Sunday in the Park

Sunday outing to Glen Falls park, with some tree climbing, followed by ice cream (Matthew tried the Harry Potter-inspired Butterbeer flavor), and home in time to see the last-second Buffalo Bills victory.  

 

Gourd-geous Pumpkins Part 1

We kicked off the decorative gourd season with a trip to Greg's U-Pick. They had plenty of gourd choices, plus farm animals and donuts!

 

First Day

The boys started their online school on Tuesday.  Our district realized that it couldn't manage doing both hybrid school (two days a week in person) and fully-remote school, so at least for now they're just doing everyone online. I picked up the textbooks and workbooks at the school on Monday (just a drive-through process -- but kind of sad to see people there but know that the kids won't be going back in person for a while!)

So far it seems to be going pretty well -- they're following the regular school schedule and just logging in to Google Classrooms or Zoom at the class times. Matthew is in the living room and James is in the dining room. They have mostly the same teachers, but no classes together. Wednesday are half-days, but it's strange because instead of getting out early, they just start late (at 11 AM).   

 

Not First Day of School

 The boys were supposed to start school today, but because our school district could not get its act together, the start of school is delayed for students learning remotely.  (We had a choice of hybrid, which is two days in school and three days virtual, or all virtual. We picked the all virtual option.)  Our superintendent didn't start planning until too late, so they ended up not having enough teachers and now they're frantically scrambling to try to hire them (which in itself is quite unusual, because normally our district is a really popular one to work in).  After this situation made the national news, the superintendent is now on leave.  Most people seem to think that's good riddance!  Anyhow, the boys don't seem too concerned about having a few extra days of summer -- even though the weather today definitely felt like fall. 

Last week we signed Matthew up for an online programming camp -- and it turned out he was the only one registered.  So he ended up basically having private lessons all week, which was pretty cool. James had one day of online chess camp last week, and is looking forward to the afterschool chess through the same group. He'll also start outdoor soccer next week. Sadly, we decided that he won't go back to gymnastics this fall. We'll miss it!

Olcott and Akron

We went out to Olcott Beach and Akron Falls again on Sunday.  It was very clear weather -- we could see Toronto!  We stopped in to the delicious popcorn store, and they had a sign on the wall that said, "Want to ruin 15 minutes of your day? Try a kernel of our Carolina Reaper!" (Carolina Reaper is one of the hottest hot peppers.) So, of course, Matthew had to try it! He managed it, but said his mouth was burning!  It improved after we got back to the car and he had an ice cube. :)  And then he enjoyed his bacon-flavored popcorn instead.  

We met up with our friends at Akron Falls, which was nice -- baby Ada liked playing in the water.  

 

Sign of the Times

At the local liquor store :)