COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: Playing Online!

This post is a huge thank you to John and Patrick! Shane is a social creature and there's not a lot of opportunity for that at the moment (if you're following the safety requirements, at least).

It started with playing X-Morph with Patrick.

Patrick showed Shane the game, bought Shane the game, and now has played online with Shane!

It took a little bit of figuring out since the game only had local co-op play. We started using the 'remote play' option on Steam and it was 'pixellicious.' 

We switched to a program called Parsec and it worked much better.

No shirt required!

Patrick is taking summer classes, so it's not like he has nothing to do. He was just being a good uncle (and a good brother to give me a break!).

From listening in: I can tell you Shane's a talker, but not as much of a listener! Patrick was real patient with him.

They played a few times and then Shane wanted to try a different game. They tried Torchlight 2. 

I used to play that with John, so I decided to ask if John would be willing to play with Shane.

He was! Shane was happy to hear from him. Normally, we would have gone to visit NOVA to hang out by now.

I did put away laundry and did dishes while they played. It was a big help! Then I got to sit down for a little bit before they hit a stopping point.

I'm thinking about a way for Shane to earn the full version of Minecraft, because I'd like him to have the chance to see some friends his age online, too. Learning how to relate to people electronically seems to be a necessity these days.

NOVA Trip

Shane and I made our third trip up to NOVA this school year! Our last was over winter break and the time before that was Jama's 90th birthday. 

The goal was to meet Matt and Renee's new baby, Graham Owen, and have some fun!

Our first stop at John's creature workshop. We drove to meet him at his place, collect some models, and head to Matt's together.

If Shane ever shows an interest in models, I know who to talk to! Shane liked browsing around.

John's made a lot more progress with painting. Normally, he comes up with intricate conversions and backstories, but moves on before a paintbrush applies details.

I think these look really good. He applied a pattern to the pauldrons to make them appear more like marble.

On a more personal note, John showed Shane Captain Roy G Biv of the Rainbow Raiders! He wasn't done yet, but the evolution from the original drawing is fun!

John really needs to move closer to Charlottesville, so we can geek out with Shane more. Maybe he could move within horseback riding distance...

John was taking a bit to pack up, so Shane and I left ahead of him to go to Matt and Renee's. We weren't the only set of relatives to show up.

Megan and her boys were already on the scene! She'd gone to Einstein Bros and brought bagels for everyone to have for lunch (because she's awesome).

Aiden was happy to have all the company. He was funny, too.

Aiden and Sam tended to stay around all the toys and adults. Shane and B, however, started running laps around the house after each other. Matt had some fun by jumping out and roaring whenever B and Shane weren't expecting it.

Aiden's face would light up and he'd hop off the couch and start running to wherever the roar came from. He knew what was up!

Renee brought down Graham when he was done feeding for all the kids to meet. They all took a glance and then ran off again making mischief while the adults showed more interest!

John arrived about that time!

Renee offered to let people hold Graham and then Matt got to work swaddling him to prep for nap time.

Wrestling and pandemonium resumed after Graham was taken upstairs. Bagels were consumed and we all left when it was time for Aiden to take his nap, too.

Our next stop was at Jama's where the boys continued to snack.

This begs to be captioned:

Jama has lots of snacks and treats.

And even presents! Jama had a grab bag of sorts to spoil any great-grandkids who stopped by.

Gift giving is clearly a primary love language for her.

She armed the older boys with suction cup dart guns right as Nana called Megan. 

I don't know how it started, but B really wanted Jama to give him some hand lotion.

He put it on his hands the first time. The second time, Jama convinced him to apply it on his belly button!

Nana got to be in on the fun!

I got a text from John that he was on the scene. Agents S and B accompanied me to the rendezvous.

The suspect was in the bathroom and had no idea an ambush awaited him.

After "surprising" John, we went down the hall to where we usually play. The boys discovered their darts could stick to cabinets.....when I stuck one out of reach.

Don't worry. It fell right off when they banged the door shut a few times.

John had brought his Gaslands models, so that we could test out the rules.

B picked out his favorite. John replied it was a "Boss vehicle."

Not that either boy stuck around to learn any rules. They were racing around, gunning for each other!

Jama, Megan, and Sam came down to join us.

Sam didn't run around with the older boys. He opted for hide and seek.

Surprise!

He was so joyful (and Megan cheered so loud) the older boys all wanted to play, too!

I took my eyes off Shane for a moment and he was on top of the fridge trying to crawl into a cabinet.

"There's no way this is going to end well," I thought. I didn't know if A) he wouldn't fit, B) he'd get stuck, or C) he'd break something.

And yet, I didn't stop him. It was like watching a car wreck in the making. Shane was already so far into the process I decided to take out my camera and see what happened.

Amazingly, it worked.

Shane didn't stay up there for long, though. It was cramped!

John let the boys hop on his Switch to calm things down after the game. Jama had already gone back upstairs by that point, I think.

Megan offered to take all of the boys to a Ninja Warrior class she'd won an auction for at Springfield Mall. Normally, that would have been an instant "YES," but it would've meant another hour in the car for Shane. It's nearly a 2.5 hour drive one way from our new house to NOVA and we'd already spent near an hour driving to Matt's and then Jama's. The boys vegged out a little instead.

I made Shane put the Switch on pause to say goodbye when it was time for Megan's crew to move on. He got to hop back on for a little bit after they went on their way.

It let John and I finish our game. It took a while, but we figured out how to play Gaslands. John took out one of his cars and mine with a suicidal charge after he rebounded off a shipping container, but I managed to have one car left limping around his smoking wrecks.

 
John's models and terrain looked fantastic. We didn't have a playmat, but if John enjoyed the game enough I'm sure it's already on order. John's a bigger fan of the theme than me, but the mechanics were interesting.

We all hit up Chick-Fil-A for dinner. Shane went crazy in the kid's area while John and I talked.

I asked Shane to describe John in three words when we left. Shane replied "Cool, awesome, and tall!" I hope it was the pick me up John needed!

I asked Shane to describe me in three words, too, but I can't recall what he said for the life of me (I am writing this 15 days later!).

Shane and I hopped in the car a little after 6 PM to head home. We finished Spy Kids on the way (a fun book, by the way!). We made it home in time to rest for a little bit with Mommy before bed.

Having horses makes it a little harder to do an overnight trip, but I hope to spend some more time in NOVA this spring. I gotta get through wrestling season first.

On to NOVA!

Shane and I drove to NOVA today! We finished Redwall and The Terrible Two Go Wild on the drive up and stopped at Wegmans for lunch at noon.

It was a late start for a road trip day. Part of it was I had to take care of Loki and the horses. Part of it was Jama wasn't due to get back from a doctor's appointment until noon. My sisters and I all planned to meet up at Jama's to check on her and let the kids run around.

The twins and Jama ended up running late. Shane and I ended up hunting down peppermint oil for Carrie, so we stayed busy until we met just before 1 PM  (Carrie was dealing with mice! They'd been nesting in Shane's room. She called pest control and spent the afternoon cleaning up!).

We timed it so well that we all pulled up around the same time!

Stu's crew had been up in Maryland visiting his branch of their family. The stop in NOVA was a way to break up the journey.

B is still a NOVA native. His grandma is in town and was probably thrilled we didn't descend on Megan's house!

He was a little shorter and walked a little funnier than I remembered...

Ed's daughter pulled up with Jama and Ed as we were gathering in the parking lot. Cole was feeling motion sick from the drive, so Shane and I stayed with him while everyone else went in.

Cole felt better when it was clear there was fun afoot (I don't think it was from Shane "talking him through it!" Ha!). 

The Woodlands had the train out when we made it inside.

Anything that says, "Don't touch" is a lot of temptation for little hands! The kids all looked like a pack of ducks following Kathleen wherever she went.

We set up shop in a side room and rooted for Jama to pee. Relief was victory and victory was relief!

Kathleen went upstairs with Jama to fix Alexa 'ignoring her' while Megan, Stu, and I stayed with the merry horde. The kids separate into packs for younger and older.

Pichu's special attacks knocked over chairs and produced a cacophony of sound effects.

Evelyn was a lot more eloquent! I hadn't seen her since Patrick's wedding, so the speech progress was a lot more noticeable.

I could hear and understand her over all the racket the boys were making!

Sammy wandered over and joined the boy's club.

Sometimes. He always bounced back to check on Megan. He's a mommy's boy!

Jama was happy that Kathleen figured out what was up with Alexa. Somehow, Alexa had been set to "Do not listen."

I didn't want to be useless, so I followed the older boys to the game room as they ran off. "Do you remember?" Shane asked. "This is the room we played Mario Kart in on Nana's switch!"

The game room had been upgraded since we last visited. The boys liked the shuffleboard table (No injuries until B got a smashed thumb much later).

There was a ping pong table and a pool table, too. I tried to hop in and get the boys to play table tennis, but gave up and did my best to allow them to play without damaging anything.

Megan and I took the boys up to look for ice cream in Jama's room afterward.

She carried Sammy. The boys ran up and down the halls, but we wouldn't let them in Jama's room to keep the footfalls from bothering her downstairs neighbor.

We brought some of the spoils down to the girls.

Megan headed out first. Kathleen and her crew went next. Shane and Cole tried to sneak off to watch commercials, but they weren't hard to find.

We said our goodbye's to Jama, so that she could nap and then headed off to our next stop: The library. 

Shane ate a blue candy cane on the drive over and his mouth showed it!

John was working the evening shift, but it wouldn't have been a NOVA visit without checking in on him. The 3D printer was going when we arrived.

John had some examples of articulated pieces out that could move. I found it fascinating. If Shane shows an interest in tech I'll probably end up buying our own 3D printer one day.

John was working, so we couldn't monopolize his time. A tech person had come to fix a computer and then a patron reported it wasn't working minutes after he left. John deduced the tech never installed the drivers for the touchscreen, but without an admin password there wasn't much he could do about it.

He came over to talk when he was off desk duty and trying to remove the Eiffel Tower from the printer pad.

We headed back into the staff area to check on John's desk improvements and his spray project.

John had sprayed some models before work and was letting them dry out back.

Shane's interest lasted until he realized he could use the delivery dock to hop on top the wall!

Shane was shocked when jumped off the wall itself to hop on top. He dropped down and tried it himself without success.

We went back inside where Shane noticed John's desk neighbor, Carly, had a 3D printed dragon and Vaporeon. John and I did our best to reassemble her desk before heading out front to say our farewells.

The Jeffer's was our final stop for the night. It took nearly an hour to go from Jama's, to the library, and then backtrack to the house (There was a wreck on 66 East, so I stuck to the lights on Hwy 50).

Bill, Jill, and Ben were in town for the holiday. Diane invited us in and let Shane serve himself dinner alongside them!

Ben and Shane hit it off. Literally. They were drumming and making noise together merrily.

Which worked out great for the adults. I got to talk and Shane got to play and not get in trouble (He did get a little crazy with the remote for the tree lights, but that's no big deal!). Shane and I got included in a group photo before Bill and Jill had to pack up for their ride home to New Jersey.

Shane and I left just before they did. It takes us a little longer to make the drive now that we're in Scottsville. We grabbed Arby's for dinner (Shane's choice) and got gas from Costco as we passed through Cville. We made it home just before 9 PM.

The horses all came running as we pulled up. I saw that the hay wasn't out and realized Carrie must have fallen asleep early! We came into the house quietly and found her crashed on the couch. She woke up long enough to help put Shane to bed while I ran out to do horse chores. I came back in to a quiet house.

Everyone needed to get their sleep, because we had some more fun planned for the morrow. I would have loved to have spent more time in NOVA and planned to go back up soon. Renee's due date had come and gone and I hoped that we could drive up to welcome to the new cousin to the world before break was over (Plus I wanted to see Cammy, Goetz, and John rescued Shane's Pichu that he left in the library!).