Shelter in Place Life Part II

Although the kids every once in a while ask to go places, such as the bowling alley or Chuck-E-Cheese, we've mostly gotten accustomed to the shelter-in-place life.

We've certainly played more games than usual, including such scintillating card games such as Slap Jack.


Gabe likes to play Stratego.  Somehow, he usually beats Elvin.

Emily has her old American Doll things stored away on a high shelf, and it has been there untouched for years.  Karina spotted it and asked to get it down.  She was very happy to go through it and admire all the little trinkets.

Gabe continues to love sports and begged Elvin to take him out to play tennis.  Elvin finally relented and took him to a local park.  The tennis courts were still padlocked, so instead we hit the ball against the practice wall.

Elvin has spent quite a bit more time on his garden this year compared to other years.  Here Karina is helping him saw a piece of wood to use as a stake.

The artichokes are growing like crazy this year...

And already bearing some artichokes.

As the weather has been warming up, the kids have been enjoying the watermelon that is back in season.

The boys also got a hold of the water guns.  Watch out!  (For the mermaid wearing goggles.)

And while the kids have been in the backyard, they spotted our backyard neighbor host an illicit gathering of people.  They are very aware of the rules and did NOT approve of this activity.  Eliana even grabbed the step stool and binoculars to spy on them and reported that they were not social distancing.  Tsk tsk!

More time at home means more activities as home, such as a "hand salon" complete with a hand massage and finger nail painting.

Xiao Yu was also giving out foot massages.

Elvin got a sourdough starter from someone at church.  Karina was interested in starting some as well.

With it, she decided to make some homemade crackers.

You had to roll out the dough really thinly.

And then slice them into squares, brush them with oil, and then salt them.  They were really tasty!

We've been eating more homemade bread.

Elvin made a whole wheat sourdough loaf of bread the other day.  It was pretty good!

School has been at home.  Karina once a week has "class" with her teacher.  She always goes outside to do it, with her bunnies keeping her company.

Xiao Yu also has class online sometimes.  He is doing well, working on reading and writing, and math.

In his spare time, he enjoys building things out of cardboard boxes, such as this "dog house" as he calls it.  (Elvin helped out.)

And more time as home means more time to do chores.  The kids are now assigned to help with doing the dishes.  They don't like touching slimy things, so they wear super fashionable rubber gloves.  Which look especially lovely when one goes shirtless.

Interestingly enough, with the whole Zoom craze, Gabe and Karina have started to Zoom with some of their friends.  What do two 7-year old boys talk about during a Zoom call?  Well, they don't exactly have a back and forth conversation, as you might imagine.  Instead they run off screen to grab toys to show the other person, or they make faces at each other, or they make funny noises at each other...


And Gabe started to get really crazy quarantine hair.  His bangs were getting so long, it was way past his eyes and annoying even him.  So Elvin watched a few YouTube videos and went at it...

Not to bad huh?  Hope you're staying safe and doing well!

First cast

A couple of weeks ago, Karina fell off the swing in our backyard.  As she landed, the put her right arm out behind her and hurt it.

After noticing that Karina wasn't willing to bend her arm after a certain point, we took her in to the doctor, who thought it was just a sprain but got an x-ray done anyways.  When it came back, they told us there was a fracture.  So this is the first broken bone in our family!

We are lucky that Portland has Shriner's hospital, which specializes in orthopedics for kids.  Here she is getting examined there.

And here she is with her new cast!  Pink of course.  We were told that she would need to have it on for 4-6 weeks.

The kids signed it.

She is bummed that she can't ride her bike, or do other things like knitting, drawing, or crocheting.  On the flip side, she can no longer do much of her schoolwork, practice the piano, or violin, or do some chores like washing dishes.  So at least she go out of that!


After a week, we took her in for a follow-up visit, to make sure the bone was healing ok.  She got another x-ray done.

Because the swelling in her arm had gone down, her arm was wiggling in there now.  They decided to remove the old one and put a new one on, that fit more snuggly.

Here is the new one, with a stripe!

Karina has learned to be more ambidextrous.  She can write (slowly) with her left hand now.

And does other stuff, like brush her teeth and eat meals, with her left hand too.  

Get well soon, Karina!

No training wheels!

Gabriel decided a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels.  We tried it several months back and it was not successful.  Now with quarantine and nothing better to do, we tried again.

We went to a local middle school with a rubberized track, and you can watch the results...

As you can see, it was successful!  Karina came along as moral support.


When we went back the following weekend, he was riding with just one hand!  Good job Gabe!