Halloween Things

 Well nothing much to report. We are all adjusting to our new normal. Ryan starts school at the school every day this week. I'm so excited and really hope numbers can stay down so we don't get shut down. This last week when Ryan was doing remote school  I was having to come home from work and do all of his school work with him, not my favorite. So I'm very excited for him and me. 

This weekend has been busy with errands, grocery shopping, house cleaning, yard work, and family time. It's been nice. I'm ready to shift gears to work tomorrow. That's all I can think of for now.

We put up our Halloween decorations.

I found this wreath at Home Depot for $15 that's such a good deal. Wreaths are expensive. I added the ghost from the dollar store.

Gabby wants to be a vampire. She found the dress at a thrift store today. We had everything else. Now she needs fangs.

I took some buddies with me to the store.

Scott is very busy trying to plant his 5 new trees. Exhausting! 

Four Full Weeks

 I just finished four weeks at my job. I can't believe it! It's been crazy. I feel like for the most part I'm over the hump...at least for now. The plan is for the kids to come back part time October 19th. I feel like when they come back it will be a brand new set of challenges. I won't worry about that until it happens. I am still scrambling with my lesson plans (not quite sure what I'm teaching tomorrow) and I'm not very advanced technology wise. Some teachers go all out with the technology. When I have some spare moments I try to figure some things out here and there and I'm not successful. I have to have people just show me how to do things. I watched three different YouTube tutorials for google breakout rooms with no success. At a certain point it really isn't worth my time and I can do things without the fancy bells and whistles. I'll keep dabbling when I care. Ha.

Scott bought 5 new fruit trees. He's a nut! I need to finish touching up the paint so he can plant them. Speaking of  I hired the sides to be painted and they look pretty good. The one side however does not look good. It was so sun damaged that 3 coats was not enough. Really the side needed to be sanded and painted by hand to be done properly. That would cost so much money I think. I'm glad he did the bulk of the work I don't have regrets about hiring him at all. I am just filling in the rough spots (most of it) with my paint brush. It doesn't look great but it definitely looks better. I'll probably finish today. I was going to paint this morning but it's pretty cold so I thought I'll knock out my blog and some lesson planning first.

The kids went back to school every other day last week. They loved it when they were in person. Now when they are at home it's more of a disaster. Before the teacher was on the computer instructing them and now she's teaching live students so there's just instructions in TEAMS. Not great. Oh well it is what it is. I will just have to help Ryan after work.  

Well I think that's it! 

Okay update. I finished painting that side. It looks so much better. He didn't even hammer in nails that were sticking way out or calk any giant cracks. I did my best without going too high and not being a pro. It looks WAY better.

My work has popcorn on Fridays! Actually this kind of popcorn is not my favorite but hey I like that they do it. 

This side looks pretty good and I'll probably leave it alone. Ha. I do think I will paint the trim black on the little house popping out.

This is the before and by before I mean before the painter did anything. Also before Scott ripped out half of that vegetation to plant other trees. It's really hard to tell in picture how bad the paint looks.

This is a close up of after the painter finished. You can see how much exposed wood you still see and how bad it looks. Or maybe you can't. It's hard to show in picture. I'll take a picture of the whole side after when I'm done touching it up. 

After. Much, much, better. Totally worth the extra hours.

After. It's hard to tell but it looks MUCH better.

Harvest time.

Beets!

Remote Learning

 The kids started school online on Tuesday. Scott went to work late so he could help the kids get logged on for the first time. It was pretty crazy all day for most students as the schools' laptops weren't working. I think the system was just overloaded or something. That night we downloaded teams on other devices and the kids were able to attend school for the rest of the week without problems. I downloaded teams on my work computer and I am logged into Ryan's' account so I can click on and see if he's in class. If he isn't in class I call and have a sibling help him get in. I  communicated with his teacher and she said he was doing great so all things considered it went pretty smoothly. Piper HATED school in the spring. We just did packets and I was the teacher. She cried everyday. She cried before school started but with remote learning on the computer with her school teacher she is doing great! No tears and she's not stressed. Huzzah! The CDC put Ada county back in yellow so now West Ada is starting school in person tomorrow! So the kids are going back every other day. We will see what happens. I'll be curious if the numbers sky rocket and we get shut back down. Boise school district is phasing students in much more slowly. If we stay in yellow the soonest I will be teaching students is October 19. 

Work for me is going okay. I get very overwhelmed when I think of the big picture and really have to focus my efforts on the day to day one day at a time. Still don't quite know what I'm teaching tomorrow. Such is my life right now. 

I've decided to hire someone to finish painting the sides of the house. I'm a little disappointed to not be able to finish it myself but I have no time and it is SO high! I climbed up on Monday morning and tried to start painting and I climbed right back down. Freaked me right out. It's the wise decision. I heard back from my painter that he will do it but I'm not sure when yet. We will see what happens. 

Scott spent most of Saturday ripping out plants. He wants to plant more fruit trees. He's a nut! 

Well this week will be interesting. 

1st Day of School

First Day of School

First Day of School

First Day of School

Before

After

Piper's B-Day

I made it through another week. I was so stressed out on Monday night. I felt so far behind and I kept getting new e-mails or new information about more things I needed to do and I was very overwhelmed. I put in a lot of extra hours throughout the week and by Friday I felt much better. I was even further ahead than I thought I would be going into the weekend. So that felt great! I just have to put in some extra work right now to keep up and that's the reality. 

It was Piper's b-day on Wednesday. She was sad I was working so I had the idea of her opening a present every hour I was gone. Gabby hid the presents and she had to find the presents all day. That night I made lasagna for dinner (her favorite) and we had cake and presents.  

I was able to paint a tiny bit during the week. I was able to finish a new section by Saturday afternoon and I was SO happy. I didn't think I would finish that section so quickly. Woot!

Scott's family came up for labor day weekend to celebrate Piper's birthday. Nana, Papa, Colie, Rustin, Carole and 2 of her kiddos, and Noel and Attie. On Saturday several people went swimming at the hotel. Today we went to the greenbelt to scooter and roller blade. After that we had lunch at Delsas. Tomorrow I think we will go paddle boating. The kids have had SO much fun having the Cannons here.

The kids start remote learning on Tuesday. I'm anxious for how that's going to go. Wish us luck!

Gabby is dog sitting. Second weekend in a row, she's making bank! 

Cute Nana and Papa.

Blackberry hunting at the river.

Presents!

Swimming

Bedtime stories.

Lol Dolls

Cutest Pipes is 9!

Ryan doing an assessment. 

So many hours! Ha.

Painting that above section was annoying! The extension pole helped so much!

The back is finished! Love it!!!!