Puzzle Club

One quarantine constant for the family has been puzzles on the dining room table. We just finished the 4th one this week. Two observations on my side - 1) The person most addicted to puzzles in the family in the only one who shows up in all four pictures below and 2) Puzzles are a lot harder to do with a curious 2 year old dog in the house (the last two puzzles both had a couple missing pieces)....And we just bought a 5th puzzle for our upcoming Big Bear trip...

Litter mates....

This one is from the Blink indoor camera. Tokyo has been sleeping in the girls room for past couple weeks. Everyone in the family has a slightly different relationship with Tokyo, but there is no doubt who her litter mate is (great term from our front neighbor). They share the same bed most nights. In this pic, Tokyo is cuddled up in Natalie's bed. Other nights, I find Natalie on the ground next to actual dog bed on the floor...You need good litter mates in life...Natalie now has two, the one in the upper bunk, and a new one in the lower bunk with her....

The Quarantine Mile

One of the fun things for myself since the quarantine started has been running. I got a new pair shoes to test in Feb and without the daily commute to Santa Monica, I have had a lot of time to figure out when/where to run.  Early on, while the streets were empty, I tried to run with the girls (on their bikes) as much as their interest would hold. On the weekends, it has been fun w/ the local running community. The local high school marked a 1 mile course on the streets with blue tape and everyone has been using it. We have a Saturday morning group that has been running a hard mile almost every week. This past weekend we had a 61 year old who wanted to run sub 5:30 and myself (age 40) who wanted to break 5 min. We started 8 weeks ago and he was at 6:00 min and I was at 5:20. Yesterday we ran 5:29 and 4:55 respectively. There was a total of 5 people at the finish line (including the two of us) and we celebrated like we had just won the Olympics (elbow bumps and all)...Ironically, last year when I turned 40 I told my running buddy I wanted to break 5 min for a mile and I was nowhere close. This year with the quarantine (one year later and older), I did it by 5 seconds...Who knew all it took was a new pair of shoes and pandemic to get me in shape :-) 

Pic below was my first attempt 8 weeks ago...

End of Year Boxes

Both kids wrapped up school this past week. On the last day, both of their teachers sent them home with a big box of their stuff from throughout the year. Below were my two favorite things they came back with...

Natalie's Flat Stanley Project Photo. The project was to create your own Flat Stanley character (Flat Natalie) and send your character someplace far away on a trip. Natalie sent Flat Natalie to Anchorage Alaska to her friend Flora. Flora's family was the perfect choice for the project and captured the photo below...With school campus closed indefinitely, we weren't sure what would happen with all the Flat Stanley projects that were out there. Definitely my highlight in Natalie's end of year box was to discover Flat Natalie had made her way safely back to Redondo Beach....btw...Natalie's first comment when she got the picture back was "I should have made Flat Natalie pants and a jacket."

This one was in Maya's box. The Redondo schools do a great job with the WATCH DOGS program (DOGS = Dads of great students)...You spend the whole day on campus, starting with unloading kids out of cars, then you split time between your kid's classrooms, and all the recesses/lunches. The kids love it and it is great perspective for the dads to see their kids in their element. This year all the talk was about Kobe Bryant, but I do remember one girl asking about the Corona Virus... And the highlight is at the end of the day, you take a picture with your kids and it goes on the wall for the rest of the year... This year I volunteered on Feb 26, basically two weeks before campus closed for the year...Our picture never made the wall this year, but looking back at all the things we missed this year, I am extremely grateful I was able to get this one in before the quarantine started...And even more so, I hope the program continues next year as they scope out what the new norms will be when the kids return to school at some point...

School is out for Summer....

Last week of school over here. Here is Natalie on her final Google Classroom Hangout of the year....I wanted to point on a couple things with this one...

• Natalie went full cat Halloween costume for her last day...Not 100% sure why, but it definitely matches her style. Being home with her these past couple months definitely makes me appreciate her creative side. Not 100% sure where she gets it from, but I hope she doesn't lose it. 
• And lastly, check out her chair. Somehow she ended up with an executive office chair (compliments of Ring). The girl who started the quarantine with a make shift classroom in the grandparent room, ended up with an office chair, new desk and Dad's headphones. Still not sure how much studying is happening (vs You Tube or Tik Tok), but after 3 months in quarantine, she is certainly more tech savvy and organized than before (both of which I think are good skills to learn)...

Coolest thing we did this month...

...Another full month in the quarantine books. This month I wanted to highlight the coolest thing we did in May (at least in my mind)....The Space X/NASA launch...It has been fun to watch what grabs the kid's attention during the quarantine, initially it was bike riding, then learning Zoom, Maya with reading and the latest was Aerospace. Both kids watched the initial launch that got postponed, the actual launch (which they were both really nervous for, picture below) and then the connection to International Space Station the following morning...And we look forward to watching Doug and Bob (the kids are on a first name basis now) return home in the Dragon space capsule....Also, really cool to see a local company (Space X is in Hawthorne) do some amazing stuff. Once the Ring headquarters officially moves to Hawthorne, we will be right next to Space X....Rockets and Doorbells make for good neighbors...

Summer Concert Series

Quarantine Memorial day was relatively mellow over here. We didn't go down to the beach with the masses. Kristy and I both unplugged from our computers for all three days and we tried to do two things every day...1) Reading, Maya now picks her favorite books and assigns them to Kristy and I to read (I was assigned El Deafo and a Dogs Life this weekend) and 2) Streaming concerts. We have been watching a number of quarantine from home concert shows recently, but we had also heard that a number of artists have been releasing old shows online. So here was the concert series at the Cortez house this weekend....Not the same as being at a concert, but still fun none the less (cheaper drinks and shorter lines at the bathroom)...

• Sat - Ed Sheeran in Dublin (Pic below)
• Sun - Foo Fighters at Wembley 
• Monday - Norah Jones from her house (she does a mini set from her house every week)