Spring and Summer 2020 - who guessed head lacerations for May and July?

My last post was Easter!  It has been pretty busy (for me) and (mostly) boring for the kids with everything shut down for the rest of the school year and then slowly opening through the summer.  Here are some snippets of what we have been up to...

This happened and I feel like this picture just feels right for representing how 2020 is going. Ha! Anyway, so much for passing the time shooting some hoops.  We were eventually able to buy a new backboard and get it put on, standing upright, and more solidly braced against the windy stormy days, so this doesn't happen again. 

Trevor enjoyed having a Chromebook computer to do his remote school work on.  Mom and Dad were happy when the Chromebooks were returned to school at the end of the year!

My boys were looking very shaggy with no haircut places open, so I bought some clippers and watched some YouTube videos to figure out how to cut their hair.

Before...

After...

Not too bad actually!

Austin's is easy. He likes a buzz cut.

Trevor's was a little harder, but turned out well, I think.

And then roughhousing the very next day resulted in Trevor's 3rd set of staples in his head! I was able to get supplies from the local ER and do it myself, thus avoiding an ER visit during the pandemic. (Perks of being a Doctor Mom!)

Sarah made Trevor a "get well soon" card with drawings of his favorite stuffed animal friends.

Our Disney Cruise in August was cancelled, so we bought Mickey Ice Cream Bars at the grocery store to enjoy at home.

My Mother's Day attire this year.

We made a lemon poppyseed cake for Nanny too.

Sarah made her tshirt and salt dough map of Louisiana for the "State Fair" the 4th graders put on in the spring. This year, it was a slideshow of all the kids' projects instead.

Trevor had lots of fun with sidewalk chalk.

Sarah, Trevor, and Daddy found their stars on the window of the dance studio.

We learned how to do gem painting - Trevor's is a painting of the Titanic and Sarah's is a sloth.

Austin learned how to mow the lawn.

Dr. Judy made the kids some masks out of fabric from their bulletin board projects.

Trevor had a little dance recital just with his class.

With his teacher Anica.

Pro dance-dad tip from Dr. Bob Snook - we got a slab of hard board for Sarah to practice tap dancing on without ruining our hardwood floors!

The big kids' bikes were WAY too small for them. Bikes were sold out everywhere because everyone is getting outside and biking to get some exercise during the pandemic. We could only find one his size for about $700, but when we were on the way to pick it up, we found this gem at a yard sale for $125. Another $125 of tune up and repairs and it was a steal!

We enjoyed taking our bikes to some of the trails by the Minnesota River until my shortness of breath from my pulmonary embolism reared its ugly head again. 

After many hours of putting individual little plastic gems on the canvas, we finished Trevor's Titanic gem painting. 

And then, of course, another head laceration. Austin was the lucky winner of some dermabond skin glue to glue this one back together after his little brother whacked him with a phone.

Sarah had 2 dance competitions and a recital from the end of June to end of July.  We declined going to Nationals (bad idea during a pandemic!).   I have a ton of photos from the comps and recital, so I'll make a separate dance post. 

We were unhappy with how the studio handled the pandemic and had some other issues with ballet this year, so we decided to switch studios for next year. Amidst the chaos of preparing for competitions with an ever-changing roster on her team (due to COVID and other absences), Sarah practiced for and auditioned at her new studio.  She did great and made a fun team that also includes one of her former teammates from the old studio. She also took some summer classes at the new studio and is very excited for this year. It seems like a much better fit for Sarah and we're very happy so far with our decision to make a change. 

Trevor got to have some rec soccer games and then tried out for the traveling team, which he will play with this fall. 

Austin's team was able to do some scrimmages with other teams in our own club and he enjoyed getting the chance to get out on the field and play.  He also helped out with Trevor's rec team and is helping his traveling team this fall too. I didn't grab pics of Austin playing because he is SO far across the big field now, it is hard to get any photos of him.

The big kids have been cooking meals from their kids' cookbook. They have cooked us apple cider glazed pork chops, crunchy baked cod, monkey bread, and cookies. They had left over pizza dough from making the monkey bread, so they made their own pizza too.

Sarah made the "Preteen Performers" team at Premiere Dance Academy and got to meet her team at a backyard ice cream social.  It will be a fun year!

To make going back to school with masks on more fun, I bought some fun mask designs for the big kids online.

(Sarah now has a variety of Grumpy Bear and sloth masks)

When my shortness of breath came back in early July, I had a barrage of tests done again. My CT scan was negative for PE (meaning my previous pulmonary embolism was now gone after 3 months on the blood thinners).  I went to see pulmonology to see why I was still short of breath, but they were less than helpful and wrote it off as asthma, even though we had already tried asthma treatments without improvement.  I tried the asthma inhalers for 1 month, but when I still had no improvement, I decided to just go to Mother Mayo and get checked out by the experts. I connected with my med school colleague Dr. Jeff Geske, who is now a cardiologist at Mayo Rochester, and he set me up to see his colleague and get evaluations done. I had a 3rd negative COVID test, as well as a chest xray, EKG, labs, and a stress echo/treadmill test. Those looked fine. The going theory is that I probably have pulmonary hypertension after my PE. The only way to figure that out for sure is to do a right heart catheterization, and I'm not super thrilled about that idea, so we're going to give it 6 weeks and see if I can improve my exercise tolerance and breathing. If not, I'll be headed back for the cath. I also saw hematology, who went over my lab results and found there was no genetic reason for my PE (no blood clotting disorder I could pass on to Sarah, thank goodness!).  Here was me hanging out with the Mayo brothers.

The upside of driving down to Rochester twice in a week - I brought home take out from Carlos O'Kelly's! YUM!

As we get ready to head back to school, Sarah got to go in and do her instrument trial to see which band instrument she would like to play this year. She tried the clarinet first and did OK with it, but she did an awesome job making a pretty sound on the flute. She and her music teachers were so excited!

We celebrated Trevor's 8th birthday (more on that in a separate post).

We enjoyed a beautiful day to go pick apples at Minnesota Harvest Apple Orchard.

The sunflower patch was a pretty place for a photo op.

We had another beautiful day out on Lake Minnetonka with Nanny and Grandpa.  Austin got up on waterskis and the kids enjoyed the lily pad.

We had a bit of a disappointing "Back to School Night" when Trevor's teacher was not wearing a mask, but I have been assured by the principal that it is being addressed. Our school is going back to school in person 5 days per week, starting September 8th. We are not sure it will last, but we'll hope for the best and see how it goes. The kids are excited to get back to school, as they have been home from school since mid-March when schools closed for the remainder of the year due to the pandemic.