Pandemic Summer

We have settled into our summer routine, still sheltering in place at home. That doesn't mean that there hasn't been excitement, though. Abbie is finding all sorts of ways to keep herself busy.

Art Camp by the Pool

First, we are paying her to run weekly summer camps for Emily. Each camp runs for three hours in the morning and Emily has decided on the topics. So far, there has been a baking camp in which they did some experiments to learn about how various ingredients contribute to the final product. So, what happens if you make brownies but omit the flour, or the sugar, or substitute water for eggs, or double the baking powder? As you can imagine, that was a day that both girls really enjoyed. This past week was an art camp, so they did sketching, origami, etc.

Cherry Pie from Scratch (with fresh cherries)

Abbie is also keeping her sourdough starter alive and we have fresh-baked bread roughly once a week. She has also started making scones from time to time. There have also been some virtual baking parties - she routinely does this with her friend Ava and a couple of weeks ago we did it with my friend Kristi, who taught us how to make fortune cookies. We are planning to do another session with Kristi to make homemade marshmallows one of these days.

Sourdough

She has also become more concerned with being as green as possible, so she researched and found a compost bin that she thought would be really good. It arrived last week and the girls got it set up. So, now we are composting our food waste with the idea that eventually we will be able to use the soil to help nurture our tomato, basil, and rosemary plants. As part of her green initiative, she is trying to cut plastics out where she can - a virtually impossible job even in the best of times. She has furnished all of us with shampoo bars from Lush. She also bought herself a metal straight razor with blades that come in a little box and can be returned to the company for recycling when they're used up.

Although we are sheltering in place, there are still outings from time to time. Abbie has set a goal of walking 15,000 steps per day, so she has been taking long walks around the neighborhood. Sometimes this leads to an exciting glimpse at the local wildlife. She got a great video of a tarantula one evening and earlier this week we saw two armadillos eating dinner together.

She has also had two outings to her friend Ava's house. The girls both wear masks and then set up separate blankets on the front lawn so that they can hang out and talk from a distance. There have also been a couple of trips to Starbucks, but it is quite a production. We order everything ahead of time, at least two people make the trip - one to take the drinks from the drive-thru window, and another to manage the hand sanitizer - once the drinks are home, we transfer them to our cups, and discard the Starbucks cups (yes, Abbie recognizes that this violates her green initiative, but exceptions must be made sometimes!).

The pandemic has also created a new opportunity for old-fashioned fun. Back in March, when we naively believed that the lock-down would only last two weeks (ha!), Chad didn't bother to wash the salt off his car after our trip to Colorado. Clearly, there is no end in sight, so this morning (finally) Chad enlisted the girls' help with washing the car in the driveway. They weren't excited about it at first, but I think they ended up liking the experience.