Face Time with Scotty

Leo likes to snap photos while we're facetiming with Scotty.

Working on our gum drop tree

 

And here it is, almost Christmas

It is really interesting and weird how people approach this pandemic.  Every year, we get a real Christmas tree.  We enjoy going to the lot and picking out a tree then love the fragrance the tree imparts in the house.  This year, we decided to forego the tree lot and we ordered a fake tree.  So we have a fake tree up in our house this year, due to the pandemic.  The reason why I say some some people are weird about how they think, is that most people usually put up fake trees every year and because of the pandemic they felt that this year merited a real tree.  For them a real tree is something special and out of the ordinary so it was needed this year.  The EXACT opposite of how we thought!  I think the tree is just beautiful.  And there's no worrying about it starting to get too dry!

This is how it looks outside right now.  Not very Christmas-like.

We ordered a poinsettia from Costco and had no idea it would be THIS big.  It's hard to tell in this picture but it is really way too big.

School Time after Thanksgiving.  Virtual school might not be the best but his school is doing a good job and Leo is learning a lot.  I am very grateful to be a part of his school days occasionally.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving!  It was extra special because Fernando and family spent two nights with us that weekend!

We drove around looking at Christmas lights, believe it or not, the night before Thanksgiving.  People are already going all out!

Snack time outside

Getting in another frog hunting trip!

 

Halloween

 Halloween was certainly different this year, but it was still a lot of fun.  Fernando, Eva and Leo spent that Halloween weekend at our house!!  We played lots of games, watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", had cupcakes, and turned our inner hallway into a sort of haunted hallway.   Leo trick-or-treated inside our house in that hallway where 3 of us were set up in different rooms.  He seemed to enjoy being in that spooky hallway and I think Guillermo and Fernando scared him the most.  Guillermo had on a blue mask that looked pretty scary and Fernando stood up on a stool with a sheet wrapped around him.  He looked quite imposing!!!

This year's pumpkin

All of us in our costumes.

We drove with Leo to a neighborhood on the other side of town that had some VERY impressive Halloween displays.  A cold front had just arrived so we were a little cold and it was very windy.  Which was too bad because most of the inflatables were deflated bejcause of the windy conditions.

Back at the park where there used to be lots of water with frogs, tadpoles and other interesting aquatic life.  The ducks kept us entertained this time and we even saw an armadillo.  

This was another outing where a cold front had just arrived.  It's starting to get colder!

The finished deck

 

Deck was finished last week.  We are happy with the results and are glad that's done.  It'll take a little while for us to "get over it", and by that I mean, not freaking out when dirty shoes walk on it or seeing fallen leaves or debris on that nice new paint job.

School with Leo

 We had Leo for online school 3 days in a row - with a weekend in between.  We had him Thursday and Friday, and then Monday.  Saturday Fernando and Eva came for dinner to bring Leo home and Sunday we went to their house for dinner to bring Leo back for school on Monday.  If I had my way, I'd do online school with Leo every single day.  To me, it's a privilege to be able to "sit in" on his class and watch the interactions and the learning going on.  

Here he is doing homework on the ipad.

I always like to take a picture of any letter or number that he writes particularly well.

PE time!

There's supposed to be a video here of Leo doing his PE stuff, but blogger has made it so much more difficult to upload videos.  Actually, they've made it impossible.  I need to get my HTML books out and load it that way, which I have done before.  Who knows when I'll get around to doing that, though.  Hopefully they haven't also messed with people trying to do their own HTML.

Painting the deck

 It has to be done periodically to keep it looking nice.  The railings have been done on one half of the deck.  The worst part about painting the deck is doing all those little rails.  That's tedious.

We did the floor this evening (picture tomorrow) and tomorrow we'll work on the other half.

Guillermo and I also went today to the Elections Office to deliver our mail in ballot in person.  We are glad we have voted already.

Time to think about a spring garden!

 The weather is so much nicer now.  Got a pumpkin to put out back and that smaller pumpkin, Fernando and Eva bought it last year!!!  It has lasted all this time!

Some plants from our trip to a nearby nursery yesterday.

Guillermo spent a good bit of time at the nursery yesterday picking out these seed packets.

September Happenings

 Scenes from a Face Time with Scotty

Leo keeping busy while we fix dinner

These two love working together out in the garden.

A quick trip to the park again.  It was surprisingly cool this day.  I was wearing shorts and was sleeveless!  So here I'm sitting in the car staying warm.

It just is so amazing that Leo is learning how to read and write.  When he makes a really nice letter, I always take a picture of it.

A guided draw.  Here they are about to draw a salamander.

Here's how his came out.  It's actually Bruni from the movie "Frozen", which we have never seen.

We all just had a great dinner at Fernando and Eva's house, played a little soccer in the back yard, and here we are getting ready to pull out of their driveway to go back home.  We won't get together again, as we had been doing, for about a month.

August Happenings

 Our trips to nearby parks have come to an end.  School started online August 12 so that means we cannot go during the week anymore.  We tried going to a park this past Sunday, but although we were always able to keep a good distance from everyone there, there were just too many people to make it a comfortable visit.  

Our last trip to a park during the week was a good one, although it was VERY hot that morning with not much of a breeze.  But we're glad we took that last weekday trip.  Leo had fun looking for and catching frogs and he also tried learning how to skip rocks in the water.  We left the river's edge after a little while and headed to a Fossil Trail where it was surprisingly so much cooler because it was mostly in the shade.  We had fun on that trail looking for interesting rocks and trying to find the micro fossils.

In the picture below, Leo is standing on El Verde Rd. in front of where our house used to be.  That tree was in our front yard.

We spent lots of happy times this past summer on these rocks having breakfast and feeding the fish.  In the Spring, these rocks were off limits because of all the rain.  Where they are sitting would have been the top of a waterfall.

Another day we took a short hike to a different area of the park and we stopped here to rest.  It was very hot!

Then Guillermo and Leo took a trail down to the upper part of that river shown in the picture above.  I waited on top - in the shade!

This was Leo's absolute most favorite activity - looking for and catching things in the water.

This spider was in our back yard for a while and then one day, he moved onto our deck!

Guillermo set a trap to catch a dove so that Leo could see the dove up close, but instead an opossum ventured into the trap.  That was just as exciting!

So here is Leo doing online school at our house.  We have him every Friday.  I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to help him be online and I enjoy getting to see the teacher and the other kids.

Working on an assignment