VBS Wilderness Escape 2020

Vacation Bible School at our church was very different this year. They handed out craft bags and had live facebook videos with Moses and Malachi. Our theme was Wilderness Escape. The thought was to do it with just your family or small groups as you felt comfortable - so we decided to do it without small group. 

The kids had a blast with the science experiments, making their own butter.

There was a big group picnic one day with all pre-packaged food and socially distanced activities.

The VBS bus and its celebrities drove around visiting everyone's houses during the mornings. Since we were (and always are) at the pool, they came to our neighborhood pool and passed out ice pops to all the kids at the 8 and under swim practice. This was definitely the highlight of Ben's VBS week. He was completely obsessed with the bus. He was obsessed with Eleanor's school bus, too, and I think this was the first time he had actually been inside a bus. I had to bribe him with an ice pop to get him off it and as soon as it was in hand, he was trying to climb back on.

We made a lava lamp with oil, water, food coloring, and alka-seltzer.

We ate together.

On Thursday night they had a live VBS concert outside at our church (also socially distant) - another huge highlight of the week for the kids.

We tie-dyed t-shirts.

And overall played games and had a great time. It was a wonderful week getting together with our small group again, and even met a few new friends! It was very different from last year, but the kids loved it and it was very memorable!

Playgrounds opening back up

As Virginia moved into phase 2, playgrounds started opening back up. As you could probably imagine, my kids were thrilled, having not played on a playground (with one exception) since mid-March. Eleanor headed straight to the monkey bars.

Ben did some work learning how to climb and slide independently again.

They had a blast.

We are thankful to have this amenity back!

Field Day and Eleanor's last day of school

Eleanor is officially done with school! It was by far the strangest school year, and likely most memorable! I'm not sure she'll ever complete her final day in a bathing suit again. Here she is on her first and last day of school:

We ended up doing a field day to celebrate down at the beach! The babies spent most of the time bird watching.

We played throwing games...

Racing games...

Relay games...

Brain stimulating games...

And games that helped improve accuracy.

Overall it was a great and memorable field day down at the beach!

Hiking and walking

More and more walking/hiking is what we've been up to! We checked out a new trail that leads from deep in Colonial Williamsburg to the back of Busch Gardens (we didn't make it nearly that far, but when I checked on a map, that's where it led). 

It had a beautiful bridge/overlook of a little creek off the James.

Eleanor dissected a flower bud to see what was inside.

We headed back to still relatively empty CW to walk around and do more garden exploring. The kids are really loving the gardens!

They've run through this maze so many times I think they have it memorized.

Our area officially moved into phase 1 on May 14, so these places are starting to become a little more trafficked, but overall we've still been loving being out!

Puzzling in quarantine

The girls noticed that I am on puzzle number 3 of quarantine. The puzzles are generally a little too difficult for the kids, and Chris isn't really that into puzzles, so I've been doing them solo. They wanted to "make sure [I] never run out of puzzles" so one day they came down from their quiet time having made me a bunch of new puzzles! It was so sweet :)

A couple of the puzzles were even a little too hard to do, but they certainly made a ton of them!