Summer Shenanigans and BIG NEWS!

4th and 2nd Graders at Spring Lake Elementary

Well, we did it!  We had an interesting, active summer, in spite of COVID, and have gotten to return to school in person again.   If you've got a minute, grab a drink, a comfy chair and I'll tell you all about it. Just pictures are at all the links marked with big words in yellow, otherwise I've tried to give a summary everywhere else.

Mama is set to return to her campus in person on September 1st, but she will still be advising students from her computer at home on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Mommy, after almost 7-years at home with us maniacs, recently accepted an "outside of the home" job, starting Monday, August 30th!  She was hired by the Woodland School District to work at our school! She is going to do a lot of things for the teachers that she used to do as a volunteer, but a big part of her job now will be helping kids who fell behind last year, learn to read.  Isn't that cool?

Big changes around here, but life is always good!

Cooper

Mickey-Room Update:  First, as promised, here's a link with pictures to my cool Mickey room that Moms had painted and that Nana got decorated for me.  Though I did buy the cool Mickey decal over my bed with birthday money last summer.  Isn't it great?  Mickey Room!

May - Before we could have summer fun, we had to finish May and have end of the year celebrations at school. We had a lovely Mother's Day in Sunnyvale and we prepared for it while we were at Nana's and Papa's in April.  Papa was awesome and planned two special projects for us, that helped us continue to learn how to use hammers, nails, screws and saws (safely!). The final results were a scarecrow for Mama for the garden, and a "fasteners"-holder/organizer for Mommy's workbench in the garage.

During the rest of May we...

• attended Woodland Public Library events through Zoom
• Porter did an Acting Class on Zoom through the Woodland Opera House 
• Various friends came to visit on our patio
• Mommy continued to heal and Mama kept making it all happen

June, July & August:  Summer Shenanigans

    JUNE:

• School got out on June 11 - we got to go for FroYo with the Villagers that afternoon, have a camp-out in the backyard and a S'mores party in the backyard with friends that weekend.

• We were part of a small (masked) gathering that celebrated the 125th Anniversary of the Woodland Opera House.  And pictures of us during the celebration kept showing up in local papers. 😊

• We started swim lessons, got to use friend's pools and we spent Wednesday evenings at our local park's "Splash Pad" with picnic dinners. 

Up to no good at the Splash Pad

• We attended weekly online library events, two different library book clubs and participated in the summer reading program (all summer long, not just in June!). 
• Moms got their COVID vaccinations
• Mama got her haircut for the first time in more than 18-months!
• We went to Sunnyvale for Father's Day and Nana's Birthday 
• We returned to working in our church garden on Thursday mornings
• Porter returned to piano lessons, and I started them for the first time! (which also meant weekly COVID-testing at UC Davis after our church garden time, to keep us and Piano Teacher Danah safe) 

One of many weekly COVID-test selfies taken over the summer

JULY:

• Yea 4th of July!!  A little fun with neighbors, fireworks and individually packaged ice-creams from Yolo Ice & Creamery (plus a visit from Nana & Papa that weekend)
• A trip to the Cabin in Arnold where we swam and swam and golfed and swam some more!

Our first tries at paddle-boarding (even Mommy and Mama did it!)

• My 7th Birthday!!  - Super-Coop Turns 7!  For my birthday I wanted to go to Build-A-Bear (where I built a Cat?!), then have Villagers and Piano Teacher Danah and her kids over to the patio for cake and ice-cream.  Mommy made my requested "Mint Chocolate Chip cake that looks like a cactus" for my special day.  Then the following weekend we met Nana and Papa in Danville for a birthday picnic, chocolate peanut butter cupcakes from Nana and time at the Lindsay Wildlife Center.

• We finished Swim Lessons, 4-weeks of them!
• Mommy's little 13-year old CRV rolled over 100K miles! That's a lot, right?!

• We flew to Texas to celebrate a BIG Birthday for Memaw and have some fun - Best of Texas

AUGUST:

• When home we've been enjoying new baking and cooking recipes from cook books we got at Easter

• We've gotten fun produce from our trees and yard this summer, including artichokes, okra, plums, apricots, peaches and for the first time, pears!

• We were home for 1-week before leaving again to drive to San Diego to see Unclefer and Auntie Taylor.  They have made the big decision to move to Germany, for a special job for Auntie.  They leave in October.  We wanted to make sure we had another visit with them before they left, and boy did we have fun!  San Diego Sillies

• We were supposed to go to Nana Camp in between Unc's and school starting but...(cue dramatic music here), Porter tested positive for COVID. 😞  He's ok though, fortunately!!!  He remained asymptomatic, the rest of our family continued to test negative and PJ's quarantine period only had him miss 2-days of school.  It was the first 2-days of school and he was SUPER sad about it, but we are all just really glad he is ok.  And we are the people that are masking, washing, sanitizing, distancing, etc....  Be careful out there!!

• I started school on August 19 and I got my same teacher as last year, Mrs. Bridge (she moved up to 2nd, I didn't get kept in 1st, Sillies)!

• Porter got to start school on August 23! And as a 4th grader, he doesn't get out until 3pm now. His teacher is Ms. Welty.

• This year we are biking each day to and from school with the Villagers (and 1 or 2 adults); well, they bike, I scooter. Don't get me started on that issue!😏