Family Day/President's Day/Regular Day/Snow Day

We're (fortunately) not seeing much from the polar vortex slamming the south right now (poor Texas), but we're getting quite a lot of rain (and some wicked thunder and lightning!) that is potentially freezing overnight, so universities (at least UGA and GSU) are cancelling their morning classes (I imagine that grade schools will be starting late as well (actually, I just checked and they will be having a "digital learning day," so classes won't be held at all, which...we're in the middle of a pandemic...still...so I'm not mad about that)). As homeschoolers, we'll be continuing with our daily grind.

In fact, we worked right through today without even realizing it was a holiday. 

Do people have...traditions...for President's Day?

Like, why would I remember to even take the day off? 

Through much of Canada today was "Family Day," which is usually rather fun. Businesses offer deals for families (like, cheaper admission to recreation centers and deals on milkshakes, that sort of thing) and it's just a fun, extra day when families are encouraged to spend time together. 

That I might have remembered to take time off for. But...President's Day? Not so much (apparently).

My kids didn't mind working through it. It's not like we had anything else to do. 

This evening my family hosted an online game night, which was fun. It was at 9:00 for me, which was pretty good timing, honestly, because it's just late enough that I have time to put the little ones to bed but not so late that Rachel and Miriam can't stay up for it on a school night. We've done other game nights that have started at, like, 10 or 11? That one went so late and I was so tired. And then there was another one that started earlier? Like 7 or 8? I can't remember. Andrew ended up sitting in the hallway so the little ones would stay in their beds, so he wasn't able to play.

So 9:00 was perfect timing. 

For me.

But we're juggling 4 different time zones at a minimum. Both my sister and her husband are truck drivers and right now they're on different routes, so they were both calling in from their trucks. I...can't remember where they each were parked, but it's possible at least one of them added another time zone.

Finding a good time for everyone can be tricky. But my mom was like, "How about Monday? No one should have work conflicts on Monday!" And even then I didn't clue in that Monday was a holiday. 

It wasn't until we were halfway through our morning work and Rachel was like, "Isn't today a holiday?" that I was like, "Oh. Today's a holiday."

So, we skipped this holiday and the kids are missing out on a "virtual learning" day tomorrow because we're just going to do our regular thing. And, honestly, I think that's kind of just another perk of homeschooling.

Anyway, we've done a mix of electronic and board games at these virtual game nights. I wasn't a huge fan of the first electronic game we played (back at Christmastime) I felt like it was rather glitchy and frustrating. Then we did a board game and that was fun. Tonight we tried another electronic game called "Codenames," which was actually quite fun (though it took us a few rounds for everyone to learn it).

Basically, there's a set of cards with words on them, all seemingly unrelated and you have to make word associations to make your teammates guess the correct cards (you can read the full rules here, though we played online not with actual cards). Aside from the hilarity that ensued by people not understanding the rules (Andrew accidentally did a bit of cheating with multiple, unrelated words, thinking, "This game is too easy!" when really you can only use one word, trying to relate it to multiple cards (he said something like, "Washing, iPad, element" for "laundry, tablet, mercury," which was totally against the rules)), I think my favourite part of the night was when I gave the clue "HMMMMMMMMM" for bee and pitch. My team guessed the correct cards pretty much right away, but David (on the opposing team) scratched his head and said, "I understand it for bee, but how does hmmmmmmm work for pi... Oh. I get it."

He was thinking of baseball, not music, but once you say it out loud it makes sense.

Anyway, it was a super fun game night. Rachel and Miriam enjoyed themselves and I think all the grown ups did, too. We'll have to try it again sometime!