Merry Christmas 2020!

I'm back! Only a year and a half after the last post! Here are some pictures of the kids from the last couple of months, and the only recent family picture that I could find. We are still in El Cerrito, just outside San Francisco. The kids are 9, 7 (almost 8!), and 3.5 years old.

Madeleine loves horses, sewing, drawing, painting, hockey, and music. She is learning violin and taking riding lessons, and is planning our future barn and riding arena. Ross loves Lego, building, reading, hockey, and exploring. He is learning piano, and is the best big brother one can imagine, sharing not only his room but also his toys, attention, and love with Henry all the time. 

Henry loves his balance bike, Transformers, hockey, reading, and Hot Wheels (every night he selects a car to sleep with). He adores his big siblings and loves wrestling and tackling with Ross.

We have been one of those odd families who have, in many ways, done *better* during the pandemic than we did before. The switch away from school and busy after school activities was a blessing in disguise for us. Once we got through the horrors of distance learning in the Spring of 2020 and started independently homeschooling in Fall of 2020, we realized that both kids learn better with more one-on-one time and more attention to the subjects of interest and need. Madeleine is in grade 4, Ross is in grade 2, and Henry is 3.5 years old and just thrilled to have constant playmates. He does occasionally ask to go to the grocery store with me, but otherwise, I don't think there is much that he misses from pre-covid life. 

Steve has been able to work almost exclusively from home since March, still designing and preparing to build the spectrograph for a large telescope in Hawaii. I returned to nursing part-time in June 2019, and have been working on an inpatient oncology unit in Oakland two nights every week. It has been so wonderful to be back at the bedside and I am so thankful that I got back to work before covid hit. Our area has not been as hard hit as other parts of California - most people are mask-wearing, stay-at-home abiding folks - however, the numbers are definitely at their worst right now. My unit in particular is somewhat sheltered from a huge influx of covid patients since we have immunocompromised chemo and bone marrow transplant patients. 

Living overseas and far away from extended family for so long has not made it especially hard to be in lockdown - we are used to not being able to gather for holidays, and skyping for special occasions has been the norm for us for a long time. Still, we are sad that covid canceled our Christmas trip to Ontario, and any visits from my parents, but we know it won't be for ever.