Molly and I love Blazer Tag but got out of the habit of going during the pandemic. We kept saying, “We’ll back back after the pandemic.” We today, like General MacArthur’s return to the Philippines (well, sort of 🤔), we returned triumphantly to Blazer Tag.
The actual laser tag crowd was sparse but lively – we got our butts kicked by a 10-year-old girl. 🤷🏻♂️
But we had fun doing it! And we did alright at the arcade games. This time, instead of saving up for some big prize that costs 50,000 tickets we got a few handfuls of candy and some cheap bracelets, enough to share with everyone at home.
With another wave of Covid here 🤦🏻♂️, Molly decided to take her social life into her own hands and organize a virtual sleepover with her friends.
A true self-starter and fully adapted to pandemic life, Molly gave me a small shopping list (basically cake ingredients and popcorn) and scheduled a Zoom meeting with a few friends. She also asked if she could have the whole first floor to herself and sleep on the couch. Hey, she had a vision. 🤷🏻♂️
As I put myself to sleep, Molly and her friends were giggling on Zoom. Apparently the only hitch was that the Zoom meeting timed out ofter 40 minutes. Hmm, I was going to ask her if anyone had upgraded to Zoom Pro, but I didn’t want to be a helicopter parent. Live and learn, Molly. 😛
I didn’t get any pics of the actual sleepover but captured some pics after daylight broke the next morning.
Claire is dealing with the *@&#*#&! coronavirus now too.
Here’s a quick photo to capture this historical moment (Claire’s doing fine). She’s been hanging out on the couch for about 48 hours. A milkshake and some chicken soup are helping with the recovery.
The frog hat (from her sister for her birthday) isn’t just glamorous but is also is reported to “actually” make Claire feel better. ☺️
As a side note, Claire thought it was funny that while we were watching Demon Slayer, there was a “COVID-19 Testing” broswer tab open in the background. 😂
Molly was exposed to the virus at school and tested positive, so we needed to separate her from her sister. Molly immediately volunteered to set up a temporary bedroom in my office. So I pulled out my little office futon and threw some sheets on it. I told Molly to let me know if she needed anything else and went downstairs.
Half an hour later, Molly came down and showed me this video, which she recorded and edited on her iPhone. ☺️.
Notice how Molly calls the futon a “slidable couch.” 😆
Molly plans to do her remote schooling in here too, so she got herself all set up for that as well. All indications are that she’s fully camped in my office and not planning to move out any time soon. 🤦🏻♂️
If you had asked me a year ago if I wanted to spend all of Thanksgiving week locked down at home with the kids, not seeing any family or friends all week, I would have said, “Uh… no.” But things have changed. The girls and I had a pretty amazing pandemic Thanksgiving to ourselves.
It was so good, in fact, that I forgot to take any pictures of the kids, so this is going to be a mostly photo-free post. 😉
For nine days, we all chilled and barely left the house. The kids got lots of rest and down time. I worked most days, and the girls settled into a relaxed groove alternating between relaxing for a while, and then hanging out for a while. 🤔
At the end of the week, I asked the girls if they ever got bored. “Yesss!” they both said in unison. “But it was good!”
A few highlights:
Molly set up a pillow fort in her room dedicated to reading Fever 1793.
We had some seriously crazy games of Uno. I didn’t know that game could get so crazy. 🤷🏻♂️
We watched Jojo Rabbit, an astonishingly beautiful, sad, and funny movie about a Nazi youth. 🙃 I assured the girls ahead of time that it was heartwarming, made fun of those stupid Nazis, and it even had a funny Hitler. 🤔
I took a walk with Claire during which we exclusively discussed nuclear power and radiation poisoning. 🤷🏻♂️
The girls discovered the joys of my PC and worked out a peaceful PC-sharing system. I did not have to get involved. ✌️
Claire and I joked a lot about the “most definitely” Roblox guy on Twitch. 😆
I told Molly I was going to have to serve 81 meal portions over nine days, if you could three meals a day for all three of us. That is a lot! I told her I thought we could get that down to 54 portions if we all just skip one meal a day. “Noooo nooo! No!” Molly said. “You’re trying to trick us!” 😆
So we cooked a lot.
We made our favorite “Very-aki” chicken from memory. We made what Claire described as a “modern Mexican Thanksgiving meal”. Between the apple crumble dessert and making Claire’s apple birthday cake, we peeled, cored, and shredded 6 pounds of apples. 😮
Best Thanksgiving ever!
Note the “most definitely” that Claire added to the wall chalkboard. 😆
Claire and I love the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel. We’ve watched it together a few times over the years. In the movie, the pastry from Mendl’s not only looks delicious, but it also plays a major role in a prison escape.
The iTunes Extra” included instructions for making the infamous Courtesan au Chocolat. Instead of just idly watching these tantalizing instructions, we decided “Let’s make and taste a Courtesan au Chocolat!”
It’s the perfect pandemic lockdown activity. 🤷🏻♂️
Claire did almost the entire recipe herself. The kitchen was a mess, but the result was amazing. It’s a light, creamy, slightly sweet pastry. It tastes even better than we expected. We did not include pick axes to get anyone out of jail, but maybe we will next time. 🤷🏻♂️
Way to go on making this happen, Agitha — I mean Claire! 😀👍😋
McG Kids 