We've Been Social Distancing?

That's my excuse, anyway, for why I haven't written on the blog for, say two whole months. Actually, prior to the current pandemic, we were actually quite busy getting ready to move to New York while also getting our house here ready for selling. Three weeks ago, we were showing our house to multiple potential buyers and keeping everything clean and tidy. Now, well, we've all been home 24/7 including the dogs and it also rained much of the week so you can imagine what the floors and couch have looked like. Glad I got the carpets and sectional professionally cleaned! (Sarcasm). Anyway, I was going to take a bit of a break from the blog until we relocated to New York, but given the circumstances (lack of potential buyers and lack of good spring sports on television) I will resume our updates.

Unfortunately, the current lockdown came right around our favorite holiday of the year--St. Patrick's Day. It went from a season of busy-ness and dancing to absolutely nothing. No matter though! The boys put together their own reel to entertain us...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tuWcwa22Ko&feature=youtu.be

And Jonathan dressed up and decided to look pretty Irish! (This outfit, by the way, is the same suit Christopher wore when Jonathan got baptized. J just about fits in it)...

We've also been doing a lot of cooking, given the amount of time we are spending in the house. Some of our quarantine recipes include: artichoke garlic bread, vegan quesadillas, chocolate chip banana muffins, chocolate chocolate chip cookies, and thin mint gelato! The boys have really enjoyed several days of that gelato in between two cookies...

Before the weather dropped 40 degrees between last night and this morning, we had beautiful weather (in between the rain of course). We've been going on lots of walks and bike rides and have been decorating the driveway (and J's pants)...

And today, we took a field trip to the CVS drive through. Jonathan likes to wear my long black coat around the house. Today he wanted to wear it on our drive. So you know what? Wear the coat boy! 

Ceili Time

Last night was the second annual O'Riada Manning ceili and silent auction fundraiser and it was a very fun night! It was in a new location this year--Drexel Hall which is the home of the Kansas City Irish Center. Chris and I got there early to help set up and here is Chris sharing his wisdom about how to get the most bang for your buck at an auction...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKo0dMIwqxw&feature=youtu.be

The kids had a great time showing off their dance moves! Chris and Gabe went out and did their reel together...

The boys were also busy making what they referred to as "death juice" which essentially consisted of every ingredient at the ceili, from hot chocolate to marshmallows to lime juice to queso. Yuck! Fortunately, no one drank it!

And finally, Jonathan participated in the ceili dancing this year! It essentially involved him being spun around and directed by older girls so who could complain? He stuck with it though until the end...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzrK5K9lOc8&feature=youtu.be

Fun with Grammy

While Chris was at a party this afternoon, Jonathan and I paid a visit to Grammy. Among other fun things, they played this game which I will refer to as "Cap Ball" because I don't know what it is actually called. The video speaks for itself and needless to say, everyone had a ball...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQrC5uyW5o&feature=youtu.be

Back in Business

It has been a long month but here we are everyone! We've got a lot of catching up to do... First of all, as most of you know, Grandpa T passed away before Christmas, hence the delay in posting. We were all very saddened by his loss and we will miss him terribly. The boys and I have some great memories and on New Years Eve we honored Grandpa T by eating some Suzie Qs!

Wait--that's your tribute, you ask? Yes and to make a long story short, when I was in middle school and I would stay at my dad's house, he would let me have a Suzy Q after dinner as long as I had a "healthy" glass of skim milk with it! Well, I let the boys have them without skim milk... Before the holidays, we had several fun things going on. Christopher had his first band concert! He's been playing the clarinet and he did a great job. Here he is with his friend Cameron after the show...

And here is a song from the concert...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9b5B-V3nwY&feature=youtu.be

That following weekend, we ended up with about 7 inches of snow. We made a great snowman named Frank!

Jonathan went sledding with his friends Evelyn, Oscar and Pera...

The boys got really cleaned up for Christmas Eve services with Grammy...

Also, Ric Flair, along with his trusty sidekick Shaun the Sheep, kept an eye out for Santa...

Christmas morning was fun in Kansas but then it was off to New York for the real fun! Here are pictures from our travels while we were home. To keep it simple, we saw family and friends, had a great trip to the city, revisited Hoboken and just had a wonderful time!

The boys were back to school this week and I got to go on Jonathan's field trip today! Their class project this year is about Recycling and we went to this amazing place called Scraps KC. It is a warehouse in midtown that collects recycled materials, organizes them, sells them way cheap and uses the money to provide meals for the homeless. It was such a great place and the kids enjoyed their visits! Here is a video from the trip...

https://youtu.be/SQSRJT9vqMQ

In Old Kentuck, They Go Nyuck, Nyuck, Nyuck

I'm pretty sure right now that Grammy gets the title of this post, Chris is rolling his eyes and I now cannot get the song out of my head! We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Kentucky once again for Christopher to dance in the Mid America Oireachtas, our regional Irish dance competition. We thought our boy danced beautifully and he did as well. He got up there, showed confidence, did everything his teacher asked him to do and was happy with his performance. Here are some pictures from the day (Sunday)...

The weekend was not all about dance, however. We had a nice family road trip with a stop in St. Louis to stay at the Curio Union Station Hotel. It was decorated beautifully for Christmas and we had a fun evening there!

We arrived in Louisville on Friday in time to see Phillip dance his set dance and then, in typical feis fashion, ate lunch at 3:30. Saturday was chill day for Chris so Jonathan and I went out to the Kentucky Science Museum just down the block from our hotel. It was fabulous and we spent nearly 5 hours there! While there, I also discovered Jonathan's new favorite food--ham and cheese sandwiches. We had a great time together and here are some pictures...

 

One of Jonathan's favorite things is the "Weather News" and he and I got to actually be meteorologists! We did several more of these reports and with each weather condition, Jonathan advised viewers to "seek higher ground!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvEdanbeBqk&feature=youtu.be

There was also some down time when the boys chose to practice their dance moves...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5hp4CK3vZ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrVFciYOomA