Summer 2020

 School finished and we weren't as chained to the house. Our local regional numbers were fairly good with Covid, so with some staying outside, 6 feet apart and with masks and some pre-planning we could get out of the house.  

The kids are keeping me laughing.

V and H could finally have a sleep over. I went in to H at 1045 to try to wake him up:

Me: Good morning, how are you?

H: Alright. Just contemplating existence.

V puts her face right up into mine and says, "I love you more than you love me." I say, "no, I love you more." She says, "but you are the reason for my existence." I say, "you are the reason for mine." She whispers, "also" "When you look straight at each other like this it looks like you only have one eye."

C: "Mom, that Volteran stuff smells weird."

Me: "That's the smell of healing."

C: "Well, I don't breathe healing in well."

My mom mentioned she'd called V to wish her a Happy Birthday and V asked how her health was and then said, "This Covid virus can go to hell, it's ripping apart families and it's a terrible thing."

The first week of July, we were able to head to the beach.  We hadn't been in a year or two and it was actually quite nice since numbers were limited to keep everyone apart.  

V had her birthday. She had 2 sets of siblings over and H joined in the festivities-we stayed outside and did a water balloon fight (siblings on the same teams), painted wood boxes and did a pinata (V loves a good pinata)

August came and the next thing my running partner and I could come up with was running a 100k!

It took us 12 hours of running and we started at midnight and finished at 9pm with breaks every hour or so-we did a 4.2 km look on a local gravel trail and went up and down it until we got to 100k.  0-60k was actually not that bad!  60-80k was hard and in the heat of the afternoon.  80k-100k I was super nauseous and hated every second.  

Start:

 

Friends from our local run club came and did 1-3 laps with us, as did hubby.  We look great at the end, right?  (about 20 minutes after this picture I threw up and I was pretty green for about 3 days after)

This summer I also got into a group of 6 runners with a goal of running the Niagara section of the Bruce Trail here in Ontario.  Every other weekend mid August until the run in October we would meet and run 30-40km in anticipation of the 83km (about 50 mile) section.  On the opposite Saturdays, I started running with yet another running group about an hour drive NW of home to see new trails.  

Here's a video one of the guys from the group made to give you an idea of what it's like trail running here:  
Saturday August 22, 2020 is for trail running - YouTube

On August 8, I finished off the return virtual trip across Tennessee-I finished it in 50 days, the same number of days it took me to go across the first time.  
Since May 1st I've run 1436 km/893 miles and walked 617 km/383 miles. I ended in 409th place (that means 409 people are crazier than me!)

The kids had been asking to go stand-up paddleboarding and we finally heard of a place that was open (our local rental place decided not to open this summer).

I sewed lots of masks in anticipation of the kids going back to school. The littles were going back every day all day. The high schooler was going back Thursdays, Fridays and alternate Wednesdays in person to 10-15 person classes and Mondays and Tuesdays would be learning online. Only one subject (they have 4) per day to keep everyone contained and away from each other. I figured that was going to require a lot of masks...

Summer ended with my run partner finishing her goal of a 1/2 ironman!  That's about a 2km swim, 90 km bike ride, then 1/2 a marathon.  Luckily since I don't really swim or bike and had the big trail run coming up she only made me do the 1/2 marathon with her.  She did amazing!