Pioneer Woman!

Yes, it has been a long time between posts and a lot has happened. We did our Spring Break ski trip to Colorado and Abbie was really obsessed with getting to the slopes as early as possible every morning. She always wanted to be the first one out there to have the hills to herself as much as possible. She was often irritated with us if we didn't bother to wake her up early enough to get dressed and get going.

 

She didn't mind going out on her own, but was also willing to take Emily with her if she was ready. Chad and I were much more leisurely about it, preferring to enjoy our mornings and then rolling out to the slopes around 10am or so. Abbie did one morning of ski school and the teacher took her up to some really tough runs. I think she learned a lot, but she also seemed to prefer to take her time and practice her skills on the easier runs.

Although this photo doesn't show her "in action," I love seeing the gorgeous views in the background!

Once we returned from Colorado, it was full-on pandemic lock-down at home. Abbie's school had been VERY proactive. They instructed the kids to clean out their lockers (as if they were going home for the summer) BEFORE they left for Spring Break. Once Spring Break ended, they were ready to roll with online classes. Abbie has been loving this! She loves being able to work at her own pace and also loves not having to deal with the usual tortures of middle school life.

Abbie has also taken to being a major pioneer woman. So far, we have planted potatoes, tomato plants, and green onions (which we are just regrowing in water). Abbie does all the research and tells us what we need to do. She is also into making bread. She has made ciabatta, hamburger buns, white sandwich bread, and dinner rolls. Needless to say, we had to buy a one pound bag of yeast for all of this baking! She has also learned how to make her own boba so that she can have boba tea every morning. It turns out that making boba is actually a very time-consuming process, so she makes up a batch on Sundays and then just cooks them, a few at a time, each morning.

Abbie has also become interested in sewing masks. She found a bunch of old cotton t-shirts that she can cut up and then found a pattern online that she likes. At first she was sewing by hand, but that was a painfully slow process, so we bought her a sewing machine - a very solid, but not too fancy, Singer - which she taught herself to use, and it has made the process much faster and neater. We are fortunate that we bought it when we did because now the model that we bought, and many other models, all seem to be out of stock.

Other than being bummed that we are not going to be able to go to Minnesota this summer, I think that Abbie is pretty content with lock-down life, which is fortunate, because I don't see it coming to an end any time soon!