Week 1

We managed to complete the first week of Term 2 virtually. I will not deny that we had a few arguments about assignments and some were caught watching non-school related videos or playing Minecraft. There were some Zoom headaches as well. We did get everything completed that needed to get turned in. I am looking forward to Week 2 having a more solidified schedule. We celebrated the end of the week by making some home made pizza!

We even enjoyed some pool time during a period of non-essential movement.

But the Covid situation has gotten a bit worse here. As of today, there are over 20 active cases. The most concerning is a patient who showed at a fever clinic, tested positive, but has no clear link to any of the other cases (that is, the super spreader funeral event). With this news, our area of Viti Levu is now being placed in a containment zone.

I hope that over the next few days, the containment zones will become a bit more concentrated to certain areas. The next 14 days will be deja vu. We are reverting to the practices we had in place when we were in the US last year. We are staying at home as much as possible, only have one adult out at a time, masking up, and sanitizing everything.

Term 2 Start

Well, we have had an unexpected start to Term 2. On Monday morning, we were preparing our bags and uniforms for face to face instruction. By the afternoon we put everything away. The government of Fiji announced a possible case of local transmission. Parts of the country were placed under lockdown. In a quick decision, the international school decided to open up on Tuesday with virtual learning as the local schools moved their holiday up, effectively keeping students out of school for the next three weeks.

So, we started Term 2 virtually. This was the scene as we practiced logging in.

We are trying to get back in to the routine of screen work.

Tuesday afternoon the community transmission of Covid was confirmed. Even more concerning, the person in question attended a 500 person funeral and travelled in a large part of the containment area.

Wednesday (today) we decided to up our virtual learning game. We cleared a space for the boys to work.

Lucky kids get an office with a view. After we wrapped up the assignments for the day, we watched another government press conference. Not great news. A case, an attendee of the funeral, was found in Suva. This has effectively put the entire island of Viti Levu under a bunch of restrictions for at least the next 14 days.

We will try to make the most of it. We will keep to our bubble, practice mask wearing if we need to go out for some reason (hopefully not too frequently), and work hard on our school work.

Oven

About two weeks ago, I was baking some goodies in our oven. All of a sudden a loud bang came from the kitchen. I looked over to see the oven with no lights or clock working. It seems that the heating elements in the oven had failed.

So for two weeks my oven cooking was reduced to using an extremely tiny toaster oven.

Or, I experimented with the air fryer. Can one bake cookies in an air fryer?

Well, just a couple days ago, a new oven arrived. It was installed quickly.

I am still getting used to it. I am not sure that I like that all the controls are electronic and there are only touchpad buttons. 

I got over my fears this weekend about it though. I made a batch of bagels. They seemed to have turned out alright. The oven preheated a lot faster than the old one and seemed to maintain temperature correctly.

Silvio

 Our pup Silvio had to go in for major surgery. Well at nearly 13 years old, and surgery would be major for a dog. Kidney stones were the reason for the surgery. Thankfully, he is recovering well under the love and care of my brother and sister-in-law.

Nap the day before surgery

Car ride to the vet

I am such a good boy and super sleepy from surgery.

Recovering by myself leaves me grumpy.

I can not wait to be back in the states and love on this old pup!

Term Break

We are all still here surviving a quiet term break. In about five days, the second term fo the school year will begin. We have been doing some BrainQuest work, some left over homework, building legos, swimming in the pool, and trying to gather things for a garage sale.

We went for breakfast after getting Tdap shots

An edible island - Thomas’ SMART homework

Other than that, I am wrapping up the last few school board meetings, waiting to hear back from some job applications, and generally being stressed about moving.

End of Term Assembly

 I just thought I would share the song that Thomas’ year level performed at the end of term assembly last week. It should hopefully start at the 9:36 mark. This is when they began singing their song.

Term 1 Assembly

Trying to spend the term break relaxing.

Happy Easter!

 We are keeping our celebrations and festivities to a minimum. For the first time ever I made hard boiled eggs in the instant pot. It was rather quick and easy. Only a couple ended up slightly cracking the shell. That was good because later we ended up coloring all these wonderful eggs.  We also watched The Ten Commandments movie and I am hoping to have viewing of Jesus of Nazareth. Both are really long but hopefully we can watch them over the next few days.

April 1

This marked the final day of Term 1 of the school year. The Year 2s and Year 10s got to lead the whole school assembly for the day. The topic focus was on climate change. The two year groups collaborated on a song about climate change based off on One Direction's song History. I did not take video (though I hope the school will post a link to the recording soon). I did get a few snapshots of Thomas and the whole group.