I got accepted as out-of-zone to my first choice high school. Lucas! I am so happy!

He said

This was the week we were scheduled to find out if her out of zone application was accepted by Lucas. Thursday was the day that we were supposed to find out but thankfully we got the news a day earlier on Wednesday. Danielle got the email while Emelia was in school in the morning, but she was able to catch her on her lunch and share the great news. To say Emelia was exited and happy is an understatement. And it turns out a lot of her friends are going there as well. She will already have some friends there, but extra great knowing she will have schoolmates there too! And best thing is her besties will be there too!

The next step in this journey was getting her finalized class selection done and in by Friday. This is the part that I am most proud of Emelia for tackling with a lot well-reasoned thought and all on her own. Well, wait also that she did decide to go to Lucas all on her own at one point, even when it looked like she would be on her own as her friends all sounded like they were going to other schools. But, for class selection and the whether she wanted to go academic or applied. And while she waffled on whether she wanted to go applied for French (her least favourite subject) in the end she chose academic across the board as she didn’t want to limit her options and regret that decision.

So she’s all set to head off to high school in the fall—whatever that looks like. I’m excited for her to begin this new journey. Hard to imagine we’re already here, but at the same time I am excited for her as these are very important years for her. Her cousin Vaughan is in his last year there so this school will really feel like her own. We’re so proud and happy for you Emelia, congratulations!

On the Covid front a couple of exciting things happened in the last week. First, Mom & Dad got the second and final dose of the vaccine so that gives us some relief. But also last week it was announced that we were moving from Grey Lockdown level to Red Alert. The cases have been going down at a rate steady enough that some public spaces could reopen. Means we will be back to welcoming customers into the store, and Emelia will be back to the very limited but in person training. All of this is promising even if there is a bit of weariness with the new variants popping up. But the other promising news is that it looks like as the secondary and primary caregivers for Mom & Dad, both Shawn and I will be able to get the vaccine through their LTC facility Oakcrossing.

So this week will see a little bit of a return to normalcy for us all. Of course Emelia has already been back for in-school classes for a couple of weeks. But it also means that she will be back to in-person training for Cheer which we know she has missed. And we will be returning to a much more normal pace at the store which quite frankly is welcome. Hopefully in the coming weeks we’ll have more details about the vaccine for not just myself but Danielle too as it sounds like the plan to vaccinate the general public has ramped up now that LTC facilities have been taken care of. We’re really hoping the next few months things continue in this direction cause we’d really love for normal to come back. That and camp season!

She said

This week we had some amazing good news. Emelia has been wanting to attend AB Lucas for years, she has been fully focused that was the high school she wanted. We were so proud that she took this strong stand, a stand that meant she could have been going solo to school without Anna and Grace. She was thrilled to find out as the application deadline approached that the girls had changed their mind and wanted to go to Lucas with Emelia. Add in some other friends in Emelia’s class along with life long friends she knows from gymnastics, my baby group and cheer she knows a lot of people heading into school.

On Wednesday we got an early surprise, we got an email from the principal at Lucas welcoming her to Lucas! I instantly texted her to call me when she had a chance. I was able to reach her on her lunch and tell her that she was going to Lucas. She was excited to know by the end of the day that the twins also got accepted and they were able go to school together. She was so happy and relieved!

We really needed some good news!

The pandemic is wearing on and it is taking its toll for sure. Emelia has been handling things like a trooper though most of this but she’s hit the wall over the weekend. She is missing some sort of normalcy and seeing people outside school and home. She misses having her friends over, missing her friend Olivia and some sort of teen life. We have discussed that we can try and find a safe way for the girls to see each other, masked and distanced but hoping this week that she and Olivia can see each other now that we are moving into red this week. Both girls have been missing each other.

It has been hard but we have been following restrictions so it has meant that Emelia hasn’t been able to see her friends at all in our home or theirs. Emelia felt the burn out this weekend, not everyone she knows is listening to the regulations but Emelia knows why we are. She knows she is doing this to protect herself but more importantly those around her.

We are thrilled that we are finally seeing some movement in the vaccines in Canada. We have been falling far behind getting people vaccinated because of supply issues and it has been hard. We are happy to know that Helen and Doug are now fully vaccinated and that John has their health care support person for the family. This won’t stop John needing to get a Covid test every week for the time being but hopefully this means he wont need to do the test so often.

We are really hoping that with the vaccines starting to roll out that means that our friends who work in the depths of this virus will be vaccinated soon. It is heartbreaking to see how slow the vaccines have been rolled out but hopefully now we are going to see some real results so we can slowly move to some sort of new normal life again. The pandemic is wearing on everyone.

This weekend we were still adapting through covid to stay connected, today is Family Day and normally we would have tried to meet up with family and friends. Yesterday we spent our evening messaging with our camping besties sharing laughs and today we spent about an hour with most of the Teeter family having a FaceTime visit. It was so amazing to stay connected with the people who mean so much to us. Hoping that that soon enough we can see everyone face to face. We really miss that!