14

I'm a little late in posting this, but Anya turned 14 the other week. She had a great, stretched-out birthday. In mid-October, she had her official celebration with friends. It was tough thinking of a covid-safe event, but we came up with an outdoor haunted house. We had the "study buddies" (Katie, Jack. Elliott, and Alyssa) plus Clara over for pizza and then rented a minivan and took them to Stalker Farms for the evening. It was the perfect outing for this age group (and fun for Chris and me to have our own date night there). Afterward, the girls had a sleepover. The next weekend was birthday dinner at Lynn and Steve's (snuggie-type thing and a drone toy FTW), and then Eva stayed over for her actual birthday. 

13 was an...OK year, dampened by the pandemic. She slogged through remote learning and 7th grade. Summer was much better due to covid vaccines for all of us. This meant being able to go inside friends' houses again and sleepovers for Anya. She attended Hidden Valley Camp again (this time there was some friction with another girl, but she had fun overall. It was a welcome break from the pandemic). Our international travel was put off yet again, but we salvaged the summer with a fun meetup with Dondon/Grangie in the Northwoods of Wisconsin via Minnesota. And lots of time over the summer with our puppy, Juni. 

School: Anya is in her final(!) year at St. Catherine. The school day is mostly back to normal, minus some covid-precautions: everyone wears masks, lunch is outside, desks are a bit farther apart. She's pretty thrilled to be back in person. Last year's remote learning and covid-restricted school really wore on her. We just had her parent-teacher conference and it was stellar, as are her grades. Per usual feedback, she is a hard worker, but has perfectionist tendencies and shouldn't stress so much. We're always working on that one, but it seems pretty hardwired. 

She's friendly with pretty much everyone in the class but finds herself spending more time with the study buddies and adjacent friends. I'm not sure if it's just the makeup of this class or the last 1.5 years of covid keeping them from dances and larger social activities (or both), but no one in the class has paired up yet and there are few crushes. Classes ahead of them usually started pairing up around 7th grade. Just an observation and, frankly, it's nice that they are still very much kids.

This fall, Anya's biggest stressor is figuring out high school for next year. There have been open houses and days where she's shadowed students at schools. Early summer, she took a medical dissection class at Seattle Prep and fell in love with it. That was her first choice for a while. Then Holy Names for a bit, and now I think Blanchet is in the lead. She's taking the entrance exam this Saturday and will start work on applications soon after. Roosevelt is our public school and she has friends there (Eva and Eloise), plus a few kids from her class will be there next year. It's sounding like Anya is opting for one of the catholic high schools, though. Roosevelt is a great school, and she might choose it in the end. All of the options on the plate are good ones. It'll be interesting to see where she lands. Chris and I have a hunch it'll be Blanchet. 

Activities: Anya just completed her final season of CYO soccer, and Chris his final year of coaching the girls. Anya was sidelined for half the season with a sprained back, but she came back strong. Chris is going to miss coaching and we're all going to miss those Saturday morning games in the rain. End of an era.  

She is signed up for rec-league indoor soccer now and it starts this weekend. In January, she's taking figure skating lessons, probably lots of skiing (ski bus might be happening - fingers crossed), and then likely CYO volleyball in the spring if the pandemic allows. 

Anya stopped dog walking around the time she got vaccinated and could hang out more with friends. At that same time, she took the Red Cross babysitting course and has had a handful of babysitting gigs. She really seems to enjoy that and the extra $.

Other than planned activities, she often meets up with friends and gets boba (bubble tea) or treats, walks around, or plays some online games with friends. The light rail station by us just opened up last month and that has/will expand her stomping grounds.

Anya has also been doing digital drawing and animating, still hosting and taking part in MAPS (multi-animator/artist projects). That was a big thing during Covid but is taking up less of her time now. 

Music/media: mostly one-offs. I heat her play Crystal Castles, Billie Eilish, some pop, a lot of indie, and a lot of things she hears me playing. Over Halloween, she's gotten into scary movies again. This time she was introduced to some of the "classics" from Chris/my childhood (Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, etc). 

future job: Her summer medical dissection course further strengthened her interest in anatomy/physiology. She says she now wants to be a veterinary surgeon. 

first soccer game of the season in September (yes, they had to wear masks during games)

Misc. happenings

Today is a somewhat eventful day at the Lodwig house.

After nearly a year of remote learning (since March 2020), Anya returned to school this morning. While she went for a few hours once in December for a little team-building exercise, this is the first time they officially return to classes. Right now it's just one full day per week for middle schoolers, but they will ramp up to either multiple days or full-time, depending on how the pandemic continues to play out in our area. I am beyond thrilled for the kids and teachers - remote learning just isn't the same. Anya says she is indifferent to returning, as she likes to freedom to wear pajama bottoms and hang out at home between classes, but I think she'll get more out of in-person school than she realizes. 

The school is doing an amazing job all-around in navigating everything. I know I mention it in almost every post in this blog, but we are so thankful to be at St. C. 

stairs/wall are poured. Driveway going bye-bye

 

          nearly finished garage. 

Another thing happening today is that our driveway gets filled in with dirt. A few months ago we hired a contractor to finish our garage and fill in our driveway. We had the big garage door removed and replaced with a human door, then added a concrete retaining wall and stairs. The inside of the garage was leveled, insulated, and drywalled. And today they are finally putting in the dirt over what was the old (unusable) driveway. Once it's leveled out we can put down sod and gain nearly 1/3 of the yard for usable play space. We have plans to do a major landscaping overhaul for the entire yard but haven't figured out the timing yet. But the contractors are nearly done and then Chris and I take over with flooring, painting, etc., and turn the garage into a fitness room.

The final event of today is that Anya gets her new mattress delivered. That, in and of itself, isn't particularly interesting. But the reason she's getting a mattress *is* -- we are adding a puppy to the family. Anya had a loft bed that wasn't as great as she'd hoped, so we sold it and got a twin bed with a trundle. Her old mattress will be on the trundle pull-out bed where she can cuddle with the puppy at night. And also use it for sleepovers when this pandemic is over. 

We weren't planning on having two dogs, but circumstances changed. Both of Anya's bearded dragons passed away suddenly with the same symptoms. There is a disease going around for bearded dragons that fits the symptoms. We aren't sure if that was the cause, if she was doing something wrong in her care, or if they are just delicate creatures. So she/we decided to stop having lizards as pets to prevent future heartbreak. And since Anya is an only child, loves animals, is somewhat isolated due to the pandemic, we decided to let her get another pet. And since we have Copper who makes everything difficult, a female puppy was the only workable option (other than a fish or turtle, which didn't interest her). 

We found a puppy through an AKC breeder. Normally we are all about mixed breed rescues, but Copper kind of gave us a bum steer. I wanted to know the parents' temperaments, as well as ensure that the pup had a secure upbringing. This meant going with a breeder. Puppy was born December 27th and is the mellow one of the litter. She's a black lab, so mellow only means so much. We get to meet her this weekend (we met her via Zoom initially) and then bring her home when she's 8 weeks old. Anya gets to name her and we get veto power. Current names in the lead are Daphne, Juliet, and Juniper. I think Juniper is the current leader, as it lends itself to nicknames (Juni, June, Jujubean, etc). We can't wait to meet her. 

puppy at 2 weeks

her parents