February

Tuesday the 2nd I laughed at The Harry Potter Spinoff You Didn’t Know You Needed parody. Friday because of Wayne’s World being in the news because of their Super Bowl commercial we’d shown Nina the Queen scene from the movie, and it was fun watching her teaching all her friends to headbang. We had takeout from Santini’s for dinner. Saturday Nina started her new remote drama class: Ace Diamond: Fairy Tale Detective. Sunday Jill had ordered PÄ…czki for Fat Thursday and we had a taste test of the flavors for breakfast. The Super Bowl was that evening and I made blue cheese dressing and wings in the air fryer. The game was a bit one sided, but the halftime show with The Weeknd was entertaining (and as usual marked Nina’s bedtime).

Nina Jill

Monday the 8th I got to take Nina to her pulmonologist before school, then Tuesday had the water in our fridge fixed. Friday we got takeout from Dolce Vita (lamb chops were excellent). Saturday Jill and I had planned to go out to dinner to celebrate Valentine’s Day early (we often try to skip the craziness of the day), but an ice storm had other ideas, so we pushed it to March. We noticed Nina’s hair was getting long.

Nina

Sunday the 14th we went to see Crystalline at the Artechouse in DC. We were supposed to go 2 weeks prior, but there was a big snowstorm then, so we moved it. It was fun (Nina really enjoyed it), then we got an accidental Valentine’s Day. Artechouse was near The Wharf, which neither Nina nor Jill had been to. I’d found a couple places that had warm outdoor seating, but the 1st place didn’t have their heaters on and the 2nd place was full. Jill had seen a near empty Italian place, but when we got back it was filling up, and we tried it anyway and were seated next to another party who had no food or drink but already had masks off, so we left. As we walked, the next restaurant was Del Mar, which the Post had rated top at The Wharf. They had outside seating, so we figured we’d ask. Those were full, but they had space inside (good to eat lunch at 3PM), and definitely were adhering to safety standards, so we went in and had a great meal. Nina enjoyed a mocktail, pasta, and trying all our food (Jill and I shared the seafood paella) and desserts (churros, apple cider ice cream and cheesecake chocolate cake).

Jill Kerry Nina

I had wondered if they would ever cancel schools again, since a couple times it seemed likely they just switched to virtual learning. But on Thursday the 18th everything closed. Nina had so much schoolwork left, she didn’t finish until almost 6 and barely saw her friends. Friday we got Flippin’ Pizza for takeout, and on Saturday saw her friends plenty as they turned our backyard into an ice skating rink. Also Nina’s Wednesday night voice teacher brought her entire box of wigs to play with.

Nina

Monday Nina returned to Tae Kwon Do. We took her out of the in person classes in January when the numbers were bad, and she had been having trouble doing the classes virtually, so she had just taken a break, but was happy to get back. Wednesday Nina was happy I let her have pizza for breakfast. We also had a plumber from Wacker over to fix a leaky toilet and replace two faucets. Friday we got takeout from Kabobi By The Helmand (the lamb shank meal was delicious).

Lake Thoreau