Zavoral Villa!

Tree-Normous! By Tanner, Dallin and SarahLynn Zavoral A true story that took place in Nov 2020. "What is this place?" Tanner asked as the car pulled into the parking lot. There were giant palm trees of all types lining the walkway, sitting in enormous pots. The car rolled to a stop and Tanner, Dallin and Grandma got out to look around. The three of them slowly approached the entrance of the San Diego Botanical Gardens. The truth was, Grandma didn't really know the answer to Tanner's question. She had come down to San Diego last minute to help entertain the boys while SarahLynn was suffering from a back injury. All the top-rated attractions in the area were closed due to the Covid19 Pandemic. Grandma was thrilled to find that this place was marked "open" and it was tagged as family-friendly. The curious trio walked up a dirt path to a big greenhouse. A kind lady welcomed them into the park. Once inside, they saw flowers on the left, fluffy bushes on the right...

The worst part of the pandemic was behind us, so we thought. We were getting off to a great start with homeschool. Our October went amazing. We had a wonderful Halloween, we saw businesses and church reopening... And then... My sciatic nerve flared up in the worst way that I've ever experienced.  In less than 6 hours, I went from happy at church with some aches and pains from our Halloween walk... To excruciating pain on the floor, unable to move. In recent years, I had a couple major flares that were awful. But this was way worse. Way, way worse.  It felt like chain saws were gnawing at my left hip. Heat and shooting pain and throbbing like I've never felt. But it was just temporary, right? All these flares are temporary. If I could just manage the pain long enough, the flare would pass and I could get on with my life. I tried to rest and lay low. I canceled my lessons for the week to give me plenty of time to rest.  But it soon became apparent that I could not control t...

School in the Fall 2020 was strange, to say the least. The school district decided to continue distance learning due to Covid. They also decided that all instruction must be synchronous, meaning it would all be done in live time on zoom. Our family soon called this "zoom school." The kids had to sit on zoom calls for 3 hours every day. Ridiculous right? This was way more zoom time than any other district in our area. We were completely beside ourselves.  The boys' teachers did all they could to make it a positive experience. Praises to them for all their hard work and sacrifice! As a teacher myself doing online instruction during the pandemic, I had a ton of empathy for them. I knew how extremely exhausted and frustrated they were, and how much they were investing emotionally into making zoom school work. But as we all know, school on a computer doesn't work for all students, and that included my children.  The zooming itself created a ton of anxiety for both of our b...