Erin also did a great job taking care of the neighbors' plants that first week of July, as well as the fourth week of July. On Saturday the 4th, we ladies went to the Sauls house for a fun neighbor cookout while Bob cooked and delivered meals (which he did every Saturday and Sunday in July, except for the 12th). We also walked to see some exciting fireworks being set off by various people in our neighborhood. The town of Holly Springs had theirs on TV on the 5th, and they were good too.
We had our dog friend Carter with us from June 27th until July 11th, and we all really enjoyed having him, with the exception of probably Erin and Finley. Carter is a very sweet and gentle little guy, and we were happy to see him in the "going home" video with his new mom the week after we took him back.
Sunday the 5th, we girls went to friend Luke's birthday parade which was fun, but of course we all would have rather had a real party! It was still great to see him, Enzo, their parents, and Mel! The week of the 6th was Erin's virtual Summer Intensive with the Carolina Ballet. She had auditioned back in January (aka pre-Covid) and was so excited to learn that she got in to this program! What was originally going to be two full week at St. Mary's school in Raleigh learning lots of ballet, conditioning, and other types of dance, turned into one full week at home dancing via Zoom. However, Erin was a very good sport and enjoyed it. The school did a great job of trying to make it as interactive as possible. Go Erin!
Other than that, the rest of us stayed busy with work, friends, the visitor dog, outdoor cycle classes at the Y, book club via Zoom, and a church meeting via Zoom. None of this would have happened in the same way in a "normal" summer, but it is what it is. I guess I should say that I am thankful that we still got to do these things, but of course I wish it was back to the old way!
Saturday the 11th, Anna got to go to Caroline's house for her birthday mini-party and really had a blast with Caroline, Sarah, and Maddy. Caroline's parents were very smart and rented one of those huge inflatable water slides for the whole day and had 3 mini parties (one for each of their kids) during the day. Brilliant! On Sunday the 12th, we had a super fun time in Concord for Elliott's birthday party! It was SO good to see everyone after 5 months apart! It was also the last time we were going to see Dale, Maria, Cole, Cooper, and Vinnie before their big adventure moving to Orange County. So that was sad for us, but we are also so excited for them and can't wait to visit!
We didn't have much planned the week of the 13th, but really it was our first week in 5 weeks that we didn't have something scheduled all week (tennis camp, Joey and Quint here, hosting Carter, and ballet camp), so it was nice to have a little freedom that way. We had Sarah over to go to the pool one day and just tried to keep ourselves busy. Erin and I finally got to the Holly Springs Farmers Market on the 18th.
We girls finally had our first time helping in the StMM kitchen on Sunday the 19th. We helped assemble bags of groceries and cook for the meals that Bob had been helping with. It was great!
On the 21st, Grandpa A. brought up our wonderful new furniture piece, a sectional that Dale and Maria could not move with them to CA. We are loving it in our bonus room already and are so thankful to have it! Grandma and Ansley also came up from Tuesday-Thursday that week, and we had lots of fun at the pool, cooking, doing crafts, and even had a frozen yogurt outing to My Berry, which was the first time we Callaways have eaten in an establishment since early March!
Anna had the first of 4 hip hop summer dance classes via Zoom on Tuesday evening. We had a pretty quiet weekend of the 25th-26th other than the meals and we girls went to help on Sunday again.
The last week of the month (July is SO long!), we just hung around the house and tried to stay cool...some days the high was 95 or higher! Anna and Laney played a lot, and we did a few evening pool visits when it was more bearable than during the day. We have had our share of boredom and general unhappiness with the situation, but we are trying our best to remain positive.
Our school did announce that they were going to open full-time while implementing all requirements as mandated by the state of NC, so after much deliberation between sending them to school in masks, doing block scheduling, and lots of other changes versus staying at home and doing school virtually...we all voted for them to go. I just hope and pray that wearing masks all day isn't a huge problem, and hopefully things will change soon (or even before school starts). NC was in Phase 2 through July 17th, at which point the governor extended it another 3 weeks and also issued the mask mandates for schools among other restrictions. So, maybe at that 3-week mark (August 7th), we will get some good news as far as easing the restrictions. I hope!! Wake County schools, after a few iterations, are now going all virtual to start with plans to reassess a few weeks in, with the option to stay virtual through December.
We had come up with a wild idea to do a road trip with the kids and Finley if they had to do distance learning and even came up with routes and looked into some details (travel trailer/RV!), but that is on hold since we ended up deciding to send them to school. That is probably the best (and is definitely is the easiest) outcome, but it's a little sad to let that fun idea go. Who knows what will happen - and there's always next summer! In the meantime, we have a long weekend planned to Denver at the end of September to give us all a little something to look forward to...and we are also meeting the Summer family and grandparents back in Hilton Head next week, so that will be a lot of fun, too!
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