Start of Summer

We ended the school year with remote learning and a very different school year end than normal. Sam's teacher, Mrs. Pogue, was retiring this year so they had a car parade for her and the 3 other teachers retiring. Sam was excited to wear the mask Grandma Rikli made him with frogs on it. 

We biked to get lunch on a beautiful day and then biked to the park to take a break under the trees. 

Grandma Rikli painted a basketball court on the driveway for Joey's practice time. Instead of doing summer school, the agreement was that Joey would work on basketball training for 3 hours a day. (shooting, stretching, cardio, etc.) He is doing it! In this picture he was being lazy and didn't have a chair so he found the wheelbarrow to sit in.

We are so happy to have our pool again this summer. We have been using it a lot, especially since the Sun Prairie pool is closed (and we probably wouldn't be going even if it were open). Filters are really hard to come by with the surge in home pools, but we are figuring out how to clean the two we have. Let's hope neither of them break before we can get our replacements to ship!

Joey is a 5th grade graduate! They gave the 5th graders pennants that say "once a Wildcat, Always a Wildcat" and t-shirts as their graduation gift. 

Sam spent the end of 2nd grade in pajamas doing school so we thought it was appropriate to take his last day of school picture in pajamas. 

John and I got a weekend where the boys went to G&G Rikli's so we went hiking at Devil's Lake. Here is the view from the top. We got in a couple bike rides too!

This was our first time seeing Maebel and Linus in months. We had so much fun catching up!

I looked out the window and Sam and Linus were having a deep conversation.

Linus enjoyed the Father's Day cupcake.

Sam got a headgear to help with aligning his jaw. It looks so different than they used to! He is good about wearing it (so far). 

More pool time!

We celebrated Grandpa's birthday. Bell was happy to help celebrate. 

We had Cohen over, and the boys went in the pool 4 times while he was here. It was hot for a stretch so the pool felt really good. 

They had to go swimming when it was dark out. They were only in about 20 minutes, but were thrilled. 

Life just before and during Quarantine

Joey had another orchestra concert. It was amazing to see how much they had learned just since the previous concert. 

Joey and Sam both started the second half of basketball season with new teams. They only got a couple games in before everything was cancelled due to Corona virus. They were both bummed. John was coaching Sam's team, which Sam loved.

The last game Joey got to play the entire game. They were short one kid, and instead of rotating, the coach kept Joey in the whole game. His stamina and endurance had really increased over the season, and he did really well playing the whole game. At the beginning of the season he would not have been able to do that. 

I wish I would have gotten pictures of John coaching Sam. I thought I had a few more weeks to do it!

Joey had his Arrow of Light ceremony for scouts. He isn't moving on to boy scouts, but this was a nice recognition of what he's accomplished in Cub Scouts.

The boys from left to right: Ben, Declan, Aiden, Colin, Kyle, Joey, Owen, Matt (leader) and John

We spent several weekend days in the woods to escape from the house during the "Safer at Home" time of the virus. 

The boys did some physical labor...

Then they had to rest...

They got in some shooting practice of clay pigeons...

There has been lots of basketball and pajamas during quarantine. Until the weather got warmer, Sam wore pajamas all day every day. 

We've been grilling pineapple a lot with cinnamon. 

Sam had trouble sleeping one night and ended up falling asleep on the couch...

We practiced baking with yeast since we had plenty of time to wait for dough to rise. This was our first attempt at making cinnamon rolls. Not as good as Grandma Hyland's, but they were still tasty.

We did Zoom meetings with G&G Hyland and Amanda and Jay & kids. 

The boys were in charge of supper one night. BLT's with a special strawberry treat Sam made. Sam cut up the lettuce for the BLT's. 

Another trip to the woods and Joey being silly...

We made campfire nachos. They were pretty tasty and we've made them a couple times since.

More clay pigeon practice...

When we got home from the woods, we had our driveway decorated by G&G Rikli!

We took a family picture for Easter to send to the Grandparents. Here are some outtakes...

Easter egg hunt! We did an indoor hunt a few days before Easter to spread out the fun.

Westside had a car parade so we could see all the teachers. I got one picture of Sam's teacher's car. I was spending too much time waving. 

G&G Rikli came and did a socially distant outdoor egg hunt. 

Easter weekend was turkey hunting weekend too. I went with Joey since we couldn't have Grandpa R come in such a confined space. Joey napped a bit in the blind since we were up so early. 

Decorating Easter eggs...

This picture makes it look like our Easter basket hunt was early morning, but Sam went turkey hunting so we didn't do it until about noon. Joey got antsy being at home and having to wait to go find his basket. 

Sam got Fiona the hippo (from a book he has based on a real hippo at the Cincinnati zoo) and Battleship (the ball version).

It's hard to see, but Joey was playing basketball in the snow...

Some school work being done here...

Sam built lots of forts during the colder days of quarantine. Here is one of many in our bedroom. 

Here is a story Sam wrote for school. He retold the story of the three pigs but with turkeys and a big, bad human!

I did a bingo contest for Sun Prairie, and had Joey come with me to get a picture at the park. I won the contest and got about $250 in gift cards mailed to me for places in Sun Prairie!

We had the big tree in our front yard cut down since it got Emerald Ash borer disease. It provided for some great entertainment. 

Sam rediscovered his Elmo blanket and had some fun with that. 

Here is a look at the wood stacked on our sidewalk before we split it...

The boys both usually had Zoom meetings with their classes on Friday mornings at 10am. They loved to do them together in the game room. 

It finally got nice out, and Sam helped by washing the car.

We did a sleepover/campout in the living room for a whole weekend. Sam designed the fort and sleeping arrangements and helped plan the meals. It was fun!

We went to G&G Hyland's to celebrate Mother's Day. They made a nice space in the garage so we could visit, have cinnamon rolls and give Grandma her presents. It was so good to see them after so many weeks!

This was all the wood after we split it. John stacked all of this in 2 1/2 days. 

We have done lots of fishing already this year and will do much more I am sure!