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.