Passover 2020

We usually have Passover in Maryland with the Aranoff cousins, but obviously could not join this year. We did briefly join their Zoom seder on the first night of Passover (and we all kind of wished we had planned on doing the whole thing with them but we had not prepared). We had instead earlier decided to give the CBI community seder a try on the second night of Passover. That was also lovely, but missing the extended family component (although it did include Rabbi Tom leading us in several folk songs - including Dona, Dona, If I had a Hammer, and Blowin' in the Wind -- which we all appreciated):

Spring Break, day 4: Family Olympics

For the Thursday of Spring Break, we planned a family olympics. Every family member was tasked with creating two events, and then we ended with a paper airplane contest (since that was on our April bucket list). We made some quick medals, decided how to set up the podiums (step stool, top step, bottom step) and each chose a theme song that would play if we won an event. Benji wanted to start with a torch lighting and opening ceremony, so we had some fun with that, too:

Carrying in "the torch"

Passing the torch

Kevin had the honor of lighting the olympic flame (tapping at the exact moment that Benji flicked the switch from inside)

 The first event (by Kevin) was a frisbee toss/catch. Since we did it in pairs and were all busy at once, there were no pictures, but here was the podium (Abby and I tied for the silver so we did not award a bronze):

The second event (Ruth) was a ping pong toss:

From there, we moved onto Abby's obstacle course (which included a field hockey component, naturally):

Benji, of course, chose Benji ball (his made up game) for his first event. Luckily, we all knew the rules already from having played several matches over the last few weeks. We decided to play the two-player version as a round robin to make scoring easier:

Kevin's second event was also frisbee-based (no bonus points for creativity for him):

On to a putting event:

Cup stacking (Abby, also done as a round robin):

We finished with Benji Ball 2 (no pictures for some reason) and then paper airplanes and a final podium ceremony:

Abby biting her medal to make sure it's real

Spring Break, Day 3: Holidays in April

For our 3rd day of spring break, we decided it would be fun to celebrate a year's worth of holidays in one day. We skipped Easter, since we would celebrate it for real later in the week, and we planned for but then forgot about cinco de mayo, but the rest was a rousing success:

We had a valentine's day breakfast, complete with little valentine's cards and boxes of chocolate

We did a low key St. Patrick's Day with Irish tea and soda bread (and Irish music playing, of course) 

After lunch, we geared up for the 4th of July, which is a favorite holiday of both Abby and Ruth

We only had 2 sparklers in the house, but we put them to good use

It was a beautiful day, so we did some holiday chalking

Benji requested the sprinkler and, since it was almost 80 degrees, we decided to oblige

After 4th of July, we transitioned to Halloween. I had proposed trick-or-treating, but Abby added the twist of getting into costumes, so we did:

After collecting candy from each other's rooms (Kevin used the bathroom), we moved downstairs to make candy corn popcorn balls. We had been gifted an air popper from a neighboor earlier in the month and Benji was super excited to use it for the first time:

It was getting on towards dinnertime when we hit Halloween, which was good because we were ready for some real food. We streamed last year's Macy's parade while eating our pups in blankets and then moved on to turkey hands:

Christmas time! Some light decorating, a tree scented candle and our "tree trimming treats"

We threw a little Hanukkah in, too, and played dreidel

And, finally, New Year's Eve. We played our nightly Uno game while listening to an old Casey Kasem countdown

We ended by streaming a Times Square ball drop and singing Auld Lange Syne, then taking our traditional midnight picture on the couch

This was definitely the busiest of our spring break days, but it was super fun.