Lake Day and Beach Day With Friends

As our lockdown restrictions started to ease up at the end of May, we started to SLOWLY get together with friends. This time, the Butlers invited us and the Whites to join them at their lake house at Lake Hickory for one last hurrah before they sold it. The Butlers have 11 (yes, eleven!) children, but not all of them were there. Still, we had quite a gathering and tried to stay safe by being outside as much as possible.

The kids pretty much spent the whole time out on the water in the boat.

Daredevil in his heart.

Katya thinks she is “too mature” to join the in the picture. 

The moms took their turn on the tube too. I know Krystal and Karolyn look like they are loving life and I look like I am hanging on for dear life. Yep...didn’t want to fall off! And after a very long ride, none of us actually fell off! 

Here is the whole group, for the most part. 

The kids loved wakeboarding and did a ton of it! 

Alex and Michael

The greatest action shot of the day!

We stayed way pass dinnertime and enjoyed the sunset. 

I think the kids were still out on the water for their last rides! 

We started our WARM beach season in June when we went to Topsail Beach with the Whites. Super fun day as the kids really enjoy each other’s company. 

Family picture for the record! And guess what is crazy about this picture! This was the day after I injured my leg playing tennis, as later turned out from a doctor’s visit and an MRI, I actually tore my ACL. This is just ONE DAY AFTER! It’s pretty unusual and incredible. Anyway, it’s another long story, but yes, I am glad we took advantage of having the beach within a day trip distance.

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Epic Grandfather Mountain Hike

What is up fam? It’s Alex here talking with ya, and I’m here to tell you about the boys' adventures climbing a mountain that actually turned out to be 4 mountains (Tato tricked us). So we arrived Friday afternoon and hiked about a mile to our campsite, where we would be staying the night. We brought all of our camping gear with us, but left much of the stuff that we’d be using for the hike at the car. We spent the rest of the day setting up camp, lighting fires with marshmallows, exploring the river, going back to the river again cause mark wanted to, going back a third time because we needed water, and then had a dinner of hot dogs and s’mores. Then we watched "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” in the tent, because we were feeling adventurous.

The next morning, we woke up, packed up camp, and headed back to the car to drop off our gear and prepare for the hike. Little did we know what was ahead of us....

The first part of the hike was relatively easy, it was a typical mountain trail for the first 3 or so miles. The views were gorgeous, and we could see Tennessee and Mt. Mitchell from where we were standing. But it soon became a very strenuous hike, with many many ladders and rocks and ropes to hold onto. Oftentimes, we were gripping rocks and shuffling along the edge of a cliff (I am not exaggerating in the slightest) with only yellow spray-paint to guide our steps. One wrong move, and we’d end up in the wrong kind of vehicle on the way home (an ambulance, for those who can’t take a joke).

Funny rocks, funny people

And this was our halfway point! We stopped at the mile high bridge for the views and to say that we made it. Kind of a letdown, to be honest, since the actual bridge was only about 60 feet above the ground surface, but it was a mile above sea level. Tourist trap right there.

Ok, time for a really eerie and strange story. So in the 1970s, a single person plane was flying from Florida to New York and crashed on the mountain, killing the pilot. The wreckage hasn’t been recovered, and so the fuselage is just lying on the mountainside right near the trail. On the way back down the mountain we decided to visit the solemn site, and while we were walking around, a man and his wife and kid show up and say that the pilot was the guy's FATHER. He said that the crash happened when he was 12, and he told us that bad weather had caused the crash and that his dad was flying the plane to check if the instruments were operating correctly. Like...what are the odds. It was mind-blowing that we were at the sight of a plane crash, in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain with no one around, and THE SON OF THE PILOT OF THE PLANE IS THE PERSON WHO SHOWS UP WITH US. Spooky stuff.

During the last 4 miles, our legs were on autopilot, and no matter what we did, we couldn’t stop moving down the trail. Every time we stopped, our brains would scream at us to keep going. So we did. We were so tired and drained from the hike that we were hardly talking anymore, we just wanted to get to the car and eat food (By the way, I was peeling from a terrible sunburn this entire time. I hope your respect for me greatly increases now). But at around 5pm, we finally arrived at our van. Exhausted and famished, we rested for about 20 minutes, and then drove to the nearest Olive Garden to gorge on pasta, breadsticks, and salad. 

We have to do this again! 

Alex.

Sailing Up to 6th Grade

 We reached another milestone in our family this year! We don’t have any more kids in Elementary School! Mark graduated from 5th grade and is moving on to 6th grade this school year (which is middle school here). It’s still hard to believe that kids are so grown up now!

First week of June is when “drive through” 5th grade graduation was happening at the school. Katya and Alex made posters for our car and decorated it with balloons. “Mmm Wat Cha Say” are words from Jason Derulo’s song which is an inside joke because Mark really got into that song during quarantine. He made his “work out pump me up playlist” on Spotify and this song was one of them. 

So this was REALLY funny and a little embarrassing for Mark 😂

We all had to park in our designated spots and drive up to the the teachers one by one to receive a “diploma” and a cupcake. 

As we drove away, we turned up Jason’s Derulo’s song and celebrated-hahaha. It was silly but fun! Mark chose not to take pictures of him on the rock the day of the graduation, but we did go back later that week and got a few shots. 

When we came home, we took few pictures in the garage, by his tennis wall, with the sign that Robert had made for him before he left for work.

NO ONE noticed that there was something wrong with the sign!!! Hilarious! 

Mark is an excellent student! He is a pleasure to teach according to his teachers and well liked by his classmates. We are always so happy with how he behaves at school!

To celebrate, Alex and I took Mark to Chick-Fil-A for lunch (Katya was working) and got huge snow cones from Pelicans afterwards. 

A few days later Mark’s teacher, Ms. Beickert, stopped by to drop off a few books for Mark and a gift for me (I was the classroom parent). She has been so great to Mark and so supportive with all his sports ambitions--she has come to his tennis matches and basketball games--and has always been interested in helping him stretch himself.

I loved the note she wrote on the back of his “graduation certificate” with the quote from Arthur Ashe and everything. So sweet! And a great message for Mark to remember.

We are all very aware that the next school year will be anything but normal, but we remain hopeful that kids can continue to learn and be excited about school. Middle School--here comes Mark! 

Lyana.

Not Our Normal Life

Well...that was a very long break from posting.... We kind of fell of the end of the earth for a bit, six months, to be precise, although you’d think that I would have had more time to do blogging and organizing pictures with all that was going on with COVID-19 pandemic. 

The reality is that even right now, as I am writing this in September, I really feel that I don’t want to go anywhere deep into my thoughts and feelings, afraid it will bring out some extra worries, doubts and depressing ideas. 

As we all know, on March 13th, the world pretty much stopped. Flights from Europe were cancelled (thus my mom couldn’t fly in on March 19th) and the way of life that we were used to turned upside down. I recorded a few video messages and wrote in my journal about what we were experiencing to help me grasp the new reality and organize my inner thoughts. I have to admit that about two days after our beach trip, that happened on March 21-22, I was in a very dark place for almost the whole day long. I didn’t want to get out of bed, I wanted to cry, cry, cry. And I did. But then around lunchtime, I got up, pulling myself together to help kids with lunch, wrote a lot in my journal, separated my thoughts and feelings, trying to figure out what I could control. Then I went on a long walk by myself, feeling better with every minute as I was giving my body new energy to feel ok with what was happening. I realized that I wasn’t as much worried about the situation in the world, as I was worried that I was not going to be capitalizing on this time we had at home with kids doing projects, learning stuff, doing useful things, and enjoying each other. I put a lot of pressure on myself because I saw what a lot of other people were posting online as they were tackling DIY home improvement projects or coming up with other creative ideas for the kids activities. I took a pause, looked at my life realistically, and decided to make changes in my expectations. 

Phew..... THAT HELPED A LOT!! I am grateful for taking the time to deal with that mental issue I was having as it really helped me get through the hardest days of that quarantine we were about to face.

I have collected a few pictures from those days between March 16th till May 15th or so. Robert had to close his practice mid March and couldn’t reopen it till May 10th or so. It was a true blessing that he was still working at Riccobene, so he could go be there full time--they are part of a bigger practice and were able to stay open the whole time, mostly dealing with emergencies, but definitely had enough to do.

We made walks our daily activity with the kids! It was not always something they wanted to do, but even a circle around our neighborhood always was a welcome change in their energy. 

We had church at home every Sunday (and still are having Sacrament at home). It was a bit strange the first couple of times, but after a while, it felt natural. This is a picture of us dressed up, before church. 

Mark started learning Ukrainian on Duolingo. In fact, he became obsessed with it, in a good way. He was on the leaderboard for weeks and weeks and somehow was zooming through the course. I was so happy that he had found something so useful and fun to do! Of course, todays’s update is that once things opened up, Duolingo has become a bit forgotten...

We did a few projects outside. Kids had very little schooling, unfortunately, so they really did need to have something to occupy themselves with. 

At some point we had to go back into the school to pick up Mark’s school materials...it was so eerie and sad to go back to the classroom and see all the desks and books there as if waiting for kids to return. Remember, no one had any idea that on Friday, March 13th, would be the last school day for a while. 

We sewed a few masks, but they didn’t turn out greatly. We still have them as a memory of what we had time to do, but now are using either medical masks or the ones that Grandma Lorraine sent us. 

Robert continued to entertain the primary children virtually by recording really funny videos of primary songs featuring a lot of silliness from our kids. 

I did adjust my grocery shopping habits and made sure I only went once a week. At first I was going to Aldi and pretty much everything I was buying was around $150, mostly produce. Then Lidl opened and I was happy to add some pastries to the list (they reminded us of England as we had a Lidl there). 

This picture was taken probably on one of the first times I wore a mask. Masks were not a mandatory thing till late May! But we still wore masks most of the time when we went shopping. 

I love to only use reusable bags on my big grocery trips. 

The biggest adjustment for Mark was the fact that the courts in Apex were closed till May 1st. He only got together a couple of times in April with his tennis friends (one at a time) on some courts in Cary or a private country club (which remained opened!). 

Mark was taking his tennis training seriously and figured out how to keep practicing in our garage. We endured hours of him hitting the garage wall and working on his freestyle tennis skills and tennis trick shots. I am amazed with that kid! We even started an Instagram account for Mark where we post all things tennis (managed by me and Katya). He already has almost 800 followers and has found a lot of like minded kids all over the world that train, work hard and inspire others to do the same. We have found a lot of work out for tennis videos and tennis drills that have been so helpful as then he can be more independent in his training. 

This is a picture of us for the first time on the tennis courts at our park, probably on May 1st. 

The big kids have been missing hanging out with friends, of course. We made sure they were getting enough time to relax and enjoy this crazy world, but also feeling useful and getting things done around the house. One thing that everyone was looking forward to was getting haircuts:) 

I think this was a pretty quick scoop on our quarantine life. Not much was happening, but we also didn’t sit and watch TV all day. In fact, now, half a year later, I almost feel regret that I didn’t just sit down and watch lots of movies... it’s just me, I will always find something to do. 

Bye for now.

Lyana.