June 2020
Great weather. Now how to avoid people?
Walk at Iona Beach
The covid
outbreak had flattened and were were told to avoid crowds, but that
some normalcy could return to our lives. Being June, every day
of good weather is a call to get outside so finding places to go
without crowds was a bit of trick. We checked the tide table
and decided to go for a walk at Iona Beach. The beach is
basically a giant mud flat and very rarely do people actually go for
walk out there.
Of course kids don't mind mud between there toes (and all over their
clothes and hair) so it was a good time walking out looking for
creatures in the mud.
Beaver Lake, Stanley Park
Stanely Park effectively closed to cars. You could still drive
around if you were going to the Marina, military base or had a
disability sticker, but traffic was a tiny sliver of what it
normally would be in the summer. The kids got out their bikes
and we went for a brief ride to Beaver Lake.
Happy Birthday Claira!
Nara's birthday in April was a virtual affair - other kids were on
a facetime call, but we didn't get to see them in person.
The rules had relaxed a little by June so with some heroic
planning, it was possible to see other kids. Claira's actual
birthday fell on a Friday so we had a family birthday cake on her
actual day.
Helen had actually organized a part! Claira really likes
Piñata's so we made one at home! Our last Piñata was built too
hard and couldn't be broken open (we used cardboard and packing
tape) so this one was built more to be broken - two layers of paper
with glue (and a few staples) holding it together. Being paper
on the outside, it readily took paint.
The actual day was quite a trick. We rented a shelter
at Stanley Park from the City of Vancouver. Normally we might
have used a community center (all closed) or the play area at
Granville Island, but they weren't available. The City had a
long questionnaire and they were quite serious about keeping kids
apart and absolutely not cross family contact. All of the food
was from a commercial kitchen (pizza delivered for lunch, cupcakes
packed in groups of four). Each family got a box of items at
the start of the party and the kids could do activities in parallel
but not together.
Helen has been working on bubble solution for quite a while so we
now had the right formula and tools for the kids to make giant
bubbles. This was a socially distant appropriate behavior.
We tried doing a construction project with marshmallows and dry
spaghetti. Turns out Claira liked the Marshmallows more than
she liked winning.
And Claira's favorite part - breaking the Piñata! Each kids
got their own break it stick and the candy was stored in bags (with
a kids name on it) so that there wasn't a scramble to get candy once
the paper ripped through. The paper did stand up pretty well -
everyone got at least three hits before it started to break apart.
So
how did we do on the Social Distancing? Fine until the kids
decided to check out the playground. The city opened the
playgrounds a few weeks earlier and perhaps the disc swings should
have stayed closed because they don't really promote social
distancing.
Everyone had a good time! Nobody got sick. Claira got a
party where should could see at least a few of her friends.
Good day.
Tags: Stanley Park(7), piñata(5), invasive(2), swing(2), playground(2), painting(2)
People: Claira(11), Nara(7)
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2023 to 2005 > June 2020
Last Modified Sunday, January 22nd, 2023 at 00:07:21 Edit
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