A portrait of the pandemic: zooming with family while finishing a puzzle.  Photo credit: Sarah.  Actually a lot of the photo credits for July go to Sarah, see if you can tell which ones!

The summer started to feel more normal when the kids started their first week of camp at the Rye Nature Center.  It was all outside, everyone wore masks all day, and parents were not allowed out of the cars.  The kids loved it!  Here is Blaine wanting to demonstrate the baking soda + vinegar experiment they did one day.

Sarah also started playing in a summer baseball league, with Andrew as one of her coaches!  It was a six week season with games on Saturdays and Sundays.  The kids started out using a tee but by a few weeks in had moved to coach pitch.  It was really fun for the kids and the families, and everyone followed all the covid rules.

On July 10 I quietly turned 40!  There was a big rainstorm so I didn’t make it to the beach, but I made up for that on another day.  We did some covid takeout and opened presents, including this flipping dog toy I had given Fran on his 40th (throwback to my most prominent memory from our dad’s 40th).  Thanks, Fran!

Here’s how I really feel about turning 40.

Actually, these were just more in a looong series of Sarah and Mommy selfies, which Sarah was very into in July.  On Saturday, Andrew and the kids made a delicious dinner and cake.

We continued to water and monitor our new plants in the back yard, and I was puzzled by this white fluff on the clematis plants.  I took this pic to show our landscaper and was so surprised when I zoomed in and saw a little critter in there!  I am not sure but google tells me it may be a planthopper?

We were sad to see one of our new rhododendrons was looking a little sad, potentially due to overwatering!  Ugh.

Back to the kids!  We only got in for one week at the Rye Nature Center, so over the next three weeks Sarah did two weeks of a half day art camp at One River, and Blaine did two weeks of 2hr/day Lego camp.

Blaine’s physical therapy resumed in person, as well!  It has made such a difference being back in the PT gym.  Sarah and I resumed our games of Uno while he was in therapy.  Sarah is a fierce competitor.

I also signed the kids up for a one week intensive at Swim Tank, 5 days in a row of 30-minute private lessons.  They both did so well, by the end of the week they had both earned their next badges!

We continued to enjoy Larchmont Al Fresco!  We’ve been going out most Friday and Saturday nights to take advantage while the weather is nice.  Here we are at a new Italian restaurant, Bonasera.  The food was not memorable but the setting was lovely!

Groove family music had arranged for outdoor music performances on Friday nights through the summer, and we stopped by to listen after eating.  Such a nice community event, so grateful to Groove for organizing it!

Here we are the next night at the back garden at Sherwoods!  Yum!

Blaine’s tomatoes continued to grow and thrive, and we started to suspect that they might not be cherry tomatoes after all.  Sadly we never got to eat any of these tomatoes because just when they’d start to ripen they’d disappear!  We made some squirrels very happy this summer.

Sarah’s photo documentation of the current state of her two pandas: Softface (on the left) and Hardface (on the right).

Playgrounds also reopened and we took advantage, revisiting all the kids’ old favorites.

Poor sad rhododendron.  It’s dead now.

At the end of July we made some chocolate cupcakes and met up with some friends in the park to celebrate two summer birthdays (including mine).

Lastly, here’s the final project Sarah brought home from her second week of art camp, Planetary Paintings.

Pre-pandemic, we had planned to join Mom-Mom and Aunt Molly for a week in Ocean City, NJ, in June, along with Uncle Fran.  We went back and forth over whether to cancel, and in the end decided to keep it.  We’d been completely socially isolated since March, anyway, so we figured we were germ-free, and who knows what the future will hold?  Sadly, Uncle Fran was not able to join us due to work.  We drove down on Saturday with more stuff than we have ever packed before — all the food we’d need plus linens including pillows and blankets and all our towels.  And beach chairs and umbrellas and toys.  Everything!  We had to get a roof rack and a Yakima cargo box to fit it all.

The house was great, located in the Gardens end of Ocean City so the beaches were not as crowded.  We spent the whole time at the house or the beach, with no other excursions, no shopping, no takeout.  We brought so much food!  It was surprising how few people wore masks going to/from the beach, compared to how cautious people are still being in NY.

I took this pic of the strange machinery behind us one day.  Unfortunately it turned out this was for a beach rejuvenation project starting imminently and our block of the beach was closed on Thurs and Fri!  It was fine, we just drove down to the next beach those days.

The kids really enjoyed the water on this trip, jumping the waves, attempting to body surf.  I need to get them some boogie boards.  I’m glad everyone enjoys the beach because we were able to pack lunch, spend the whole day there.  Lots of swimming, reading, drip castles, coloring with Aunt Molly, digging trenches to try to delay moving back when the tide was coming in.

One day it started to rain right when we arrived in the morning.  My weather app said it would be brief, so we put up the umbrellas and decided to wait it out!  It turned out to be somewhat heavy, but it was an adventure.  Well, Sarah said it was the worst day of her life, but the rest of us enjoyed it.

The last day Andrew drove back down from NY (he’d gone back mid-week for work) and we made our last dinner followed by some smores!  Yum.

Thank you to Mom and Molly for having us, it was a wonderful week!  I’m so grateful we were able to spend that time together, given all that is going on.