Anniversary

Today, we celebrated our 13 year wedding anniversary. This is the first time while in Fiji that we could celebrate together. In fact, the last time we were in the same place together, it was five years ago. We went to the Taj Gateway in Conoor, India.  This time we get to enjoy dinner in out house as the containment zone in Suva still stands. So I made some chocolate cupcakes to mark the occasion.

Oops

Well, it seems I have missed a bit. We got through week 4, which landed us in another 4 day lockdown here in Suva. We did manage a bit of outside time as the weather was sunny.

We got through week 5 of school. it included a fun little interlude of storytime with and astronaut, which I managed to get up on the projector screen.

I experimented with fresh okra that I saw for produce delivery.

In just the past day or so our compound has become home to a pack of cats. Unlike the cats at Clarke Street, these holler a lot. They sound like crying babies and persist on doing this right underneath the windowsills.

We also had a lovely time this weekend catching up on Skype with our wonderful friends from the staff college in India. It was like we had not skipped a beat these 5 years.

On to next week, which will consist of a lot of packing, like so...

Another Lockdown

 Well, there have been a few more developments with regards to our COVID situation here in Fiji. Several cases have now cropped up of significant concern. These happen to be individuals who work at the local supermarkets and markets. I guess I agree with the known information about the B.1.617 variant that is seems to transmit very quickly. In light of this, Suva and Nausori will be on lockdown again from Friday evening at 11 pm to Tuesday morning at 4 am. We hope this is enough for them to find all possible spread and get people into quarantine.

Week 3

We continue to move forward with our virtual learning and keeping our family bubble at home. The weather helped us by being rather rainy and kept us home. We did get a few pockets of sunshine.

Thomas did some awesome work with multiplication this week.

I got to enjoy a yummy Mother's Day breakfast on Sunday.

Thomas also wrote a story about a character, Tomcat, that he has created.

We just continue to wait and hope the situation here in Fiji will improve.

Week 2

We wrapped up the month go April and the second week of virtual schooling for term 2. In some respects, our routine seemed to get settled. In other respects, there were some habits started that we needed to nip in the butt. The boys had to overcome their own sadness at having to redo some assignments - reading the instructions are really important. Following and fulfilling these instructions are important. There were a few loud dust ups with regards to these incidents. These involved what exactly does it mean to write a paragraph to explain something. Others, overcoming that writing is a difficult experience and requires many steps that we sometimes do not want to do. Others involved using our devices not for school activities during the school day. This has led to a removal of devices for the weekend. But we did have a bit of fun as well.

John’s Design and Technology class had to make a usual dessert recipe healthier with the addition of some fruit or vegetable. We had to split the recipe and add the secret ingredients. Someone else in the family had to see if they could taste what we added.

We added applesauce to one batch of brownies and shredded carrot to the other. The boys thought the applesauce batch was best. I preferred the shredded carrot. 

John also had to wrap up his unit of inquiry which focused on body systems. He needed to research and come up with a presentation on how an illness affects one or more body systems. He decided (after a teacher redirect) to look up Ovarian Cancer and have an online interview with Grandma Dee about her experiences.

We spent the rest of the week trying to keep to ourselves and minimize our movement. Unfortunately, the cases in the area and the massive contact-tracing effort that is underway was not moving along as smoothly as the government would like. Thus, the capital city was placed on a lockdown for the weekend. Fortuitously, I ordered dinner for delivery early in the afternoon and received it before the official lockdown was announced.

I did one better and ordered a bit more than our usual Friday evening pizza so that I could have another easy dinner meal. Then we got the official news:

It is now Sunday. We all anticipate an announcement as to whether or not this lockdown will be extended. Here is to hoping for some good news.