October is one of my favorite months. There are always fun things to do and the weather starts to get better! It’s a bummer to be missing some of my favorite fall things — the Bayou City Art Festival, Halloween parties, fall festivals — but we have been able to find enough safe ways to make the season fun.
We live a couple miles from Ellington Field, which hosts an airshow every year. This year they pivoted to a “drive-in” set up due to covid, and we decided to give it a try. I was really impressed with how well it worked! Each car was given a ~20′ x 20′ spot on the tarmac, and you could bring chairs, etc to set up next to your car. It was $120 per vehicle, and you could have up to 6 people. You were free to do whatever you wanted within your square, but if you left to walk around or go to the port-o-potties, you had to put on a mask.
The girls were SUPER excited about it, although to be honest I think it was the idea of doing an activity more than the airshow itself! They enjoyed it though. The only downside was that it was pretty hot that day, and there’s no shade to be found near a runway! We stayed for a bit over two hours and saw several acts before the heat got to us and we headed home.
On Sunday afternoon the girls and I made our yearly batch of owl cookies. I only made one roll of dough this year since I won’t be taking any to work, but that should be enough to last us the week. I love this tradition so much!
We’ve visited the pumpkin patch at a local church every year since Emma was born, but they decided to skip it this year. But we were able to find another (smaller) one at a different church! It was great to be able to snap a few photos and grab a couple pumpkins. We’ll carve them on Halloween.
Emma has been back in brick-and-mortar schools for 2.5 weeks now and it’s going great. She LOVES being back with her teachers and friends — on her first day back, she literally came bouncing out the door and into the car when I picked her up.
Everyone in the school is required to wear a mask, except for specific times like lunch (for obvious reasons) and recess (when they are outside). From what I can tell the kids have adapted to this like it’s nothing — Emma often gets in the car at the end of the day and forgets to take it off!
I’ve been keeping an eye on the number of cases in the district and so far, so good. At the elementary level, there’s usually only 1-2 cases per school. Emma’s school hasn’t had a single case yet, but there was one elementary school that had a small outbreak last week (~15 cases) and had to send one grade home for two weeks. The high schools have more cases, usually in the range of 5-10. Nonetheless, I’m encouraged to see that for now, it appears that the safety measures are working. We have certainly opened ourselves up to more risk by sending Emma back to school, but it is one we were willing to take.
The school library always invites the kids to make a book character pumpkin for Halloween, and Emma wanted to make the Princess in Black. (It’s a cute book series aimed at the K-3 age group.) I provided some ideas and a steady hand with the glue gun, but she did the rest. It turned out great!
So Emma is back at school, and Charlotte continues to go to daycare. Jose has also started going in to his office occasionally, as his work has reached a point where some in-person activities are necessary to keep the project on track. My work continues to be full-time remote, and I expect it to remain that way at least through early next year.
We have more exposure now than we have in the past, but at 7+ months into this pandemic, it does seem like we have reached a point where calculated risks must be taken — aka the “learn to live with it” mindset. I don’t think we’ll be going to a restaurant or movie theater anytime soon, but school and work are important so we’re adjusting accordingly.
And we did vote in person! Because voting is important! We took advantage of early voting last week. Our closest polling site was at UHCL, there was no line, and we were in and out within 10 minutes. Easy peasy! Here’s to having a new president in January (I hope, I hope, I hope).
