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.

Wrapping Up

Wow! March is over and done with. I am surprised. It felt so jam-packed. But with March done, it seems we only have a couple of months left to go. But was has been happening since I last wrote. Well, we cleaned up after our big party, and got deep into the final week or so of school. 

Term 1 of the school year is over tomorrow. The boys and I enjoyed participating in the annual Primary School Swim Carnival. The boys got to swim in a few events and I did a bit of time keeping for the day. I also got sun burned on the back of my knees. Super painful. I was really proud of Thomas because while he has become more comfortable swimming in the pool, swimming for time does not excite him. So I was glad he finished the couple of races that he was in.

Do you see my braid and my pink hat?

Andrew was busy as well. There was a memorial dedication in NZ but a virtual event was held here in Fiji. So, he got to hang out with some important people like the Prime Minister, and the President.

Even with these fun events, I have been working hard trying to secure and get a plan set for our return home. Pieces are beginning to fall into place but there still is a lot of work to be done. Maybe I will have more posts in April....

Keeping Up

I feel like it has been difficult keeping up with things lately. I also find I am posting a bit more to Facebook then I would like. So I am going to try to get back to here. What has been going on...

We are seeing the finish line at lining up a house for when we arrive back to the States. This has me very excited. It is one piece of the big move puzzle. 

I have been handling a few more maintenance issues around the house. New things just seem to crop up but I am dealing with them. I am hitting my limit with it though. I had yummy lunch out with some ladies, made bread for a bake sale, and volunteered to help with the primary school swim carnival.

Andrew spent most of the week in Nadi doing the attaché thing. 

We also threw an event together for St. Patrick’s Day. It turned out really well. The food was delicious and it seems like all who attended had a great time. Party planning and clean up is still exhausting though.

Other news, while I am slowly letting down my school board commitments, I have signed on to help a burgeoning school. It is volunteer work at the moment. Most of it is on the governance side of things. But who knows, it may turn into a teaching job at some point down the line. I also was informed of a government teaching position. So, I decided to apply for that as well. I have not applied for a job in a while and who knows how it will play out. 

Another Busy Week

 It was another busy week. It seems like we managed the past few months to keep the stress and general busy-ness to a minimum. This week it seemed to explode. Andrew was working late into the evening almost every day. He was planning and setting up multiple events for the week. It was important because we were saying farewell to the senior defense official here at the embassy and welcome to the new one.

Master of Ceremonies

Flowers for the commanding spouses

The Theresas

DOD spouses

I got a little downtime to enjoy some lunch with a friend. We went to Mad Hatter’s Cafe. They made this absolutely delicious hot chocolate.

Thomas went on an excursion with his year group to Mosquito Island. It is shaped like a mosquito. The threat of actual mosquitos is low. They went to explore and start working on their next unit of inquiry - Where we are in place and time. They had a task of using the natural resources they could find on the island to build a shelter. Thomas had a bit of fun.

All the stress - events and preparing for moving hit us all. We needed to take this weekend to relax a bit. It seems we are all congested and feeling rather under the weather. Hopefully we can kick it as this next week will be equally busy.

Oh and I will leave a picture of this crazy critter that came to our house this week....