Where did March go?  Mostly to figuring out our new stay-at-home routine, I suppose.  So here are all the pics from March 2020!  Our amaryllis bloomed and stayed with us for quite awhile.  Thanks again, Aunt Jill and Uncle Jack!

I’m so glad I gave in and let the kids have the first Mister Softee of the year on a warm day after school, since we have not seen the truck again since!

I’m also quite grateful at this point that I made it into the city one night to see some friends, the week before schools closed!  I had this bizarre shark tiki-cocktail.

Sarah loves her bouquet of bead flowers that she received from Gram, family heirlooms from Gram and Great Grandmommy.

Blaine gave his grass-hair man a haircut, the only one anyone around here will be getting for awhile (unless I decide to try to follow a youtube instructional video.  Ha!)

Oh yes!  One more pre-quarantine activity I am so grateful for was that Sarah and I drove up to CT to see the APTA paddle tennis championships!  We got to see a very exciting women’s finals match.

That week we also said goodbye to some of the plants in our backyard, because we were scheduled to start a small landscaping project.

We also said goodbye to the school playground!  🙁  It’s so sad to see all the gates locked and no children playing on it during these beautiful spring days.

We went for a family picnic and hike at Saxon Woods one day.

On Monday, March 16, our homeschooling began.  Our masonry project also began, and gave the kids something to watch!  We did feel bad for all the neighbors working from home, but the work went quickly so it was not too disruptive.

On Tuesday, March 17, we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by decorating some brownies we’d made the day before.  Also, a new cousin was born!  Uncle Tim and Aunt Liz had a baby girl, Maeve.

We went for a hike at Sheldrake and collected acorns and sweet gum balls and twigs and things to make nature collages.

Here is an early version of our home classroom in our basement, which has been evolving over time.

The work continued.  The kids were excited by having an excavator in the driveway.

Another nature walk, at Manor Park.  Blaine really wanted pinecones and we could not seem to find any!  We finally succeeded at Fountain Park.

A fort in the guest room.

Steamroller day!

Papel picado, an art project the kids enjoyed from the Chatsworth art teacher.

By 3/25, the masonry work was essentially finished!  They moved quickly, fearing their work would be deemed non-essential.  Unfortunately, putting in new plants is on the no-go list so this is what things will look like for awhile.

We’ve been keeping up the routine as much as possible, such as ordering pizza for lunch on Wednesdays.

We’ve also been doing some baking.  Here’s Sarah making our second batch of banana bread using a recipe I got long ago from a friend’s mother, Kathy Butterworth.

Blaine would happily spend every moment reading if he could.  He’s been steadily working his way through a new dragon series called Wings of Fire.  Luckily we’ve been able to get most of the books from the library’s e-book app.

We went back to Sheldrake one beautiful day to try out the reservoir trail, which we’d never done before.  The kids collected some forsythia branches and pretended they were antlered creatures.

Here is page 1 and 2 of a planned 5-page story Sarah is writing about a character called “Tarantula-eye” who is made out of eyes.  Creepy!

Another school assignment was to make a “box collage”.  She designed this rocket ship for hardface.

Another fort!

We went for a hike at the Marshlands Conservancy.  It was beautiful, and we saw deer, turkeys, and a woodpecker.

We have devoted some weekend time to cleaning the house.  So far the kids have been enthusiastic, particularly about cleaning the toilets!  We’ll see if this continues as the novelty wears off.

An obstacle course in the basement, for rainy days and for Blaine’s virtual PT over Zoom.

We have also been trying the virtual art classes through One River.  The kids enjoyed the first session on portrait drawing.  They each drew two portraits of “angry people”.

We’ve also been trying to do some video chats with friends and family to keep up some social connection.  It’s crazy looking back at pictures from last month and realizing what a strange situation we are now in.  I’m grateful we have our health, and a comfortable place to be sheltering in, and each other.

We flew from JFK to Cancun on Sunday Feb 16.  It was the kids’ first time in Mexico!  We rented a car and stopped for lunch in Puerto Morelos.

Then we drove on to our resort, the Banyan Tree Mayakoba, near Playa del Carmen.

We had a beautiful villa with a private pool.  The kids loved this outdoor bed and would yell out “lounge time!” anytime they’d decide to lay down.

We enjoyed breakfast at the main restaurant, Oriente.  They had a large buffet with Mexican specialties.  Blaine enjoyed ordering chocolate chip pancakes made especially for him… not a Mexican specialty.

The beach shack was wonderful and had delicious drinks and shrimp quesadillas.  They had an employee whose job was to walk around with a hawk to scare off any birds scavenging for food.

On Monday night we had dinner in Playa del Carmen, at a beautiful rooftop restaurant called Catch.  On the walk back to the car Sarah wanted to take a picture outside a dance club called “La Vaquita” with some funny looking cows.  I understand Playa del Carmen is sort of a party town.

On Tuesday we took a tour of Rio Secreto (Secret River), which is a series of underground caves.  We wore wetsuits and helmets with headlamps.  Sarah was a bit scared of the dark but she got used to it!  We weren’t allowed to take pictures but I bought one of the ones they took, so here is a peek.  It was beautiful, so dark and quiet.

That afternoon we went to the pool (no pics) and that evening we got a babysitter so Andrew and I could go to a dinner called “Haab.” It was a seven course meal using traditional Maya ingredients with beverage pairings.  They had Maya performers, as well, and taught us about Maya culture during the meal.

The next day we relaxed at the beach, and the kids and Andrew did a nature boat tour around the property.  That night we went to dinner at the resort’s signature restaurant, Saffron.  It was Thai food, and was delicious.

The next morning at breakfast the kids got to take a picture with some of the Haab performers.

We checked out and drove to our second hotel, La Zebra, in Tulum.  Here’s a pic from our room out to the main building with restaurant, the beach is just beyond.  I am still amazed at how soft the sand is in Tulum!

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant that night, for Taco Thursday.

On Friday we spent the morning seeing the Maya ruins in Tulum.  Sarah decided this was her favorite part of the trip.  We saw this funny little animal, I still don’t know what it is.  She also loved looking for lizards sunning themselves on the ruins.

We had a delicious lunch in town at Taqueria Honorio (cochinita pibil!) and then bought some souvenirs.  Then back to the beach!

Friday night we had our best meal of the trip (though there were many!), at a restaurant in town called Verdant.  It was all organic, much of it sourced from the restaurant’s own garden out back.  I wish I’d taken a picture of the menu because it was all fantastic with really interesting ingredients — we had the snapper crudo, a squash dish, some kind of fermented rye crepe with black mole and squash which was amazing, pork stuffed in a pepper, lamb, and then two desserts– ice cream made with local honey, over oaxacan chocolate and a grilled local pineapple with macadamia cake?  Every dish was wonderful, which is such a rare experience.  Blaine mostly ate a kids’ buttered pasta dish, but Sarah enjoyed the lamb, the house made sourdough bread, and the desserts.  Blaine did enjoy speaking with the owner, asking about the kitchen and about their dog.  She was lovely and answered all his questions.  Fantastic place!

Saturday was our last day and we spent it at the beach!

It was a wonderful trip with perfect weather and delicious food.  It was fun that Blaine was old enough to read; we’ll have to get him his own kindle reader at some point.  Sarah was not thrilled with the food options overall, but hopefully as she gets older she’ll be willing to try more things.  The worst part about the trip was the return flight — our plane had mechanical problems and was delayed for 3 hours after we’d boarded.  But we survived, and when we got home we found our amaryllis had bloomed!

This final pic is Blaine’s grass in a cup from school, which he edited specifically for the blog.  Enjoy!

Blaine has been interested in taking a clay class so on Feb 8 we signed up for a drop-in clay session at the Clay Art Center in Port Chester.  Andrew was away in London for work so Reece came out to join us.  It was so much fun!  We sculpted clay in the style of teddy bears, and then glazed them, and left them to be fired.  I’m going to cheat and include a pic from 2/25, which is when we picked up the finished products.

After that we went to dinner at Bartaco.  Sarah loved the kids’ roast chicken — she had two orders!  They had lots of veggie and gluten-free options for Reece (the menu actually indicates which items contain gluten, everything else is gluten-free!).  Then we went for dessert to Bona Bona, which had several vegan options and even a vegan substitute for their famous torched meringue topping, made out of aquafaba, which is somehow related to chickpeas.  It was delicious!

We also spent lots of time working on our Valentines!  We went free form this year and incorporated watercolors, stencils, stamps, and crayons.  I think we ended up making about 75 valentines between all the classmates, friends, family and teachers.

On Feb 15 we got ready to leave for our winter break vacation to Mexico, and Sarah and I went for mani/pedis.

We weren’t sure how our amaryllis would fare while we were gone, so here is a final pic before we left for the airport early on Feb 16.

Uncle Fran came to visit in February!  On Saturday we took the train into the city for lunch at Shake Shack followed by a trip to the Museum of Math!

The kids discovered this cool exhibit called “Polypaint” and wanted to spend all day there.

Downstairs, Sarah quickly solved this T-puzzle, and Blaine enjoyed the robot swarm.

More polypaint!

Back home we started on this puzzle Uncle Fran gave Sarah for Christmas.

On Sunday we took Fran to see Manor Park.

And finished the puzzle!

We also went on a walk around town, stopping at the library and to play a little soccer.

Thanks for coming to visit us, Fran!  We had a great time!

Here are all the pics from the second half of January.  Andrew was the mystery guest in Blaine’s class one day!

Sarah had been asking for weeks to get her own bank account, so we finally went one day.

We had a little bit of snow and finally managed to build a snow man, and have some post-snow hot cocoa.

We played with all our Christmas gifts…

… and monitored the progress of our paperwhites and the amaryllis.

Sarah made this robot in her classroom’s “box collage” area (and pointed out that it needed more tape).

One weekend we went to the AMNH to see the T-Rex exhibit again (this time with Andrew).  We also stopped to see this stuffed panda, a disgusting giant model of a mosquito, the blue whale, and the dinosaurs (of course).

Shake Shack was closed for renovation so we ended up at this nice restaurant nearby that was a big hit!

Sarah loves crispy cauliflower!

Another weekend we went to see Dog Man: The Musical!

Sarah has been bringing home reading books from school and is doing a great job with her snap words!

Blaine’s class worked on building towers that could hold up books, and then he built one at home for homework.

Here are all the photos from the first half of January.  We played with all our new Christmas presents, including this Sculpey clay from Gram and Grand-dad and two puzzles from Uncle Fran.

On Friday we planned a trip into the city to visit the newly reopened Museum of Modern Art.  We took the train in and followed Andrew’s detailed directions to go through all the secret underground passages out of Grand Central.

We had a plan for the museum and stuck with it!  First stop, Starry Night.  Second stop, Monet’s Water Lilies.

Third stop, lunch.  The museum cafe was great, a nice break from the art.  They even had kids meals of pizza or pasta, plus your choice of a cookie or fruit.

After lunch we checked out the kids art lab and got to play with light tables, make wire sculptures, as well as draw and make paper collages.

Then it was back to the art for our final two stops — Jackson Pollock (Sarah’s fave), and then the sculpture by Yayoi Kusama (who the kids had just learned about in school).

We also enjoyed this interactive sculpture/soundscape by David Tudor called Rainforest V.

And the kids watched the entirety of this video artwork by Nancy Holt, called Underscan.

Back at home with puzzle #2.  Thanks, Uncle Fran!

We finally said goodbye to our Christmas tree and packed away all the decorations and lights for another year.

We also planted these narcissus bulbs from Gram (below) and the amaryllis bulb we received from Aunt Jill and Uncle Jack!  Hopefully we’ll end up with some beautiful blooms to brighten these dark winter days.

On New Year’s Eve this year we invited a few friends over for an afternoon celebration complete with ball(oon) drop.

We’d aimed to celebrate alongside Dubai at 3pm ET, but we had a little mishap with the balloons coming down too early, so the photos above were actually from balloon drop #2 at about 3:20pm.  Blaine did enjoy seeing the fireworks going off from the Burj Khalifa livestreaming on youtube, though!

Blaine attempted to stay up until midnight that night, didn’t quite make it, and then was tired and grumpy for the next two days.  On New Year’s Day, Andrew made his traditional collard greens and black-eye pea ham hock soup to bring us good fortune in 2020!

The kids and I drove down to Wynnewood on Monday, 12/23.  We had beautiful warm weather this Christmas so we went for a walk with Tara, Mom-Mom, Josie, and Aunt Jane.  Later that night we cooked bbq chicken, roasted broccoli, and Blaine and Sarah’s “famous made mac and cheese” for the group.

Here’s the deconstructed turkey getting prepped for the big day.

On Christmas Eve we enjoyed the traditional Mahoney Family bowling extravaganza, followed by a delicious lunch prepared by Andrew (filet mignon cooked sous vide with bordelaise sauce and mushroom risotto), with salad by Uncle Fran and followed by Tim’s famous bread pudding.  It was all so yummy I forgot to take a picture!  The group included: our 4, Mom and Molly, Fran, Tim, Liz, Josie, Nate, Aunt Jane, Uncle Hank, Aunt Jean, Kate, Jesse, Gus, Sean, Clare, Marcus, Moira, Uncle Peter, Janer and Daniel.  So that’s… 24!

Later that evening we took another walk and saw the beautiful sunset!

Christmas Eve… putting out presents, assembling toys, Love Actually on in the background… and some Irish carbombs.  Only because Andrew got all the tools and ingredients at the gift exchange!

Christmas morning!

The food was plentiful and delicious on Christmas Day!  Liz made devils on horseback appetizers and the cheese spread was huge thanks to Aunt Jane (including the #1 cheese in the world this year, a blue from Oregon).  For Christmas Dinner we had deconstructed turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, maybe some other sides I’m forgetting?  Lots of dessert!  The group included 13 from the previous day (our 4, Mom and Mol, Tim, Liz, Josie, Nate, Fran, Aunt Jane, Uncle Peter) plus Uncle John’s 7 (John and Mary K, John Andrew, Leslie, Liffey, Megan and Ed), and 6 from the Walley side (Megan, Lan, Emmett, Janet and Alec, and Dr. Walley).  That makes 26, hope I am not missing anyone.  Later that evening we played a round of 99 and learned that Franny really enjoys egg nog.

The day after Christmas we got organized and went on an excursion to the Philadelphia Zoo, with Tim and Josie and Nate, Leslie and Liffey.

We saw turkeys, groomed some goats, and enjoyed watching the gibbons.  Sarah’s favorite was the red panda.

After the zoo we went out for lunch at Anthony’s wood fired pizza in Wynnewood with Mom, Aunt Molly, and Uncle Fran.  The next day we drove back to NY.  Thanks again to Mom and Tim and Liz for hosting us!  The house looks wonderful and it was fun having everyone back at Ingeborg Road this year!

We got a little snow on 12/2, and the kids were so excited to shovel it!  They even shoveled the grass.

On 12/4 we went to Tony’s to get our tree, and I tried once more to get a good Christmas card photo.  The tree was excellent, came to us from Canada if I recall correctly, and really took on water and lasted out the season.

Blaine has really become a reader!  I love seeing him wrapped up in a book on the couch.

One night we went to the Chatsworth culinary evening, where they try to introduce the kids to different foods.

On 12/7 we decorated the tree!

Also on 12/7 we went to “Light Up Larchmont,” our yearly town celebration featuring munchkins, photos with Santa (the kids once again avoided the big guy), letters to Santa, and culminating in a tree lighting.  We also went for our traditional hot Belgian cocoa at the Larchmont chocolate shop, aptly named Cocoa.

On 12/8 we went to New Roc City bowling to get ready for Christmas Eve!  Followed by Indian buffet brunch at Coromandel.

We had a little more snow on 12/11, but still not enough to really shovel, or sled, or build a snowman.  🙁

One day we went to see an ice hockey game at the Hommocks rink!

We also went to a STEM event and Blaine loved watching this 3D printer.

Sarah hosted us for her Kindergarten literacy event in her classroom, and shared some projects she’s been working on.  I took photos of the book she wrote, called “My Family.”  The ending is hilarious.

We also found some time to make the Ina Garten Spiced Pecan recipe to take with us to PA for Christmas!

We drove down to Great Falls on Thanksgiving Day, and managed to avoid too much traffic.  Also, no one got sick!  It was a big success.  To work up an appetite we spent some time outside and the kids were very excited to discover this deer skeleton.

For Thanksgiving dinner there were our four, Robin and Reeves, and Cam, Megan, and Marcella.  Robin prepared a delicious turkey and parsnip puree and salads, Andrew made the dressing and green beans, and Reeves made the gravy.  Megan made a pumpkin/pecan pie and a mango tart.  Blaine helped Robin make the traditional persimmon pudding.  Everything was delicious, hope I didn’t miss anything!  Before dinner, Blaine wanted to give another speech (like he did last year).

Sarah and Marcella put together this puzzle!

After dinner, Blaine helped Gram with the lighting of the persimmon pudding.

And then it was time for the much-anticipated smashing of the chocolate turkey!

The next day there was more cooking, as Blaine and Gram made yummy pancakes for breakfast.

We took a trip to the zoo so Sarah could see the giant pandas again!

We also saw the “maned wolf” which is unforgettable for the smell of its urine (smells like a skunk!).

And these cheetahs!

Back in Great Falls, the kids wanted to go back and check out the deer skeleton again with their new animal chompers they got at the zoo.

Thank you again to Gram and Grand-dad for hosting us for Thanksgiving again this year!  We had a wonderful time!

On Saturday, we packed up and drove to Charlottesville to visit Great Grandmommy in her new apartment at the Blake.  It’s a brand new building and so beautiful with lots of neat features like a putting green in the courtyard, an outdoor tv area with fireplace, and a piano lounge and bar.

We had a wonderful visit and were so happy to see Great Grandmommy, Aunt Jody and Uncle Dennis!