April 2021: Lockdown Again

I am very late on this post.  Apologies! Another full month of lockdown, online school and the dogs who make it all tolerable....

Gio loves online school for one reason....

Greeting our neighbor- an enormous Boerboel who is very sweet.  

Doing an art Zoom class with a friend before they head off to gymnastics and riding.

Our biggest challenge with Winston is getting him to walk.  This was taken just after we left our gate.  He made it 3 feet....

Got her very first pair of  Converse! Just like Mama now.

Another high energy start to an online school day.

April-May is the "long rains" season in Nairobi. Here we are on one of our daily morning walks in Karura Forest.  

Another day, another "walk"...

April 28th was Ragu's adoption day.  We have had him  a year now. Since we only know his birth year (2008) we declared this his birthday.  Happy 13th!

On many days Maria had a 3 hour break between morning and afternoon classes- we took advantage to sneak in some rides, this one at Karura Forest.

Weekend fun!

Remains of a day online...

Online classes are exhausting.

Their evening ritual patrolling for the Hadidas (who come to the pool to drink around 5PM every day).

Lunch bunch (the class eats and chats).

Saturday swim training.

Gioia got spayed and came home with the world's biggest cone.

Best friends.

We switched Gioia to a neck pillow which was much better!

I ate  a bee.  Learning nothing.

Waiting for the children to come home from playdates...

Late in the month I arranged a photo shoot for the dogs as part of a birthday present for Paolo next month. The photographer is a friend of mine. She takes no funds herself but asks her clients to donate to our local animal rescue organization (where we got Ragu) instead.  I am thrilled with the images she captured....

May (which is actually already half over as I write this- oops!) will bring a return to real school, a white water rafting trip, puppy classes and two birthdays- Paolo's and Gioia's.

xoxo.  Clara

March 2021: Winston!

The clear highlight of this month was the arrival of Gio's belated surprise birthday gift- Winston! So the vast majority of this post (and the last 4 weeks!) is devoted to him....

The arrival!

First trip to the vet for vaccines.

                   

Passed out halfway through the exam.

Gio's bubble  buddies spent the  night to help with the middle of  the night visits to the garden.

Zoom call with one of her camp directors to ask questions about this summer.  Maria had written out 3 pages of things she wanted to discuss!

Imitating his big brother.

Family walk.

Trouble brewing.  No one messes with Jagger's beloved tennis balls!

Walks are hard.  Winston lasts about 5 minutes...

                             

...yet it only takes him 2 minutes to polish off his meals!

It took 2 weeks but eventually Gioia accepted Winston.

Gio with his childhood stuffies and now his real one.

Playtime!

How Winston prefers to take walks.

Photos from his puppy class....

Going back for some more jabs at the vet.

               

This turned out to be the last morning the children waited for the bus.  Sad times.  Bonus if you can spot Jagger & Ragu.

Since most of us got locked down in Nairobi for spring break Maria and her buddy Alessia spent quite a few sleepovers together.

                 

I promise (slightly) fewer dog pictures in April.  Sadly we learned at the end of this month that Kenya was shutting down schools and locking down Nairobi.  Our planned  trip to the Coast was canceled and we  enjoyed instead  the Easter break at  home.   School will begin online once again April 6th....

Feb 2021: Maria Half Birthday Party

February brought vaccination for my parents in Washington DC and Maria's half-birthday party.

Both of my parents getting their second shot of the Pfizer vaccine.  Grateful to Mom's doctors at Lombardi Cancer Center for making this happen easily and early for them both.

Proof cats are jerks.  13-year-old Ragu shut out of his bed.

Maria's half-birthday party (she did not have a party in August) begain with spin the bottle to open presents (their invention- I just came upon this scene).

Foamy slide fun!

Maria's cake request- her pony Cherry and Jagger....

Cake time!

Art project.

When parents came to pick up their girls Gioia was excited to show off her excellent manners...

Enjoying their last few days of being a gang of 3.  Of course, they have no idea what is coming soon...

Arriving March 5th! Stay tuned....

If you watch closely you can see our puppy on the right of this video eating grass and then on his back playing with one of his siblings. He has black-rimmed eyes.

Evie's birthday party at the stables.

Tune in next month for the debut of Gio's surprise puppy!

xoxo.  Clara