6th Grade

William's school was able to return to school for this year with five day in person schooling.  There is also a 100% remote option for those families who choose.  The choice is made quarter-by-quarter.   We aren't so naive to think that in person will last the entire year, but we're thrilled that his school has the building space to distance the kids and still have in person class.  There was actually an increase in enrollment for the school - and all Catholic schools - due to the in person option since the two public school districts around us are 100% virtual through October 30.   Unfortunately the same teachers have to do the in person and virtual students.   There are only a few virtual students per grade but I know that is a huge effort for the teachers to add.

Since his 5th grade uniforms still fit and the school supplies are ordered through the school, our only back to school shopping consisted of additional masks and turkey lunch meat!   He has 12 masks now, so he can take 3-4 to school each day and we aren't doing laundry every night.   Kids can choose their own masks without a specific uniform requirement, so long as they aren't distracting.  He told us about a classmate with one that had a hot dog that formed a smile.   Apparently that boy was asked to switch....And after 1,000 PB&Js, he's now had three turkey and cheese sandwiches!   The cafeteria has been repurposed as the Science Lab and kids eat lunch in their 5th period classrooms (ironically, for William that's science so he does still eat in the cafeteria!).   But classrooms are nut-free so hello lunch meat.  He seems to be enjoying it so far, and I'm guessing this will be his lunch for the next three years now.

Parents aren't allowed into the building, but I was able to get a few photos from their social media account to see how the rooms are set up.  In the younger grades the classrooms are spacious enough that the kids' desks are just spread out widely.   In the junior high, some classrooms weren't that large (Science, for example) so they moved to other rooms in the building that could accomodate the distancing better. 

This is 1st or 2nd grade:

This is the repurposed cafeteria now set up for junior high science. 

This is his homeroom/ELA classroom.  Here the desks are in more of a checkerboard and have plexiglass "walls."  William said they're a little sticky on the inside and he was excited he could get paper to stick to it!  He said this teacher wears a mask when she is in front of the room and adds a face shields if she is weaving through the classroom.

First Communion Weekend

St. Thomas was able to reschedule the April and May first communion masses for all of the kids put on "pause," over the spring.  As expected, things were a little different than a normal year.  For one, the kids could only invite 4 guests and guests that were not in the same home were not supposed to sit together.  And communion has no wine still, since the common cup is not appropriate currently.  As a result of these changes, the only relative we asked to come was my brother, Ryan, William's godfather.  Since we hadn't seen him since February, we had a lot of catching up to do!

Outside fun!

The big day!  We picked a special Saturday morning mass that was added for First Communion.  We usually have it as part of a regular mass but the church isn't doing as many regular weekend masses these day since so few people are coming in person.

William with his baptismal godfather and his First Communion Sponsor, our neighbor, Jay Clark.

Jay was also John's RCIA sponsor.   Mine was my friend Michelle.  We were able to schedule our First Communion/Confirmation for the same day as William's First Communion so we could all do it together!

Our next door neighbor, Lori, came too!  She's the mom to Rosie our favorite lab.

After mass, we went to a lovely brunch.  William was totally over photos by then!

Sunday was another brunch en route to the city to drop off Ryan.

South Dakota Summer Vacation

Day 1:  Chicago to Mitchell, SD, home of the Corn Palace!   I remember both Mitchell and the Corn Palace being bigger when I did this trip as a 12 year old!  We got to town late afternoon, checked into our hotel and then drove the main drag and explored the building.  There were some neat things to read inside but we weren't interested in being indoors long.   Mask compliance inside and out was incredibly low and there were no patios to eat, so we ordered Pizza Hut and ate in our room after a nerve-wracking trip to the grocery store for drinks (again, no masks except the checkers, one of whom was wearing hers just hanging off her ear instead of over her face...we did the self-checkout).

Day 2:  Mitchell to Rapid City, SD, via scenic road through the Badlands and a stop at Wall Drug.    The Badlands were beautiful!  I don't remember seeing any of this as a kid.  We got out for a few hours to hike around Door, Window and Notch Trails.  The Notch Trail hike involves a big ladder in/out.  We took it in but the crowd to get back down was too long, so we took the shortcut down.   It was a good test of the treads on our hiking boots!  On our drive we saw a Big Horn, pronghorns and prairie dogs.  We didn't linger long at Wall Drug due to crowds.  I wanted an ice cream but the ice cream shop wasn't open and we only had option of chocolate or vanilla at the restaurant.  William got a piece of cherry pie ala mode and really enjoyed it!

Day 3:  Mount Rushmore, Iron Mountain Road, Custer Wildlife Loop, downtown Custer.    Mount Rushmore was much more developed than when I was a kid.  The presidential trail gets you right up under the monument for cool views.  We listened to a ranger presentation and I learned a lot more about the selection of the site than I remember from childhood when I was very focused on the building of it.    The entire park was quite crowded and less than 50% of the people were wearing masks, so we didn't explore quite a thoroughly as we may have in other circumstances.   I was expecting to be more relaxed outdoors versus someplace like Wall Drug, but due to Sturgis coming up the next week - and it being summer - there were shoulder-to-shoulder crowds in some spots, so we tried to avoid the touristy stops that we could like the restaurants and souvenir shops.   The scenic drives were stellar.  Only one buffalo in it all but the natural formations were gorgeous.

Day 4:  Custer State Park, Sunday Gulch Trail hike, Needles Highway.  After breakfast at the lovely cafe at our hotel, The Bavarian Inn, we head out for nature!  I had a particular hike planned in advance for our long hike but as we read the tour magazine we got at the ranger station, we did an audible and picked one that was shorter but involved "rock scrambling" and waterfalls!  It was so beautiful!  It also made my heart race a million miles a minute as we had to scramble almost entirely vertically up wet boulders at the end of our 3 hours of hiking.  There were some hand rails but it still took all the energy I had left to make it up and control my nerves!

Day 5:  Custer to Rapid City via Scenic Byway.  A few miles down the road from our hotel was Crazy Horse, which we just drove by and admired from the road,  We finish the Norbeck Scenic Loop by going that way, though, and with the sighting of one more deer closed out our wildlife viewing.   Our awesome find for the afternoon was the South Dakota Air and Space Museum.  Only the outdoors was open but we spent over an hour reading all of the plaques for the planes they had displayed outside.  We had hoped to visit a Minuteman Missile Silo according to our original itinerary that had us driving from Custer across the state of South Dakota to Sioux Falls on day 5.  But we had discovered a screw in our tire on day 3 so we had to wait for new tires to be shipped to Rapid City in order to drive the 900 miles home.  My car has run flat tires so they can't be patched and the car doesn't carry a spare.  The tires had to be shipped from Colorado and took two days to arrive.  On our extra night in Rapid City we ordered Chinese Food and ate in our room and slept in the next morning while waiting for checkout/picking up our car.

Day 6:  The car was done about noon, since the tires weren't delivered until late morning.  Crazy enough when they got it up on the lift and pulled out the screw, the tire was not punctured.  So we loaded up the two new tires in the trunk, crammed in our luggage all around it and hauled it home.....an exhausting 13+ hour drive.   There was obviously no way to know this until the screw was pulled out.  And we weren't willing to attempt that when we still had to drive for two more days on windy mountain roads.   Luckily everything fit into the car and now we've got two new tires when we need them someday!