End of the School Year

That's a wrap. The 2020-2021 school year has finally ended. Thank goodness!  It was by far the most difficult school year we have ever encountered. 

At the start of the school year, we decided that all three of the older kids would be doing "distance learning" from home. There would be no waiting for the bus, no seeing teachers face-to-face, no time spent playing with peers. Instead, they were each given a computer and had specific times throughout the day to log on to live Zoom calls as well as a long list of assignments that needed to be completed each day. 

While the school year would look drastically different for us, I still insisted on the obligatory "First Day of School" photo. Owen was now in the 7th Grade at Chippewa, Cole in the 4th Grade at Turtle Lake and Rose in Kindergarten at Snail Lake - all learning virtually from home.

I quickly realized that it would be an impossible task to manage distance learning along with two toddlers and multiple therapies every week. After reaching out to over 100 people on care.com, we finally found someone to help. Stevie did an amazing job keeping Cole and Rose on track with their school work and helping with Kate during Aria's appointments. 

The first semester ended and Stevie gave her notice. She was planning a month long vacation visiting friends across the country and didn't know when she'd return. We were so sad to see her go.  Eventually we found another nanny to pitch in, but quickly realized it was not a good fit. After week #3, I gave her a 3 week notice which ended up coinciding with our Spring Break vacation. We made the hard decision that after Spring Break, the kids would be going back to school in-person.

Spring Break was a much needed getaway. We had the most relaxing week in Destin, Florida soaking up the sun and splashing in the water. When we returned, life started feeling a bit more "normal". Stevie came back to help us out for a couple weeks while we transitioned the kids back to school. 

Cole was the first to start the day after Spring Break. He did an amazing job getting back in the groove of in-person school after being out of the classroom for an entire year, but at the end of the week, we got the call. Someone that Cole had been in close contact with had COVID so Cole would now have to quarantine for 2 weeks. Thankfully he never ended up catching it, but still had to wait out the 14 days before heading back to school.

In February, Owen had started in-person school part-time just two days a week. He really excels when face-to-face with his instructors and was struggling with the distance learning portion. Thankfully, at the end of March, he was able to double that time with 4 days in-person at school and only Fridays distance learning from home. It was great for him to get out of the house and into the classroom on a more full-time basis.

Rose had been so excited to start Kindergarten and doing it over a computer did not mesh with her personality, so she was over-the-moon to hear she could ride the bus and go to school in-person. Her start date was unfortunately not until April 12th, which also coincided with the date Cole could return to in-person school after quarantining.

Finally the day arrived when all three of the bigs kids boarded their buses bound for school. 

We thankfully made it through the remainder of the school year with no more quarantines AND not catching COVID. Now onto summer and NO MORE HOME WORK!! YAY!