More adjustments...

Olivier has continues jiu jitsu during the pandemic, participating in Zoom classes until early September when they started offering parking lot spaced class.  he was thrilled to attend in person and they were thrilled to see the kids in person.  

And with the improved status of our county, they were able to hold a very limited indoor class this weekend.  We were unsure how we would feel about in person class but they are following very strict safety precautions.  A new adjustment, but a good one!  

And yesterday we took the kids on a short road trip to visit a local waterfall.  Of course at the start of fall the water is very limited but it was still trickling down and was just breathtaking.  

We also saw some ravens and Anna was excited, this week in her English class they discussed the poem The Raven.  

We didn't stay at the waterfall too long because there was a LOT of flies and we tried to determine what we should do next.  So we went to Ostrichland!  Yup, it exists.  The kids fed some of the emus and ostriches.  Crazy strange to see how they move their necks around, and they are eager to try and steal the food bowls away.  The kids and Matt had been before but it was my first time.  

It was a great afternoon that we enjoyed together out of the house.  
 

Maze day for Pop!

The kids have been going on walks with me most nights (alternating based on what they have going on) and one night Olivier mentioned to Anna and Mason that he pretended to be a Maytag dishwasher in the homes we check out that are under construction near our house.  That night Anna pretended to be a refrigerator and Mason was a dishwasher (sorry it is blurry!). Fun to see them use their imaginations.  And humoring my love of watching the construction progress.   

On Friday I got to go on a field trip with work.  Don't worry, we were socially distanced in an appropriately sized vehicle (helps when we deal with buses!) and we got to go visit our future home!  It has been a huge process to get to this point but construction has started.  At this point, this is what the view from my office will be.  I have a feeling there will be too many trees that will block the view of the drive in screen but for now it is nice!

Where the new road will be going between our property and the drive in.  

I had to take a photo of the huge equipment on the site.  

And me!  Stand in what will eventually be my office!  

Yesterday morning I got this photo of Cotton and Luna on the pony wall upstairs.  Always makes me nervous when one is up there but extra nervous when these two are!  

And today's project!  Olivier has been talking about making a maze for his hamster for a while now and today Matt helped the boys make it.  

The finished maze!  

Based on the design they drew and then expanded to full size.   

We had to wait a while to have Pop test it out because we wanted to make sure he didn't run into issues with tacky glue.  After getting ready for bed tonight they were able to test it out.  Olivier had just put him in.  

And he made his way around a bit.  

He got more than half way, then went back to the start!  After a bit of coxing and blocking of sections after he had gone into the next one, he made it to the end in just over nine minutes!  Now to see how he does tomorrow!  

A little video of Pop making his way around.  He liked the treats but stuffed them in his cheeks and got mad there was no bedding in the maze to hide them under!   

Fun to see their idea come to life!  

Smoke..!

This week has been much cooler, almost cold enough to run the heater actually.  Weird!  The smoke from fires around the state have created a high level of cover to keep the area from heating up.  The cool temperatures have been nice and the smoke being high has kept the air quality from getting too horrible.  Unfortunately the last couple of days the air quality has been decreasing which means, we are stuck inside...again.  We have been trying to keep ourselves from going stir crazy but also safe.  

Tonight Matt took Taz for a walk with the equivalent of a N95 mask on to avoid the smoke but keep the dog from going crazy and captured this crazy photo.  The sun is setting behind a mountain.  It is very red due to the smoke and it is so smokey you can't see the mountain.  Yucko!

Another heat wave...Argh!

This week started off nice.  School went well and one afternoon Mason worked on his challenge project box from the school.  It had some cool stuff inside and he enjoyed doing the projects, and Olivier watched and decided to save his box for later.  

I have been taking walks at night and on Thursday night Olivier joined me and asked that we take a photo of the sunset.  So of course I did!

Mason made a new marble run in his room and I was impressed he was able to set it up so it was sturdy enough to stay together for such a long distance.  

And here is the end.  He sends the marbles down and sees which end is the most common.  

On Saturday Anna rode Rio again.  I don't think she has ridden him since March of 2018.  

She has gotten bigger and more confident.  But she loves pink just as much!

On Sunday the weather was horribly hot.  We decided to leave town and head toward the beach for lunch to try and keep cool.  It was so much nicer (115 degrees when we left town and 79 where we had lunch) that we came home, picked up Taz, and went back.  

The weather station by our house registered 116 degrees as the high, and at the university they registered 120 degrees!  Miserable!  Thank goodness for the beach!

In the late afternoon a fire started but was thankfully quickly put out just over two miles from our house.  It is alarming to see yet another fire in our community.  This is the side of the hill it started on.

And this is where it ended on the other side of the hill, right up against a line of houses.  

We were thankful it cooled a bit overnight but Monday was supposed to be another hot one so we headed to the coast again.  This time the beach because we were going to get there early and get a spot away from the crazy crowds.  The smoke left the sky hazy all day and it stayed comfortable until about 4 p.m. when the wind picked up and we headed for home.  

Thankfully by the time we got home it was less than 100 degrees and now is a much more tolerable temperature for sleeping.  And the weather this week is predicted to stay in the low 80's which will be much appreciated.  And we are keeping a close eye on the very large fires in the state.