Into the swing of things

As months continue to pass us by, we are finding new ways to entertain ourselves and each other. Axel, who has been earning money by watching Phoenix and Rubix, decided to buy Lego sets for each of them. I am not quite sure how the subject came up, but after weeks of discussion, Lego sets were purchased. Phoenix's set arrived first. Here they are building it together. 

Here she is enjoying the hours of entertainment it brings. This came at just the right time as the fires and smoke confined us to the walls of our home for a total of four very long weeks. 

I am not sure what the boys were doing here, but I just love seeing them together. 

Axel was obviously doing something for school and Rubix, lonely and likely a little bored, was fascinated with this endeavor. 

Rubix's Lego set arrived a few days after Phoenix's. Here Rubix is excited to open and begin the building adventure. This was Rubix's biggest creator set, allowing him the option of 3 very fun and different builds in one kit. 

Here are the boys together. I am beyond proud of how thoughtful and selfless Axel was in the purchasing of these gifts for his siblings. I do believe it is quite the deal for the younger siblings to reap the rewards of Axel's earnings. 

The smoke and ash covered cars became the norm for the Bay area and most of Northern California, from what the news reported. If you look closely you can see the white droplets of ash.

Although this picture does not do our orange eerie horizon justice, our eyes saw nothing by this orange smoky mist for approximately 3 days. Many pictures filled the internet with labels of "apocalypse". I do have to admit that I had many conversations with patients about many feeling like the needed to get on their knees a pray. It was almost a blessing in my eyes, to feel completely incapable of creating any type of change. It was like our Creator was pleading and calling us by name to come and seek refuge in Him. Boy, did it work for me. I prayed pretty continuously and found myself in deep thought often. 

Back to school night and day came the first first full week in September. Here you can see a picture of Phoenix's class and 2 teachers. She is in the middle of the second row performing her favorite dance move. They have dance breaks a few times per day. 

Phoenix decided to clean up her closet and room and then rearrange her furniture. I was really impressed with her diligence at getting this tall task done. It took her nearly the entire afternoon to finish this endeavor, but she did it with complete satisfaction. 

Here is a picture of Axel trying out for the 6th grade play. He was a Philosopher, pondering about existence and life itself. He had callbacks last week and will find out next week if he made the play and what part he received. 

A couple of weeks ago I purchased pumpkin cider. I opened one and sipped the very spicy drink. It had so much "spice" to it that I told Axel to give it a try. He then asked me if it was alcohol and I said, "No, is is cider, like apple cider, but pumpkin cider." We then looked at the label and discovered it had a small amount. I have always wondered how fermentation causes alcohol to be made. Oh, well. He did not like it and thought it was funny to pretend like he was going to drink some more, although, he refused to have another drink. 

I ran across this picture. I am guessing that Axel took this randomly. 

Last week, Axel's teacher decided to let the kids see other for the beginning 5 minutes of class. Rubix was absolutely in heaven being able to see other children his age. He is doing well overall, but this week in particular was a little more difficult for him to get through his work and play independently. I am beginning to wonder how not being around children his age is going to effect him long term. He had his in class assessment this past week and did really well. He cooperated and had a good old time. I heard laughter and excitement. His assessment was outside in the Kindergarten play ground and I waited in the parking lot for him, not knowing how long the assessment would take. 

Phoenix, is finally getting use to speaking clearly and confidently during her Zoom school. It has been quite the issue to have her speak loudly enough for her teachers to hear her. Overall she is doing well and enjoying school.

Axel has been working extremely hard. He has already had 2 math tests, 2 Japanese tests, 1 science test and 1 essay. We are beyond proud of him for taking the time to do extra math practice with Daddy and at extra help and to enjoy learning the Japanese language. Axel received 2 very thoughtful emails from his Math and Japanese teacher about how great of a student Axel is. 

Rubix, got out the trains for the first time in months. He had hours of fun and insisted I take a picture. 

Last week, the smoke finally lifted and we spent one afternoon playing in the backyard. We saw one little critter while we were playing in the grass. 

We played with the hula hoops, jump ropes and kick balls. 

The kids earned Bell Tower again after working hard to improve their swim times in the IM (Axel and Phoenix) and Rubix the 25 yard free style. Yummy pancakes for all!

Axel had a virtual birthday party where the parents sent a birthday bag in the mail. Rubix and Axel had hours of fun with the party favors. 

So silly!

Too much fun!

We are a little sad as the pool only has one more week before it closes for the season. We had the privilege of doing 2 night swims last week and we have hope to get in a couple of more night swims after school this week. It is going to be sad as the pool was a great help in creating some sort of routine and exercise for the kids. The big news is Axel and Phoenix are going to attend an afterschool program for 1 to 2 hours, twice a week at school starting this week. I am nervous and excited at the same time. I know they need to be around children their age, but it makes me sad for Rubix who has had zero exposure to children his age and does not appear to have a safe outlet. 

We are going to have to consider what is best for him in the coming months.

On Friday, Phoenix picked apples and enjoyed them, as she celebrated John Appleseed's birthday!

Phoenix stated how much she wanted to go apple picking and here she has the privilege to pick apples in her own yard! 

"Mom, is is not the same. I want to go where they have a ton of different kinds of apples and trees."

Fair enough! They were also Super Heros on Friday and had the chance to share their super powers with their friends. Phoenix's super powers are swimming, sports, reading and "fire". I did not see that one coming. 

Until next time....hope you are enjoying yourselves as much as the Szolushas are! :)

 

The start of the 2020-2021 academic school year

Rubix started school on Monday August 17th. I was at work all day. I requested that he get his normal front porch, first day of school picture. I was pleasantly surprised when Daddy texted me these photos of his first day of school. 

This was a nice touch, in front of the sunflower.

Here he is at his live class session. He has a live class at 9 am every morning that lasts 30 to 40 minutes. We were told that he was going to have 8 kids in his class, but he had 5 on the first day of school and quickly went down to just 4. You can see here he could see his classmates, but that only lasted a week or two and then they started hiding the participants to cut down on distractions. 

Our eggplants started to finally grow in early August and this is one I took around the 17th of August. 

We also harvested all 4 of our pumpkins as our second round started growing. We now have 6 new pumpkins that are growing at a rapid rate!

Rubix continues to fight naps, but the first week of school brought several spontaneous well needed naps. Here he is on Axel's bed sleeping while Axel was working on his computer. 

Unfortunately, we had weeks of 90 and 100 degrees temperatures and then the worst dry lightening and thunderstorm system that has been documented in years. This resulted in hundreds of lightening strikes and fires all over California. Several small fires combines to create several big fires. This one here is a picture of the smoke from the CZU fires in Santa Cruz. We are at the top of Bohlman and this is the wall of smoke. If you look closely you can actually see the fire itself. 

Here is another view from a different angle/part of the hill.

We also got a shot of the smoke on the opposite side of the bay from the LNU fire on the East side of Mt. Hamilton. This was just one of those lucky days where our air quality was 80 something and we took the opportunity to go for a ride. We find it amazing at how the air quality can change so rapidly and be quite different just 10 miles away. 

This is on Friday, the end of Rubix's first week of school. Phoenix was finishing up her breakfast, Axel was in his room doing all day orientation for 6th grade and Keith was at the pool swimming. This was one of the last times Rubix would see his friends. 

This is typically all he sees now during his live classes, Mrs. Dhruva. Rubix doesn't mind because he loves to learn, but this Friday, on the last day of week 3 he finally asked Mrs. Dhruva if he could see his friends again. Mrs. Dhruva was nice and allowed them to "earn it" so at the end of class she gave the boys permission to see each other and sing the Challenger song together. 

Luckily, he is still getting instruction on how to hold a pencil and start forming the letters of the alphabet. 

Phoenix's desk and chair arrived just in the nick of time. Here she is on Friday, the week before school school started, with her school supplies picked up and organized. 

We were lucky to have her entertained with an art class the last week and days before school started so that she was busy doing something while Axel and Rubix were in school. 

Here is Axel on Friday the 20th of August. He had an all day orientation which allowed him to build his Zoom schedule in advisory and meet all of his teachers. The teachers went over class expectations and made sure the kids had all of their supplies. 

Here is the set up when I am on duty in the mornings. Axel's door is usually closed and Rubix goes to his room for his live session. When I am working, Rubix goes to the dining room table where Daddy works. 

We were blessed with another day of good enough air (<100) to go for a ride up Hwy 9. We were both wondering what to expect at the top. Here you can see the cones and signs preventing through traffic to the other side of Hwy 9. All homes on that side had been evacuated because the fire had rapidly spread and burned through most of Big Basin State Park which lies just 6 miles from where we were. 

As a celebration for the last weekend of the summer we rented and watched Kung Fu Panda 3. The entire family loved it!

I thought this was a funny picture. The other day, Rubix got up and ran to the fridge and then came back and started drinking juice from the container. Apparently, Daddy wants him to be independent and was excited at his new skill. I am not sure what happened to teaching the kid to pour liquid into a cup, but I guess that will come with time. 

Rubix has been really into building Legos the past couple of weeks. He has build all 3 of his "Creator Legos" multiple times by himself! I helped him with the first one by finding the pieces, but the next 5 times were solo!

The air quality was too bad to go outside for Axel's and Phoenix's first day of school. I was at work all day. Daddy was sweet to send me this photo of Axel in class on his first day of school, Monday, August 23rd. 

I also received a text of Axel in PE class on his first day of school. 

Here is Rubix catching another spontaneous nap after Axel finished PE in the pinball room. It made my day to receive these texts as it is hard for me to be away from the kiddos when they are at school. Luckily, my schedule changed last week and I was able to be home in the mornings, which makes a huge difference. The only bummer thing is I am now gone all day on Saturday. I know this is best for everyone, but I wish I could just cut my hours again. The promotion was great, but with this very different time, I much rather be home more to spend these precious months of sheltering in place with them. The good news is I will be only going into the office Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays. This puts me home a lot more than my old schedule which had me gone all day 10-11 hours Monday and Wednesday. 

I thought it might be fun to see Phoenix's class schedule. Her specialty teacher's join Ms Mehta's Zoom room which allows the 2nd graders to only have to join one Zoom room at the start of the day, after snack recess and after lunch. This was really well thought out and has been pretty seamless. 

Here is Axel's schedule. He has a Zoom link for each teacher and jumps from link to link. You can see he has an "x" on one period per day. Currently, this is a 'free' period until September 28th. After the fall break day, on Sept. 28th it will become a collaboration/project period. They are hoping the kids will have more time to work together. We will see how successful these periods become. I am optimistic that it will aide in Axel's emotional health to see friends more frequently. We had a talk about having him "eat lunch" with his friends. I know the teachers want the kids to get away from the screen, but Axel had a very valid point that at school there are lots of opportunities to just be with his friends and talk and he is really starting to miss it. I encouraged him to reach out to his friends to see who can have lunch with him. Even once a week will be nice. 

 This week is back to school day and night. Phoenix's is on Thursday night and Axel's is on Friday afternoon. I am a little bummed that they changed the time and Axel's is while I am treating patient's but I am hoping Keith can attend. Axel also has an orthodontist appointment. He might be getting fit soon for a retainer that he will wear until his teeth fall out and he is ready for braces. It could be another 1 to 2 years. Dr. Nejat said that he thinks the expander and head gear have provider full correction and that there should be adequate space for his adult teeth to come in. We are patiently waiting for a few to emerge. The last xray showed the adult teeth ascending where his teeth were pulled, but only time will tell. 

I will leave you with a picture of the kids after completing a puzzle little Grammy sent. We are looking forward to completing more puzzles in the coming weeks and months! This one was really fun. Who doesn't love kitty cats and ice cream?!