school daze, another hair cut, wildfire smoke

 we've made it through the first week of school! this new routine is definitely going to take some getting used to, but overall it wasn't too bad. last week the kids picked up their devices from the district (a laptop for azalea and an ipad for ashford). there are still some technical glitches that need to be worked out, but hopefully everything will go more smoothly this week. this week their time "in class" will increase as well. one day at a time!  

ashford's teacher plays his guitar and sings to the kids every day. i'm so thankful for these teachers and their dedication! 

we finally talked ashford into a hair cut after 7 months. his hair had grown so long and was always hanging in his eyes. he knew he would have to wear a mask to get a normal hair cut (and he honestly didn't love going to get a hair cut long before covid), so thatcher said he would cut it for him. thatcher has never cut hair before but he watched a couple tutorials and set up a chair in the walk-in shower, and went to town. he did a great job! ashford got a little antsy from having to sit for so long, but he did it.

 

 

when he saw himself in the mirror he immediately burst into tears that his hair was too short and he looked "like a dumb baby". i think he was just traumatized because he got so used to having long hair. thankfully he came around to it after a bit. at least we don't have to do it again for a long time.  

wildfire smoke has returned to seattle (it's been a couple years) and it's been pretty bad. not as bad as california and oregon, but the air is super unhealthy to breathe, so we were housebound for most of this week. we were supposed to go camping near port townsend over the weekend, and we hoped that the air quality would be good enough there for us still to go, but we ended up having to cancel :( i know that's nothing compared to people who are evacuating and losing their homes right now. 2020 has sure been a test in resilience, hasn't it?  

 

this is what it looked like out our window mid-week. 

as goofy as this looks, it's been scientifically proven to help purify the air in your house. who knew? 

the kids were bummed to miss camping and we had bought all the food already, so we decided to do a camping night at home. we made hotdogs for dinner, we made smores in the oven. we let them stay up late and they camped out on the floor of our room for the night. not quite the same, but i think they had fun. having to keep all of our windows closed (and not having a/c) has made for some really hot days in our house.

oven smores are so messy! 

this is what the view looked like saturday morning. we couldn't see magnolia across the water anymore. 

saturday was a long day at home. my cousin ryan's wedding was in new jersey after nearly 2 years of planning. they decided to still have the wedding despite covid with some modifications. my brother was supposed to be a groomsman in the wedding and had to miss it because minnesota is still on new jersey's quarantine list. it was hard not to be there after looking forward to it for so long. thankfully they used technology to make people who couldn't attend feel included and that was so nice. we watched a live stream of the ceremony on facebook. 

 

i also got some pictures during the day

and there was a live stream of the reception, which was so fun to watch.

the kids spent a lot of time on screens because they air quality was so poor. 

sunday morning i ventured out to ross and the grocery store. it was really gross out :(

in the afternoon we did popcorn and a movie for a special treat. we watched "the emoji movie". it was cute :) 

the smoke does not seems to be clearing out in the time frame that they forecasted, so that's frustrating, but i guess we will just have to be patient. on the bright side, we booked a makeup camping trip for the weekend of the 25th.