The COVID-19 Pandemic Summer: April-August 2020

It's true that COVID disrupted our lives like nothing we ever experienced. We were so fortunate that our disruptions were minor and we found outlets to preserve our mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. Our exploration of local parks extended beyond our beloved Bond Park (though Bond Park served as our daily refuge). We did a lot of biking (girls on bikes, parents on scooters), venturing to places like Davis Drive park, White Oak Creek, the Tobacco Trail, North Cary Park, downtown Cary, Lake Crabtree, and so many more spots along the many greenways. In Bond Park and at Lake Crabtree, we did a lot of fishing, catching and releasing fish throughout the summer. The girls found and took care of a tiny turtle, who they named Rainbow for most of the summer and then released him before starting back up at school. We biked to restaurants and ordered take out, eating the food outside on picnic tables, on park benches, or on a blanket.



Daily morning walks around Bond Park kept me mentally and physically well


One of our many walks in Bond Park as a family - almost always to the stream and bridge #10


Checking out the train at Davis Drive park


We checked out lots of snakes in Bond Park


Fishing at Lake Crabtree


One of our regular spots to bike to for lunch or dinner
Here we are getting pizza, but we often got Kilwins ice cream


Masking up was a regular thing, which we didn't do much when we were hanging out as a family of 4 (which was most of the time)


Rainbow the turtle spent the summer with us.
Rose and Zoe took really good care of it


We took lots of trips to downtown Cary. Having a snack or treat by the fountain was a weekend evening highlight


We found ways to be creative at home


And checked out the flowers at the Museum of Art


We did some baking on occasion


And we set up the tent in the backyard


Thank goodness the neighborhood pool gave us options to use it for the summer


We reserved times throughout the summer to cool off


And we stuck to our own lane


Summer swim team looked different with coaches masked and on the sidelines and parents sometimes helping our kids in the pool. There were no meets


But they were thrilled to have any type of swim team and get their end-of-season medals


Zoe's swim lessons that started at the YMCA in March and only ran for 1 week picked back up in July and finished in August


We went to the 4x4 beach several times over the summer


And kept our distance from other people


We celebrated Easter doing an egg hunt in the neighborhood

We went strawberry picking


The neighborhood kids played together, something they hadn't done before. And when Colin got a new job in June, sometimes this became my office


The cellist in our neighborhood performed for us in the cul de sac and we celebrated birthdays and holidays this way


We made a trip to South Carolina and western NC to visit my parents in the summer, and we found beautiful hikes


The girls made an iced tea stand in SC

We did the best we could with virtual learning for about 10 weeks, from the end of March to the beginning of June. Most mornings we would carry Rose down from her bed to her morning meeting at 9am. She had a few assignments that were almost always done by 11am. Zoe would get to be on her tablet, watching Khan Academy Kids, Reading Eggs, Miss Megan's Camp Kindergarten, or read on Epic until Rose was finished. After lunch and a walk, their free time included lots of fort building, creating stories with characters in their room (that mommy and daddy were expected to pay/tip to watch), reading, or playing in the neighborhood with friends. I gave up trying to keep a tidy house, it was better for everyone to allow them to create their play spaces.


Sometimes virtual learning and my "desk" looked like this


Kindergarten graduation was a welcomed end to virtual learning that spring!

Zoe had her pre-k graduation in mid-June, despite not having gone to pre-k for 3 months. We did send her to preschool (they remained open) for 1 day and realized it was better to have her home with her sister, so they could play with each other and we could get work done. We had pre-paid for 6 months of preschool in January and given the fact that I maintained my income and Colin received unemployment during the start of the pandemic, we felt like our tuition helped keep the school afloat. We did the same with our YMCA membership even though it was closed for several weeks at the start of the pandemic.





In August, Rose started 1st grade in a virtual setting, much like she finished kindergarten. She attended classes for 1 week before we found a private school that would take Zoe for kindergarten and Rose for 1st grade. Because Zoe's birthday is in September, she misses the cutoff for our county public school system. We had been looking into private schools for Zoe that have a later birthdate cutoff for kindergarten. We were prepared to send Zoe to the preschool Rose went to when she was a baby, but on a whim, we decided to check out a Montessori school close by. It was the best decision we made! More info to come on future posts, but we were so grateful to have them both learning in-person from 8:30-3p daily, with an aftercare option until 5p. Had we stuck with virtual learning for Rose and in-person kindergarten for Rose, I know we would have struggled with filling her afternoons. The Montessori experience, though not perfect with the masking and social distancing in the classroom, allowed both Rose and Zoe to grow and thrive with their learning.


One of Roses' first days in 1st grade at the public school. This lasted 1 week


Ready to start their year in a Montessori classroom


First day at Peace Montessori, masked up and ready to learn!
Boy were we glad to have found this program.

Normalcy before the pandemic, a recap of January-March 2020

What a year 2020 has been. Little did we know what would transpire as we brought in the new year. We started the year off with a New Year's hike in Umstead State Park and hiked to a really cool chainsaw art tree that I had read about online. We ran into some friends from Zoe's preschool and enjoyed a beautiful day in the park. It was a lovely start to the new year, that followed with several hikes and explorations to local parks throughout the mild January we had.

Chainsaw tree art at Umstead State Park

Some of our hikes included:
The Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve, where we got to play in the children's play area, see deer, and enjoy the nature trails, and
Lake Crabtree County Park, where we got to experiment with taking pictures with our digital cameras, play in the sand at the waterfront and on the volleyball court, and hike on the mountain bike trails.

We joked that one of our New Year's resolutions should be to set a goal of how many different trails we could hike this year. Little did we know that the world would change in a few months that would make staying close to home and finding things to do a necessity. I have been so grateful to live where we do and have state, county, and town parks to explore this year.

Rose and Zoe at Lake Crabtree County Park

Family photo at Lake Crabtree County Park

All winter and into the spring, Zoe has been into wearing elaborate headbands. She's always hated having her hair brushed and doesn't like to let me give her a ponytail, so I'll take whatever she'll do to keep her hair out of her eyes. You may see some of her headbands in the posts from this year.

Zoe's wearing her New Year's "Cheers" headband for our trip to the Durham Museum of Life and Sciences

Zoe wearing her unicorn headband at school

Zoe's class focused on learning about the world this winter. The children each got to teach their classmates about their own origins. Zoe was able to teach her classmates about Portugal and learned about Germany, Ecuador, and Guyana from her classmates. When fires raged in Australia, the children learned about the country and the animals needing help. The school took up a collection to rescue koalas, which meant we got to talk about koalas at home for weeks. 

Zoe learning about the world at school

Winter in North Carolina is really only the month of February. It's typically when we actually see some snow, frozen rain, or ice. The winter continued to be mild, allowing us to continuing enjoying outdoor adventures. We did have one snow "storm" that shut things down for a day and melted before noon.

February is also the month we celebrate Rose's birthday. We usually celebrate on the day, have a party with friends over the weekend closest to the day, and then travel to New York to celebrate the three February birthdays in the family. Our Southwest airlines companion fares expired on December 31, 2019, so we no longer had the "buy four tickets for the price of two" deal. Instead, we decided to try Spirit airlines, flying from Raleigh to Boston and renting a car to drive to Albany. Our Thursday evening flight ended up being canceled (because of a maintenance issue), so we flew out on a Friday morning, and while our return flight from Boston to Raleigh was uneventful, it was a late flight, getting us home around midnight. The girls did well traveling once again, and it was nice celebrating the Miller birthdays with the whole family. While it's always nice visiting family, it's difficult seeing Colin's dad battle Parkinson's with dementia. Each time we visit, he seems to know who we are less and appears more and more frail. The past year has been filled with urgent care and emergency room visits from pneumonias and falls. 

The birthday girl wanted Duck Donuts for breakfast on her birthday before going to school

Celebrating with a small cake on her birthday after gymnastics and dinner

Rose's birthday party cake from Costco

Rose's birthday party with friends was at the bowling ally and was a combination of new friends from kindergarten and old friends from pre-school. The kids had a great time bowling, in the arcade, and coming back to our house for the "after party." We spent the second half of the weekend at the Durham Museum of Life and Sciences with Avo and Vovo, riding the train, seeing the butterflies and building forts in the treehouse area. 

Rose's fancy New York birthday cake

Being in a year-round school, Rose had 3 weeks off in late February and early March. In addition to the trip to New York, we also took a trip to the beloved Great Wolf Lodge in Charlotte. Colin's great aunt passed away shortly after we left New York, so he flew back for the funeral and met us in Charlotte on his flight back. On our way to Charlotte, we stopped in at the NC Zoo. It was a rainy day, so it wasn't crowded, but many of the animals were active. 

Rose is always looking to make a great deal. She asked Avo and VoVo for $20 for $3 worth of quarters!

The girls love the Great Wolf Lodge 

We love going to the Great Wolf Lodge during track outs when prices are low and there are few crowds.

Darwin celebrated his 9th birthday at the beginning of January. He's getting more grey around the face.
Rose has loved him so much since birth and greets him just about every morning.

We did swim lessons for Zoe to get her comfortable in the water in preparation for summer swim team

It would have been lovely to be off three weeks with Rose for her track out, but we did have to work. She went to camp a few days at XL Sports while Zoe went to daycare.
She picked up roller blading so quickly!

In early March, Colin lost his job just around the time I had a work trip planned to Asheville. Little did we know how much more things were going to change after that trip, and that traveling would look different for a long time. We celebrated my birthday early, first just the two of us, and then with my parents. The girls stayed in South Carolina with my parents while Colin went with me to Asheville. We had a lovely lunch at an Indian restaurant downtown called Mela. When I wrapped up my work in Asheville, we continued celebrating my birthday in South Carolina before heading back home for Rose to start back to school on March 9th. She had 5 days back in school and then the county closed schools because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We got a message on Sunday March 15th that schools would be closed starting Monday March 16th (my birthday) and there would be a 5 hour window on March 17th where personal belongings could be picked up. We kept Zoe home from daycare, and found ways to engage the girls in creativity at home. I was so thankful Colin wasn't working so he could set them up with crafts and daily learning (and structured learning once the county set that up by the end of the month). We started daily walks (I would usually join Colin and the girls on my lunch break), afternoon reading sessions (and attempted to give Zoe rest time like at daycare), and bought some age-appropriate workbooks. Lots of times, I worked at the kitchen table alongside the girls, or they did reading in my office so Colin could send out job applications or take interviews. In addition to being grateful that my job was flexible (and already remote), that Colin was not working and could manage most of the daily parenting needs, I was also grateful that unemployment benefits increased during the pandemic, that we lived in such close proximity to so many wonderful parks, and that March brings spring weather in NC, allowing us to be outdoors most days.

First week at home meant lots of art in our house

More art and creating

Socializing in the cul-de-sac with Costco pizza in the early days of the pandemic

Bridge 10 on the trail around Bond Park become our go-to spot for daily walks

We learned that you can catch fish easily in the basin near the Bond Park dam

On rainy days we created pool noodle battles

Or did gymnastics on the mat

We brought out our binoculars and spread deer food out on the trails

Sometimes my work days looked like this at the kitchen table

Other days I worked at my desk and the girls had quiet reading time

 in my office

Zoe managed to get a few naps, but mostly Rose kept her entertained

We tie-dyed shirts and made homemade hand sanitizer

Online learning started March 27th and we all had to figure out how to do this with kindergarteners

Zoe loved getting to have screen time from 9a-11a like her sister

On nice days, we took e-learning outside

Neighbors created learning opportunities in Bond Park