After our trip to the US, our life has been very HERE. We had a few weeks of regular routine. Sam has started a weekly pony club at a stables at Hyde Park, and the boys have started baseball. I have been reading a lot of torah. I also started playing tennis as much as I can. I'm so grateful to be playing again. Sam had the busiest weekend any of us has ever had, including a sleepover, pony club, a sleepover birthday and a west end theater outing (they saw The Play that Goes Wrong). We met up with friends of friends at their beautiful house about 45 mins outside of London - that felt like vacation. All was good and moving along well...until...the inlaws arrived.
We did have a lovely first two days. They went to pick up the kids, played with them at home, they even babysat so Matt and I could play pickleball - I have been playing, but Matt hasn't. And then Tom tested positive for Covid. First time. We knew our time with Fran was limited, but she kept going, joined the kids at baseball and everything else until she tested positive two days later. We moved them up (he first, then she joined) to the Covid Suite that Jeremy christened.
That first weekend we were meant to spend the May Day three day weekend in York. Canceled. Though our weekend was filled with regularly scheduled activities - and we can go back to York. Fran and Tom were supposed to be in Amsterdam for the week. Canceled. A bummer to miss all of that, but thankfully, they were sick but pulled through very well. We dropped food, picked up dirty dishes, swapped laundry and tried to meet outside as often as they were able. It was not a pleasant ten days for them, but we all enjoyed the time that we got to spend together - as scarce as it ended up being!
We have had five family members come to visit us. They have all gotten covid for the first time. Oy. 5 for 5.
We really only had one grandparent left standing, since my mom fell the day Fran and Tom arrived and broke her arm in four places. Not ideal. Very painful and very uncomfortable. For a long long time.
Fran and Tom were feeling better enough to go to the Harry Potter Studio Tour, which we all did together last weekend. That was so super cool. Now I need to watch the movies.
Last weekend was also the Coronation. Seems like that should have affected our lives, but it was mostly just a weird thing that was happening a few miles from us. I had originally thought it was scheduled for Monday, the public holiday, so I signed up to read torah. No one else was signing up. I couldn't figure out why. So I checked the royal website, and I saw it was actually happening right as the torah reading would be happening. Oops. Sparse crowd that day. I was thinking to go downtown in the early afternoon just to see all of the hoopla, but it was raining a lot, and after walking to and from shul, I was a bit over the rain. So instead we got Elie a haircut and chilled at home. It was a coronation, it was cool to watch on TV and look at pictures, and it's kinda neat to see the Coronation treats and things on menus and signs around town, but truly...eh. Who really cares.
Sam is on a class trip to Kent. The sixth grade got divided into four trips, and this one focused on animals and living things the most, so Sam was excited about it. We get them back tomorrow. It's a totally different family dynamic with just two children, two boys. And the house went from 7 to 4 in one day. Quiet.
I think that's it for updates! As usual, photos not in the correct order.
