Our November started out with a small scare – more of a startle, really. We were notified on a Sunday afternoon – by a call from the principle, no less – that someone in Ian’s class had tested positive for COVID. Since it had been several days since that student had been in school, enough time had passed that we were already eligible to take a rapid test and return to school on Monday, assuming it was negative. Sean was able to take him to one of the district’s testing centers, and all told, I think he missed less than two hours of school.

This was after their first shot. We didn’t bother about photos the second time.

Which is a really good thing beyond the obvious lack of COVID. On November 2nd, after what felt like an eternity but really wasn’t, we were finally able to take our kids to get their first COVID vaccinations. By now, they’ve had their second vaccinations as well, and both Sean and I have had our booster shots. Only Sean really suffered – the rest of us got off with little more than sore arms.

Ian, first grade, age 6.

Maya and Ian had gotten their school photos taken in late October, and we finally received them in November. In deference to COVID, they were again taken outdoors. Other than both kids being a bit wind-swept, I think their photos turned out great! Maya has a hard time smiling on command, but she looks relaxed and natural in these photos. And Ian almost can’t help but be photogenic.

Maya, third grade, age 8.

The big deal event in November is of course Maya’s birthday! She requested dragon-themed decorations and a chocolate cake with blue icing, and I like to think we delivered on both accounts. We tried to go medieval with some knight masks and foam swords and shields for the kids to play with, but it was literally not two minutes after we snapped photos of them hamming it up in their gear that one of them “accidentally” poked the other in the eye.

Maya has officially grown out of her first bicycle, and so we bought her a bigger bike for her birthday. To ensure we weren’t victim of any supply chain issues, Sean had taken her shopping for it quite early. After a brief adjustment period, she was used to the much larger and heavier bicycle and was riding away. It’s a three-speed, and I don’t think we’ve tested out changing gears yet. I’m sure it won’t be long though.

And just like that, she’s 9!

Grammy and Grandpa and Lolli and Pop sent gifts, and we got them all wrapped and piled up with our own. Thanks to the pandemic, we are all now comfortable Zoom users and out of town grandparents can attend things they normally wouldn’t have – like informal little birthday parties. With all the grandparents on the screen, we sang Happy Birthday with an LED candle (because The Maya hates the smell of fire), and watched her open her gifts. Certainly it’s not the same as all of us being in the same room, but it’s a far sight better than not seeing each other at all.

We had planned to stay with our bubble family friends for the whole week of Thanksgiving in the same house we rented last year at South Padre Island. Alas, their daughter had a medical issue to contend with that resulted in them needing to fly to Philadelphia for major surgery. Instead, we rented a little condo in SPI for a few days, so we could all relax and unwind a little before all the December craziness.

Ian and his unicorn

We missed our friends and checked multiple times daily for updates on their daughter’s condition. But otherwise, the little beach vacation was just what we needed. We didn’t have to be anywhere at any particular time. Pretty much every time the kids asked if they could swim in the condo’s pool, we said yes. And since all of us were at some stage of vaccination, we felt we didn’t need to be quite as hyper-vigilant about staying holed up at our house.

Maya and her ice dragon

For the trip, I had bought the kids new pool floats. Ian’s is a unicorn, complete with a golden horn. Maya’s is an ice dragon rather than a standard fire dragon, because again, Maya does not care for fire. They are ridiculously large, and we would probably have no business having them in a crowded pool, but we rarely shared the pool with other visitors, and when we did, they generally stuck to the hot tub anyway. That’s part of what makes South Padre so fantastic over the Thanksgiving week: there are relatively few people there.

We did spend a fair amount of time at the beach and in the gulf on our first full day there. The weather was nice, and we waited till afternoon so it was good and warmed up. The kids LOVED it. Of course, Maya loves her boogie board, but this time, Ian got in on the action too! Ian’s goal seemed to be to ride the waves, while Maya’s preference was to let them crash into her.

Captured seconds before a whiny argument ensued.

We had gotten Maya a better net for capturing and observing sea life for her birthday (in the past, she’s used her bug net, or borrowed nets), so of course, we saw nothing. No crabs, no little fish, nothing. She did find a ton of weird little cone-shelled things in the sand, but no hermit crabs this time around, so she got bored of it pretty quickly. Luckily, once they were all beached out, we could simply walk the 5 minutes back, knock the sand and salt water off under the shower outside the condo, and go straight to the pool for more playing and relaxing.

Our second day there promised to be windy, rainy, and not as warm, so we drove to Boca Chica to check out the SpaceX facility. It was only about 9 miles away from us as the crow flies, but it was more like a 45 minute drive once we drove all the way around the bay. I suspect this is a word that gets used a lot with regard to this facility, but it was surreal. We were never stopped by any security (outside of border control on the way back to SPI), and on our initial drive through, we were clued in to the fact that we had passed all the good stuff because we found ourselves driving directly toward the ocean. After a turnaround on the beach, we took our time meandering back, stopping at several locations to snap photos and wander around to get better angles. Had the kids not been along, I’d have been sorely tempted to see just how far into the various facilities I could wander before someone told me not to.

OMG, Mom, we are so boooooooored.

We tried so hard to entice the kids into being interested. Hey, in your lifetime, a craft just like this one might actually transport humans to Mars! Maya placated us with a mopey, “That’s neat.” And Ian looked confused and said, “What, we aren’t already on Mars?” They can be tough to impress.

I believe one of the groups in the morning dubbed the creature: Lady Gaga

On our final full day, we visited the South Padre Island Birding, Nature Center, and Alligator Sanctuary. We figured Maya the bird lover would enjoy it and that the walk would do us all some good. There were a lot more alligators than I was anticipating. All the literature talks about Big Padre, who’s over 12 feet long, and is a rescue from Port Arther. He has a relatively diminutive friend named Lady Laguna, though I wouldn’t wanna meet her out walking around either. But there are separate areas where many other smaller gators live as well. The kids even got to touch a tiny one that was part of a gator lecture the folks at the sanctuary had been giving.

At the nature center

Maya and Ian were able to see many different birds and got to try their hand at photographing some of them. We saw little crabs scuttling in the water and along the bank, and we even saw one clinging to the bottom of the boardwalk structure we were on. There were lots of fish churning up the water and Maya sure did try to take their pictures too.

I will forget some of what we saw, but I believe she’s added to her list: sanderlings (which were fun to watch as they scuttled back and forth on the beach trying to search for fresh food while not getting caught by waves), tricolored herons, roseate spoonbills, white ibises, common gallinules, American coots, American white pelicans, snowy egrets, and black-bellied whistling ducks. We should probably stop being lazy and try to actually identify the kinds of seagulls we see, but we haven’t bothered with that yet.

The snowy egret that Maya named Winter

We tried one more beach visit that afternoon, but it was a bit cooler and Ian wasn’t interested in toughing it out. I walked back to the condo with him and let him play in the pool, so Maya and Dad could stay at the beach. It must have been boring without Ian there though, because it wasn’t long before Maya was back to play in the pool as well.

We had an uneventful drive back on Wednesday, and got home in plenty of time to pick up the grocery order we had placed nearly a week prior. We planned for only a small Thanksgiving feast for our little family of four. For a change, I didn’t bother spending all day cooking. I prepared food in little fits and starts as I felt like it. I made stuffing biscuits for breakfast and we had them with the bacon that I *had* to make so I’d have bacon grease to use for Sean’s Brussels sprouts that evening. I roasted some turkey legs that I had put in a brine the night before. We made Sean’s mom’s dressing because it’s required. I like hasselback sweet potatoes, made savory and herby instead of sweet. And the kids don’t like any of those sides, so I cut up some raw broccoli and made a cucumber salad to go with. It was just fine. We didn’t stress and outside of the cooking, we more or less just relaxed.

Our feast.

I worked on Friday, but once my workday was done, we went ahead and secured our Christmas tree and spent the weekend decorating it. I figure we’ll save tree photos for December though. December will be a big month for us. After nearly two shitty years of shitty pandemic, we should finally get to take our Disney World trip with the kids and we should finally get to fly to see our families again.

Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (58.0% as of 11/6, 59.9% as of 12/5). Travis County – 11/5 120,366 cases and 1167 deaths – 12/3 123,040 cases and 1194 deaths. Texas – 11/5 4,257,615 cases and 71,802 deaths – 12/5 4,352,098 cases and 74,198 deaths. United States – 11/5 46,446,975 cases and 754,061 deaths – 12/5 49,085,361 cases and 788,363 deaths. The World – 11/5 249,421,209 cases and 5,042,829 deaths – 12/5 265,847,554 cases and 5,255,544 deaths.