Live's a changing as Rubix turns 4, learns to ride a bike and we learn how to home school during covid-19 pandemic

It is amazing to think how different life was a month ago when I last posted. I had planned on posting sooner, but right after I sat for the orthopedic speciality board the Covid- 19 pandemic hit Silicon Valley hard. Our schools closed on March 13th. Keith called me after picking up the kids early from school once he was notified that a parent of a non student employee was diagnosed with the virus in the upper school. Keith started working from home on the 11th and his work asked all employees to work from home starting from March 14th through March 31st.

Since then, Kaiser has gone to all virtual care for non critical patients and Santa Clara County has gone to mandatory shelter in place requiring all residents to stay at home through April 7th. We have been transitioning to life at home, work at home, school at home. I think this first week was successful. The kids managed to get into a pretty good routine and get all of their work done. Axel was able to attend all of his zoom meetings. Phoenix will start a daily morning zoom meeting with her home room teacher as well. Her language arts teacher and home room teacher sent nice 1 minute videos telling Phoenix how much they miss her and good job on her submitted work.

In the weeks before all of this ciaos Mr. Rubix earned his alphabet crown at school. This means he can recognize all of the letters and knows all of the sounds of the letters. He also had to know the long and short vowel sounds of the vowels. He worked really hard for this and we practiced at home. This was a very proud moment for him.

 Another amazing milestone is him deciding to ride the 16 inch bike. It literally took him hopping on it and then he rode off. Of course, he couldn't stop or start on his own, but he could ride. Within 4 days he could start and stop on his own. He is now quite skilled only a couple of weeks later. Since we are home he rides about 2 miles twice a day or about 40 to 60 minutes a day. He is absolutely hooked!

 Marshall Lane was a great place to learn and practice starting and stopping. We regularly use the parking lot, but we no longer use the blacktop or play ground as there was a confirmed case at Marshall Lane and it was recommended to avoid this area.

 Phoenix has become quite skilled on her bike as well and can now hop the curb. She is also quite the climber and loves to play on the monkey bars. She is missing them as we have not been now for a couple of weeks.

 You can see from this picture, Rubix was wanting to ride after school when he first learned on March 3rd.

 A little fun fact of parenting an almost preteen. When we were in Hawaii we noticed Axel had some changes on his toes which looked like fungus. When we asked him how long it has been there, he said months. Well it is taking forever to get better. We have had to change medication per doctors orders because it wasn't improving with typical treatment. We are hopeful it will be gone in the next 4 to 6 weeks with the new medication.

 On March 7th a lovely surprise came to my door. My dad and Sonia sent this lovely bouquet of flowers to say congratulations for sitting for the orthopedic boards the day before. It was the hardest thing I have done in my adult life. Studying for roughly 8 months and taking the 7 hour test, along with managing work and family took discipline and sacrifice from the entire family. The day of the test I had to patiently wait over an hour to start the test. Most people who know me, know I am not the most patient person. It was extremely nerve racking, but I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to sit for the boards despite the beginning of the covid-19 ciaos. Luckily, the day life seemed to be put on hold for everyone was the last day all tests were administered, March 14th. I am so glad everyone who took the time to prepare for the test was able to sit for it.

 With the test in the books and Spring approaching came spring cleaning. We went up stairs and I cleared out bags and bags of clothes and boxes of toys. Here Rubix is happily displaying new clothes we found 'upstairs". He loves Axel's old boxer briefs, "tall socks", and pj's.

 Here is where all of the kids stuff was. They put up old curtains and put out blankets, pillows and stuffed animals. Phoenix also put up art work that she worked hard to create just for their new fort.

 We also cleared out Phoenix's room and closet. Because of this we were able to reorganize her room completely. I just love how clean and organized it is now.

 I am so proud of her for getting rid of a lot of toys and clothes in order to make this happen.

 Although, we had to cancel Rubix's birthday party we tried to make it the best we could. He turned 4 on March 15th. Here he is enjoying his pancake birthday breakfast.

Birthday present time!

 Mommy, "It says Rubix, "r", "u","b", "i", "x"."

 Phoenix also did a very sweet thing and gave Rubix a car he has wanted since the day she got it a year ago. She also wrote him a nice birthday card. It was a very thoughtful and generous thing to give him something he wanted so much.

 It was a gloomy kind of day but we still managed to go for a rain ride. I am so proud of him for dressing appropriately. He has finally matured to the point of wearing pants, long sleeves, gloves and jackets.

 We also managed a nice walk later in the day.

 Afterwards we had dinner and cupcakes.

 We ended the day with a movie we purchased from Amazon prime. I think it was called the Dragon Slayer. It was cute, but still too scary for Rubix.

 Here is a cute picture of Rubix and Phoenix a few nights ago after making a magnetile tower they were proud of.

 I thought this was also a cute picture of Daddy showing A and P the Stephen Colbret show about social distances and the coronavirus.

 I thought it might be nice to show some pictures of what this week looked like. We started school around 8 or 830 am every day. Daddy taught Phoenix math, while I worked with Rubix on math and his worksheets. After an hour Rubix used my phone to work on some apps while I worked with Phoenix on Language arts and Science. Rubix would last about 45 minutes and then get bored. He would either join Phoenix or go play. Axel was pretty independent and just followed his curriculum until I called him for lunch at noon. After lunch we would have recess for an hour or longer. We would then go back inside and finish social studies, art, music, character development or whatever other work Phoenix had. Here is an example of language arts writing assignment Thursday.

Today's assignment was to correct and improve he paragraph. 

Here is an example of science work. 

 For Axel, I only helped him by taking pictures of his work and emailing it to him to upload to the appropriate google drive or document.

 This picture was taken the morning after school closures. Rubix was so excited he couldn't wait to start working on his worksheets.

 Here is a picture of him working hard after breakfast every morning this week. He can now spell and write Rubix Szolusha. So proud of him!

 Here is Axel playing an alphabet game with him after his classwork earlier this week.

 Phoenix working on math.

Phoenix watching her videos about goats before writing her informative writing paragraph. 

  

 Rubix on the ABC mouse app. while I was working with Phoenix.

 Axel being his studious self. If you didn't notice, all three kids are in their rooms. This was the best way to keep them all on task, which means a lot of walking from room to room trying to make sure all three of them are on task. For P.E. Axel has been running with daddy this week. He ran 2 miles one day in under 20 minutes. He ran an 8 minute flat mile today. Axel had a handful of zoom meetings for class work this week. Next week he should have several every day. He also had fun video chats with friends this week. We will be planning his virtual birthday party tomorrow as his Escape room party has been canceled/ postponed.

We hope all of our friends and family are safe. We miss you all very much. Know we are thinking about all of you and love you.

Oahu Adventure and more

It has been busy since the holidays. It seems like every weekend we have some event to go to. The 1st weekend in February was no different. On Saturday we went over to Phoenix's friend's house, Caitlin for dinner. It was such a fun night of play. I did not get any pictures of the evening, but the girls put on a dance show and the boys built a Lego set. 

The following day Phoenix went to her friend, Violet's birthday party. Here is Phoenix next to one of her BFFs Kyla. 

 Violet's parents went all out and the party ended with a unicorn pinate. Phoenix came home with one of the unicorn's legs full of candy.

Later that day we had the Gunion's over to watch the Super Bowl and for a BBQ. They had a blast learning more about American football as they are from Australia. Here is a picture of the kids all watching for a moment in between playing a new game Phoenix received for her birthday. 

 On February 6th Axel left school a few minutes early to get two more teeth extracted. He had permanent teeth roots that were starting to become eroded from other permanent teeth coming in diagonally. The hope of the dentist and orthodontist is that by removing the two baby teeth the permanent teeth will "reroute" and find their way more in a downward fashion, rather than the diagonal fashion that they are currently in. The teeth will have to be watched for the next 6 months. If they don't start changing their direction then they will have to be forced down into the correct space. Axel is such a trooper and managed the whole thing quite well.

 He enjoyed a soft diet for 24 hours and occupied his mind by reading, of course!

 On February 7th, the first graders had a Valentine's day breakfast event. Daddy went to the Kindergarten Christmas breakfast, so I went to this years. Here Phoenix is in her favorite new hat the her great Aunt Lois and Uncle Paulie sent from Canada. She absolutely loves her pig princess hat and the awesome books she received.

 We read stories together, played games and enjoyed a waffle and strawberry breakfast together.

 Here she is with her home room teacher, Mrs. Wallace and her good friend Evan.

 The next day, Feb. 8th we left bright and early for SFO where we departed to Honolulu, HI. We arrived just after noon and were at our hotel before 3pm. We explored Waikiki and happened to come upon an awesome Lunar New Year celebration at the mall. This was the beginning of a dragon dance that we saw.

 We then got to see the Lion's dance from "beginners". They did their dance up and down from this step.

 We all enjoyed watching it.

 Rubix had the privilege of catching a Mandarin orange which is considered good luck.

 The show ended with a Lion dance from "advanced" Kung Fu students, which was nerve racking and amazing all at once. They did their amazing dance on these poles. The Lion has two people that make up the front and back and they have to coordinate every move together on these poles. Truly amazing!

 The next day we went on the Pillbox hike and then played at Lanikai beach for a few hours in the afternoon. 

 The kids did amazing going up the steep climb.

Here we are at the top. We were so incredibly proud of the kids. 

 The view was amazing.

 The beach was clear and the kids has a blast playing in the sand.

 They even played in the water a bit. I had come down with a cold the Wednesday before leaving and was still not feeling top notch at this point so I took pictures and rested on the beach, which was a nice treat for me.

 After dinner that night we checked out a desert shop that served banana and acai ice cream. Let's say it wasn't exactly a hit, but we did have fun walking home!

 The next day was a rainy day off and on so we headed to Pearl Harbor and the Aviation Museum.

 This was the second hanger that housed planes from Pearl Harbor.

 We even got to go inside one.

 Very cool!

 The best part of the day was playing inside the interactive dome. We flew like birds and flew fighter jets.

 On Tuesday we went to Waimea Valley and falls. It was another day that was off on rain, but we got lucky with two downpours right before and right after our 3 hours walking through the beautiful tropical forest.

 We loved the peacocks.

 Here is a map of all of the great side trails that we were able to explore on our way toward the 30 foot water fall.

 You can see how beautiful it was there.

 Breathtaking, isn't it?

 Daddy loves banana trees!

 We love to climb up rocks and steps!

 The waterfall.

 We even got to make a ringlet or small Lei.

On the way home we stopped by the Pineapple plantation. We really wanted to do the Pineapple Maze, but it was closed because of  all the rain. We decided to have some pineapple whip and ride the pineapple express. 

 On Wednesday we climbed Diamond head. The kids were a little disappointed in the ease of the gradual climb after having completed the Pillbox hike. Axel counted only 513 stairs, which included the way up and down. There was no view the entire way up until we got to the top, which was also a bit disappointing as the Pillbox hike gave you a view the entire way up.

 The view from the top was awfully pretty though.

 That afternoon/evening was more hours of beach play and watching the sun set at 6:27 pm.

 Mommy and Daddy trying to take a selfie of us at Sunset.

 Daddy lost his credit card and he was pretty sure it was at the Pineapple Plantation so when we drove to Manoa Falls to see it was closed we headed back to the plantation. We got extra lucky as they had Daddy's credit card in lost and found and we got to enjoy the world's largest pineapple maze.

 Rubix hadn't had a formal nap the entire time, but we got lucky with all of the kids taking a quick 30 minute snooze on the way back to Waikiki.

 Yes, you guessed it. Another afternoon and evening of beach play we in store for Thursday.

 Rubix loved the ocean the most and did the most swimming and playing with daddy in the ocean each evening.

 Phoenix and Axel love to create and thus played and build in the sand with very little swimming each day.

 Thursday night we had our first meal out. We went to the mall to Mahaloha Burgers. The kids scarfed their burgers and fries and we were all so full we could hardly eat breakfast the next morning. Instead of going out to breakfast for Valentine's day like we did last year, we had breakfast at 2pm after exercising at the YMCA.

 Here Phoenix has fully enjoyed the Valentine's day chocolate pancakes at Eggs and Things. I had a delicious Ahi tuna and egg breakfast and Keith had a yummy Hawaiian eggs benedict. The boys had their usual chocolate chip pancakes and scrambled eggs.

 After our 2 pm "breakfast", which we deemed as Linner (for lunch and dinner), we went shopping for the first time. We found these great Hawaiian outfits and because the price was right, I got my wish of having matching outfits for the first time! It was so much fun taking pictures on the beach.

 The kids stayed and played on the beach one last time.

 We also watched the sun set one last time before heading in for showers.

 We were all showered and ready to watch the fireworks before heading off to bed. We had a lovely time together and we discovered the kids new found maturity in adventures with hiking and exploring the great outdoors. We still have some obstacles with food and behavior, but our very hopeful in more exploring, maybe even outside our country in the next few years.

Now we are back to the grind and looking forward to school and work. I am approaching my last couple of weeks before my big exam. I will be missing in action until March 6th. After my exam we are looking forward to the boy's birthdays and some fun spring cleaning. Our next post is most likely for Rubix's birthday in mid March. Please pray that I will rely on God's strength, wisdom and peace during this very stressful time for me. I know I can do anything through Christ Jesus's strength and it is he who has opened all of these doors for me. I am learning to trust! God Bless!