First Day of Online School

Tuesday, February 22nd – Grayton Beach, Florida – Day 15 

 We signed the girls up for online schooling and today was the first day. They were on their laptops at the crack of 9am EST (8am CST which is where we were). We have decided to have them attend class for an hour a day from 9-10am and see how it goes. It provides a bit of structure and we were tired of not yelling at them to stare at a screen. Kidding. I don’t know how it’ll work out. If it doesn’t, we will pull them from school and they will be officially home schooled. 

 Mary decided she was left out when she lost the opportunity to see the Goodwill so Gen and her went off to the store while I took the kids to the beach. We had a pretty good time. I’m not the biggest of beach fans but I have to get use to it because we are in Florida and everywhere is beach. We kicked around the soccer ball, hit around the baseball, the kids collected shells and played in a tidal pool near the beach. The surf was up so the kids went in under careful supervision and played in the breaking waves but didn’t really get a chance to swim. We had a lovely lunch of peanut butter and jam sandwiches then a second lunch of ham sandwiches when Mary and Gen arrived. 

 There was a lovely little hike of under a kilometre just off of the beach. A bit of a sandy walk so we cut it short. I keep trying to push to get the kids fitness up but I get outvoted in favour of the easier walk. John wants or needs to be carried – he needs to harden up, 3 years old, more like 3 ply soft. There were these crazy trees that looked like large bonsai trees that were really pleasant to walk through. The local freshwater lakes that are separated from the Gulf of Mexico by dunes and beach are apparently unique to the panhandle of Florida. We walked briefly along the edge. I’m still hoping to see my first alligator but nothing yet. The air temperatures need to warm up a bit more so they get out of the water to warm on the land. 

 The rest of the evening was getting ready to go. Pack up the tent no one used, clean the trailer that has become unruly in three days of being stationary, laundry. I still don’t know how we end up doing laundry every second day when we brought 14 days worth of clothing.