The kids went back to school in the beginning of September, and so far, we have made it longer than I thought we would with school remaining open. We have been busy with select other activities, all altered by the pandemic precautions, of course. This has also left us more free time at home, which has been a nice change, frankly. Here are some updates on what we have been up to.
Trevor is my little engineer. He has been into an Angry Birds game lately, and he loves to draw and create things. He drew this "blueprint" of what he was going to construct, and then made it. Very detailed, labelled, and accurate drawing. I was quite impressed!
The kids love to play the Disney Villainous game and there are puzzles of each villain that have artwork from the game. I have been putting together these puzzles and we have put them up in the kids' playroom. Here is one of the more recent ones I did.
Then a pumpkin festival puzzle for Halloween.
My little ballerina decided to sit and read the encyclopedic dictionary one day after ballet.
In mid-October, Trevor got sick. Half his class was out sick, but no one at the school informed us that there was anything going around his classroom. Not cool in the middle of a pandemic! Trevor came home one day and said, "Mom, my whole class has allergies!" (NOT allergies!!) Trevor came home looking sick, had a fever, runny nose, cough, etc. and when I notified his teacher and school, the teacher responded that the wind had been kicking up allergies lately! (Massive face palm! Come on!)
Anyway, here is how sick my poor baby looked.
An ice cream sundae for dessert perked him up!
We swabbed him for strep and flu, which were both negative, then swabbed him for COVID as well. That took about 4-5 days to come back, so all the kids were quarantined waiting for that to come back. It was negative then. Yay! He felt better within a couple days and got back to school.
Here is Trevor suited up to play a football dice game. This kid loves to dress up!
While Trevor was sick, we missed the SACS Marathon (which was virtual this year anyway), so the big kids and I biked down to school to do the marathon on our own.
We enjoyed a fun day at Sever's Corn Maze and Fall Festival.
Pumpkin blaster
Corn maze (Amazon rainforest theme this year)
Enjoying some roasted corn while we watched a magic show
Zip line
Trevor was the only one who wanted to ride the giant slide this year.
It got chilly as the day wore on, so we headed home to warm up!
I was able to vote in between hospital rounds and evening clinic one day. It was really fast, easy, and distanced! Nicely done Shakopee!
Trevor made his own election between his 2 stuffed animal friends, Wiggles and Croaky.
For Halloween, we decided not to trick or treat or hand out candy (we left a bucket on the front porch). Instead, we decided to have our own fun family Halloween! We started by getting quite the haul at Minnesota's Largest Candy Store!
Butterbeer galore, 4 or 5 kinds of taffy, gummy sharks, licorice, etc. and even an apple pie under there!
Sarah (with Trevor as a helper) made us pumpkin shaped applesauce cakes!
Sarah popped an orange tutu on over her ballet leotard from class that morning to be a Halloween ballerina.
And Trevor dressed up as King Pig or Prince Porky from Angry Birds.
Then we had a "Hotel Transylvania" movie night.
Frankly, I thought this Halloween was way more fun than trick or treating in the cold.
Trevor has had a couple basketball games with his 2nd grade team.
Trevor loves raking leaves...and jumping in them!
Austin got in a few tournaments before youth sports shut down again.
Austin turned 14 on November 9th! We had dinner with just us and Nanny and Grandpa to celebrate! More on the birthday boy in a separate post.
Things were going OK until Friday the 13th came along. I should have expected as much from a Friday the 13th in 2020! I was up all night Thursday night with abdominal pain in the upper portion of my abdomen (epigastric for you medical people). I went to the ER around 5:30am on Friday and was diagnosed with appendicitis! Appendicitis usually shows up with pain around the belly button (periumbilical) and then moves down to the right lower side. It does not usually show up with epigastric pain! When it comes to medical stuff, I am always the weird patient! Anyway, I am on a blood thinner due to my ongoing shortness of breath after my PE (pulmonary embolism) in March, so they waited through the day to let that wear off a bit before doing my surgery. We planned for it around 8pm, but then I got bumped by a couple emergencies and another appendectomy, so I ended up having surgery after midnight, then going home from the hospital at 4am. Here's me having fun waiting for my surgery.
I tested negative for COVID pre-operatively on 11/13 before my surgery. I went home from the hospital on 11/14 early AM, then Steve started getting some sniffles that day. On Sunday night, after the boys had already attended futsal in the high school gym for soccer, we were informed that Trevor had been exposed to COVID at school, with the last exposure 11/12 and that his whole class was quarantined for 2 weeks. MDH said the other kids could go to school, so they went on Monday. Monday night, we found out Austin had been exposed to COVID at basketball 11/7-8, so he was quarantined too. We had Steve and the boys tested for COVID on Tuesday and they were all positive. I started to get symptoms on 11/17 (cough, congestion, fatigue, bad headache, still short of breath), and Sarah and I were tested on 11/18. Sarah was positive and I was negative! I tested again on 11/19, assuming the test on 11/18 was a false negative given that every member of my household was positive and I was the most symptomatic of anyone. I was again negative! Baffling! My colleagues, my primary care doctor, and MDH all agree that I must have COVID given the circumstances, and I am quarantined for 10 days from the start of my symptoms, as is the case with my whole family. The kids barely got symptoms. Steve and I got hit a bit harder, but are improving. I discovered that it is really not fun to get a cough while recovering from abdominal surgery!
While quarantined, we did more puzzles. Trevor helped me finish the Hades puzzle in the Villainous collection.
Then I did Ratigan in one day while watching a virtual conference I had missed in September.
Now the kids are doing distance learning during our quarantine, heading back to school on 11/30. Sarah is doing dance via Zoom, and the boys' basketball teams have been shut down as of 11/20 due to the massive increase in cases in Minnesota causing youth sports to be suspended for a month. We're all recovering from our COVID (and me from my appendectomy), and looking forward to getting back to school and work next week. Now, what else can 2020 throw at us?!?
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