at a park for some play time.

Matthew and Amelia played a very elaborate game that involved building the great wall of China (later changed to the great wall of Ottawa). It had to protect the ponies from the Lego people apparently.

Elizabeth also finally finished her advertising project and did quite a nice oral presentation on different advertising techniques. She was amused because I set up a Google classroom for her but it does seem quite effective as an organizing strategy now that she can go and see what is due when. She even finished her required reading before I even told her I wanted it done because she could see the assignment online. I'm still playing around with rubrics etc. I didn't set it up for Matthew yet as I think it won't be as helpful for a single student at his grade level but we'll see as I get more experience with the software.

We started a new science curriculum this week. Amelia and Matthew are doing Elemental Science Physics for the Grammar stage and Elizabeth is doing Physics for the Logic stage. Elizabeth's class this week was mostly review because she did many of the activities in June with "real school" - it starts out with forces. Amelia and Matthew are learning about different kinds of energy.

For gym we biked, did karate, hiked and tried to play soccer. The most popular activity was Daddy's timed obstacle course in the basement for the younger three kids.

At the end of the week we had an impromptu distanced play date with Dianne and her kids.

All in all it was a fun week.

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We decided to bike out to Mooney's bay early Sunday morning. It was a bit of an adventure because Google Maps does not seem to know about bike paths and the Hog's Back bridge is under construction so it thought it was closed. I had previously promised Matthew we could see what was on the other side of the locks by the arboretum so we went the long way around Dow's lake and back across Hog's Back to find it. The way across Hog's Back is quite narrow and it's not really possible to stop to admire the falls right now but it was amusing.

I brought a picnic for lunch and took full advantage of the Chariot's cargo space. Actually I think I could have stuffed a couple of our lawn chairs in there but I didn't think of it. Next time!

We wore swimsuits to Mooney's bay on the hope that it wouldn't be too busy when we got there and although we ended up leaving half an hour later than expected and taking an hour to bike out the beach was relatively uncrowded (even the shady parts!).

We swam for a bit and played in the sand for a bit and then as it started to get more crowded we headed over to the Adventure Playground.

The kids enjoyed the playground in fits and starts because "some kids don't know about keeping 2m" and they had to keep leaving various structures when the other kids refused to back off. I eventually came over and ran interference, insisting certain kids stayed away from mine even if that meant waiting their turn. I found that with an adult firmly asking them to wait social distancing worked fine, but some parents seemed quite invested in ignoring this. I actually had one kid who was waiting patiently for ours to finish climbing over the structure and their parent LIFTED their kid right next to Elizabeth, who was then blocked from coming down. I told him to back off and he was all "my kid is only three and can't be expected to keep his distance". I was not amused, particularly since the kid in question had been perfectly happy to wait (also the playground was not crowded and there were many structures available that had no kids at all on them).

As the morning wore on it started to get busier (and hotter!) so we headed for home. Everyone was HOT, sweaty and tired by the time we finally made it home.

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I got rather enthusiastic about celebrating Christmas in July this year. Decorations, Christmas music all day and Christmas themed food.

We had waffles and bacon and eggs for breakfast, o nigiri snowmen for lunch and a Christmas feast for supper. We even managed to invite Grandma Margaret and Uncle Chris and Erika to join us. My only regret was that we seem to be out of store bought Christmas crackers.

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In ordinary times we would be celebrating the Olympics so we decided to have an Olympics themed week.

Monday, Elizabeth and I went sailing. Or rather, we attempted to go participate in the sailing time trials but our boat had technical issues and we ended up motoring out and back in (we couldn't get the main up). It was super windy and we were extremely shorthanded so we had just planned to cross the line and then retire. In any case it was nice to get out on the water again.

Tuesday we participated in the Triathlon.

Wednesday is karate day around here. In addition to our regularly scheduled activities, the kids decided they wanted to do some sparring and dance. Sparring was a bit fraught with peril. Matthew was inclined to take the excuse to wallop Amelia, and Elizabeth kicked Erika very hard in the chin. They decided to stop before we needed an ER visit but we'll try again soon.

Thursday Brendan set up a makeshift "net" and got the kids playing badminton and volleyball. When they got bored they used the rope to make hammocks. Or as Brendan put it "they did terrible, terrible things" with the rope.

Friday I took the canoe for a walk again, just me and five kids. We rented one canoe and paddled across Dow's lake in the blazing hot sun. We immediately headed for the little wooden bridge and spent some time paddling around that little space in the shade. Elizabeth and Erika were very entertained paddling through the branches dangling into the water until they discovered that there were spiderlike bugs in the branches. Luckily Elizabeth did not swamp the canoe in the resulting excitement.

In the non-sports side of life, Amelia finally went to get her 4-6 year old vaccines on Monday. Don't get me started on why she doesn't already have them or why she needed a third chicken pox vaccine but she's up to date now. She had no trouble wearing a mask and happily told the technician all about how her big brother once hid under a chair to try and avoid getting his flu shot but "SHE'S the bravest". She didn't cry at all. After the doctor's we went to the library for the first time post pandemic to pick up some holds. We had to make an appointment and you can only get one per week AND I'm not used to this so I missed the first one. I was a little worried about missing my time slot and not getting our books but it turned out to be remarkably painless. Let it also be known that I very nearly (but not quite) managed to pass as a francophone. About five minutes into my interaction with the librarian I couldn't remember the word "renewal" and she suddenly looked horrified and said "Oh! I thought you were francophone but would you prefer service in English?" (she had started out speaking to me in french and I just went with it). Anyway I was quite proud.

Matthew finished off Math U See Beta this week which means he's moving on to multiplication!

We did a bunch of art - I suggested we skip the Star Wars JJK episodes but apparently that was crazy talk. Daddy had sent me a video showing how to make a silhouette video featuring an elephant so we sacrificed a toothbrush and tried it. The result wasn't quite what we were going for but we learned a lot and everyone had fun aside from those of us who had to scrub paint off the floor.

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There hasn't been a kids triathlon in Ottawa for a number of years now and with a global pandemic in full swing it might seem like the last thing you'd expect us to be doing, but seeing as the group that runs it had already prepared materials including having medals made they actually encouraged folks to run their own home triathlons.  Dianne did a huge amount of both figurative and physical legwork organizing the details, including painting and plumbing so that there would be bathroom facilities available!  There were 24 participants in total, with four doing their triathlon elsewhere and the rest meeting up to do a distanced race at David and Dianne's.

The actual race was as her place as they have a pool and live on a fairly secluded stretch of road right next to a long walking/biking trail through the woods.  All in all a pretty ideal spot.

Bright and early (too early) the whole family piled into the van and loaded bikes on to the back (making use of our amazing although somewhat lonely and forlorn bike rack).  Erika had slept over to save herself the 6:00am bike ride to our place and Grandma even pried herself out of bed before anyone ought to in order to come and watch Michael so that Daddy could go along and act as the official race photographer.

Each heat was set up with kids of similar abilities so that they could have some sense of racing, but only heats of 2 so that we could easily keep our distance. There was extra time between heats to make sure we weren't all crowding together.

The kids started in the pool with David recording start times and counting laps.  Amelia swam 3 lengths (20m), Matthew 4 (25m) and Erika and Elizabeth did 43 (300m). The older girls were a bit concerned they were going to get dizzy with all the turning around as the pool is only 7m long but it was fine.  Elizabeth decided to compete in Erika's age bracket to keep her company despite it being roughly 3 times the distances (and it isn't like she isn't fit enough to do so).  They then dashed out of the pool and out to the bike coral (aka the driveway).  Then off into the woods for a bike ride and back to drop their bikes and run up and down the road.  Amelia biked 500m, Matthew 1.5km and the older girls 10km.  Amelia then ran 100m, Matthew 500m and Elizabeth and Erika 3km.  They finished by running through a magnificent pool noodle arch where Dianne recorded their finishing times.

Amelia finished in 12 minutes (3rd in her group of 5). Matthew finished in 14 minutes (1st in his group of 4). Erika and Elizabeth were the only participants at the black level and they finished in 61 minutes.

The whole thing was great.  Everyone was pretty good about staying socially distant and wearing masks when not racing.  The kids all had lots of fun and even got a little bit tired out.

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