Silverado Fire

 In 2020 anything can happen including Irvine almost burning to the ground!! Heavy winds Sunday night and Monday caused a fire in the foothills East of Irvine which quickly got out of control. By Monday afternoon a good chunk of Irvine was under a mandatory evacuation. 

Here is Aliso, we were a good 10 to 12 miles from the action but our air quality quickly went south and the sky took on an eerie apocolyptic look. By late Monday and into Tuesday everything smelled like a campfire and ash was falling from the sky.

Luckily very few structures were lost in the fire and over the past few days the fire has been largely contained and put out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie Girl Scout Bridging

 

Last week Ellie bridged from a Brownie Scout to a Juniors Scout. The Troop leaders held a nice ceremony to celebrate. They were supposed do this last Spring but with Covid it was delayed. Anyhow, better late than never!

 

 

October Update

 

Girls have been going to school in-person now for a couple weeks and so far so good. For the first time in, well forever, we don't have a daycare option lined-up so the girls are just coming home after school. I am allowed into the office a couple days a week and Darcy is still working from home full time so one or both of us are always home when the girls get back. We have our car pool going full tilt so we really only have to do drop-off / pick-up once or twice a week, which is REALLY nice.

Here is a picture from last week, the first day everyone, was going back in-person. It was a joyous occasion!

 

Ellie had a double header scrimmage out in Fullerton last weekend. It was great to see the girls out playing again, it has been a long time! We played a couple of travel teams, lost both games, but the girls played hard.

Emily is having a couple softball and soccer practices a week. She is trying to learn to pitch, gulp.......Here she is during one of her recent soccer practices (in the blue shirt). I am helping coach both softball teams and Darcy is helping coach soccer......so we are busy but the the girls enjoy being out running around with friends.

With girls going to school and practices it seems like things are slowly getting back to normal......fingers crossed. 

 

 

 

Leshner Visit

 

This past weekend the Leshner's, who were vacationing in Ocean Side,  drove up to spend Sunday afternoon with us.  It was great to see them and the cousins had fun playing together!

 

 In other news, Emily started school last week and so far so good. After her first day back when we asked her how her day was, her exact words "it was the perfect day". Ellie starts tomorrow. 

 

 

Happy New Year!

 

The Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah was over the weekend.  The girls celebrated by making Honey Cake and Challah bread and attending virtual services. Mazel Tov! 

 

 

I celebrated with yoga in the park and a tripod inversion!

 

Labor Day Weekend

 

Not much going on here since the start of school. Girls seem to be adjusting to their virtual school ok and rumor has it there is a chance (fingers crossed) that school will start end of Sept. / early October assuming the numbers here in Orange County keep moving in the right direction. 

Ellie is doing softball a few days each week but no games planned. Emily is going to start soccer shortly and just moved up to level-5 in her swimming class.

Labor day weekend here was HOT HOT HOT! We kept a pretty low profile and tried as best we could to beat the heat. There was a handful of neighbors that got together Friday evening up in the parking lot, tailgate style. Sunday we went to the beach for a few hours to cool down.

 

Emily in swim class: 

 

This is from Sunday around 1:00pm - 108 Degrees! 

 

 

First Day of School, Virtually

 

First week of virtual school is in the books and we survived with our sanity intact! 

Ellie started 4th grade with Ms. Alvarez. 

 

 

 

Emily started 1st grade with Mrs. Hayden. 

 

 

The first day we kept the kids at home so we could help the girls navigate their various online portals, zoom calls, and to make sure all the passwords were working etc.

 

 

With the first day under our belt we started sending them to Zigg. which is offering virtual school support. So far so good, a few bugs here in there but not bad for the first week.

Rumor is Orange County is getting close to coming off the state Covid watch list because of improving local conditions. This is supposedly a gating mechanism for schools to eventually open up again. I believe the county has to be off the state watch list for 14 days and then school can open up again. Keeping fingers crossed.