We managed to survive the summer of 2020 with our sanity largely intact, despite the fact that we were mostly cooped up in our home while the COVID-19 pandemic raged. I’ve been working from home since mid-March, and the kids spent the last two-and-half months of the school year doing distance learning with varying degrees of success.

The unusual circumstances made the end of the school year a bit anti-climactic: we were all home all day, anyway; only the schedules changed. Because of the circumstances, we were a little more relaxed about things like screen time than we would have been otherwise. In William’s case in particular, playing Minecraft with his buddies was the only meaningful social interaction he had.

This isn’t to say that the summer was entirely without stimulation. We put together a vegetable garden after having taken a year or two off (in the process of turning over the soil, I learned that William is deathly afraid of earthworms, which greatly limited his participation in that phase of the project), and we are still reaping the benefits of our labors in the form of a seemingly unending supply of tomatoes.

In July, Julie and Joe took on the task of repainting our patio furniture. This project got off to an inauspicious start when they went through several cans of paint without coming close to finishing the first chair. Even after a return trip to the hardware store for more paint, the problem persisted: each can stopped working after a minute or so, which didn’t bode well for the cost effectiveness of sprucing up the chairs.

Fortunately, after a phone call or two, the very nice folks at the spray paint company speculated that the hardware stores in the area might have gotten a bad batch of paint, and offered to send replacements. When the new paint arrived a week or so later, everyone was much relieved to find that it actually worked, and we now have patio chairs that are a beautiful shade of sage green. The refreshed chairs—Julie also bought new cushions—helped to make the patio a really pleasant place to spend time, which came in handy when I was forced outside to work because the boys were playing with their friends online in our bedroom.

For the first time ever, we even managed to grow actual sunflowers!

After a bit of cajoling, I convinced Joe to try his hand at a little bit of programming. I’m not sure it’s his favorite thing to do—there are, after all, limitless videos on YouTube to tempt him—but it was fun to work through some problems with him and see things through the eyes of someone who hasn’t been coding for the last 30 years. He got the hang of things pretty quickly, and though there are still a few chapters left in the book we’re using, I’m hopeful that he’s seen enough to know that it’s something he could do if he wanted to. We’re planning to spend more time working our way through the book during the school year.

Of course, all things come to an end, including—no, especially—summer vacation. School started for everyone in the second week of August the same way they ended in June: at home. We’re very fortunate to high-speed Internet and access to the equipment the kids need to participate and do their work. The older kids have hand-me-down laptops and spend their days holed up in their rooms. William has an older, but still functional, iPad in a ruggedized case to help it survive the rigors of being handled by a first grader on a daily basis, and he hangs out at his craft table in the dining room, which is bright and sunny and close to busy spaces like the living room and kitchen so he never feels too isolated or alone.

The change in circumstances called for an update to our usual first day of school pictures. Instead of posing in front of the car with their backpacks and lunchboxes packed and ready for departure, we snapped some photos of them holding their devices, ready to face a day of video chats, online lectures, and electronic assignments.

The album also contains a few shots of one of our last summer projects. For weeks, William had been asking to to make a special snack that one of his substitute teachers brought to class last year: rainbow jello. Through no small effort, Julie was able to acquire the seven (!) jello varieties required and, with a little help from William, put them all together to make the delicious treat you can see in the pictures.

Update: Please note that the rainbow jello pictures were taken by Julia.

Update #2: Corrected the color of the patio chairs from forest green to sage green.

Gallery: Back to School 2020