Changes and more changes

 We have now been in our house for 17 years.  About 16 years too long for Curtis.  He would love to more and have something different, just because he likes change.  I keep telling him there is no reason to move.  He wants to move just to move and I can't think of a bigger pain in the butt inconvenience than moving because it sounds fun.  We settled on doing some much-needed improvements.

We started with the back door.  The glass sliding door was getting too hard to open.  We have already had it fixed once, it was needing another fix.  I could tell we could keep fixing it every few years or it was time to replace it.  We did that and then a little extra.

This is what the room looked like the majority of the past 17 years

Last October I changed out the window treatments.  The windows and doors at different levels always bothered me.

This is the After

The Kitchen got a facelift as well.

Before

After

A few more changes

We had been talking about Curtis getting a new car for a while.  His little convertible BMW was fun, but it wasn't that comfortable to ride in.  It was really low to the ground, it hurt my back driving long distance, I couldn't imagine what it was doing to Curtis' already compromised back.  The back seat was tiny.  It was ok for short trips when the kids were smaller.  Now they are almost all adult size and it is not comfortable back there, nor did we all fit.  The engine still ran well, the issues were the tires and rims.  They were some special fancy-schmancy thing and it wasn't easy or cheap to repair.  We had to keep throwing more money and the rims were due for another $1000ish repair.  I said I'm done we're not putting any more money into that car, especially since we just had it fixed for the same thing back in May.  It was time to take the plunge.  Curtis finally decided on the Tesla S.  He thought he wanted the X, but when he drove it a few months ago, he wasn't getting excited about it.  Test driving the S sealed the deal.  Curtis' Dad happened to be in town, so he went down and picked up the car with him.

Curtis loves his new car.  It is super fast.

First day of School 2020

 School started two weeks later than usual because of COVID.  In order to make up the time a week will be taken off Fall break and a week off Spring Break. School is still online for at least the first quarter.

Trey has decided to return to Jacobson and go back to the Gifted program.  When he met his teacher she said there are only 7 kids in his class for now.  The rest have opted to do true "online school" rather than distance learning which is what my kids are doing.  Distance learning is like a video chat/Zoom call.  Everyone logs into Google Classroom at the designated start time and the teacher can see all the kids and they see her, she teaches as if she were face to face with everyone.  Online school is login, read material, do assignments at your own pace.

Trey and I went to meet the teacher.  It was different than usual.  We had to schedule the 15 minutes time slot, we had to wear masks and only one parent was allowed to come.  Trey was a little uneasy about the returning to school situation. Knowing there were only 7 kids in his class and plenty of room to "social distance" made him feel better about face to face to school when the time is right.

I snapped this picture of Trey hanging out as we were waiting for our turn to enter his classroom.  I figured this was my shot at this years "first day of school photo"  After I snapped it Trey said, "that was awesome I didn't even have to smile for that picture."  COVID has been much easier on the introverts.

And this is our school for now.  Derek and Trey login and talk to their teachers/classmates through headphones and video chat.