We went to the Pentagon for July 4th. They had a flyover with all kinds of planes from WWII relics to modern day fighters. The most impressive was the B-52 stealth bomber, because it’s profile is so unique.
After the airshow we walked over a bridge to a roped off area and spread out as best we could. Skylar and Parker caught lightning bugs as we waited for the show to start.
But for Covid-19 I don’t think we would have gone White Water rafting. As we were looking for fun weekend trips, we found an option at Harpers Ferry for rafting and playing in the river.
Saturday we went White Water rafting and then Sunday we rented canoe’s, paddle boards, and kayaks and played around in the Rappahannock river.
We stayed at a KOA campground which was also a first for us. The cabin had 2 bunk beds and a window air-conditioner. It’s about as bare bones as you can get. Parker and Skylar were convinced it was Abraham Lincoln’s childhood home. They probably weren’t far off.
Sometimes I get confused and think that I had twins:
Getting to the pool was significantly harder this summer than previous years because you had to sign up to a time slot and you could only go for 1 hour at a time. While we did get to the pool several times, we also set up a slip and slide in the side yard.
I had lots of baby pink vinyl at the warehouse that was never going to sell, go figure, and so I brought home a roll and we created a slip and slide that the kids used for hours during the hotter days of summer. Soap, water, slick surface = instant fun!
For the first 2-3 months of Covid-19 our neighbors were outside and kids were everywhere on the sidewalks, backyards, etc. While walking I met a neighbor, Bob, who brewed his own beer, made his own Kombucha, and fermented his own Kimchi and beans.
Bob also maintained bee hives in his back yard. He had about 20 boxes of bees and he would harvest 90 lbs of honey during the most productive months.
I went back to Bob’s house with the kids to check out the bees and Bob had extra bee suits for both me and the kids and he showed us the inside of the boxes and told us tons of interesting information related to bee keeping.
The key to not getting stung is to move slowly and to breathe calmly. He didn’t even use smoke when peeking in on the bees hives and none of us got stung.
I really enjoyed all our time spent in nature during the early months of the pandemic. I suspect that as life gets back to normal we will not be able to get outside as much as I would like.
The kids and I went to Cardarock two weekends in a month searching for this amazing climbing rock wall that I never found. We did find some great climbs, just not the one from my memory.
I’d love to get some clicking gear and go back with the kids and try some of the more difficult runs.
A couple months into the pandemic and we hadn’t gone anywhere. All flights were cancelled and all corporate travel was cancelled for the foreseeable future. We decided to take a local off-the-beaten-path vacation and rent a 2 bedroom yacht for the weekend.
Susan booked the stay but somehow forgot that she easily gets motion sickness. After our first 15 minutes on the boat, she was feeling queasy so we went into downtown Annapolis to grab some dinner.
Nothing like some overly rich she-crab soup and saltine crackers to fix a seasick stomach! Regardless, Susan felt fine afterwards and we enjoyed the rest of our floating trip.
Mother’s Day during a pandemic was fairly low key. I don’t recall going anywhere, and the kids played outside with a new rope swing and their bunny aka “Snow Ball”.
We were blessed with nice weather the first couple weeks of quarantine. Our second or third weekend home we went to Great Falls and hiked almost all the way to the falls.
We were hiking for close to 3.5 hours, but we took lots of detours.
Skylar and Parker were worried that the Easter Bunny would not make it to our house because of the Corona virus pandemic. Luckily, bunnies are not susceptible to the same pathogens as people.
The Easter Bunny left lots of eggs all around the outside of the house. Some of the interesting items inside the eggs included trident gum, lollipops, stickers, buttons, individual tic-tacs, $1 bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and paper-clips.
