Dear Friends and Family,
I wish I were writing about all the excellent trips we planned on taking before the pandemic, but that was replaced with ultimate football girls verses boys every evening that we were locked down. Once we let the girls’ boyfriends come over, we opened our home to the world and now we are living a fairly normal masked life.
Esther (19) went to college in person this fall with her boyfriend Joshua. She loves college, and we enjoy hearing from her whenever we can. Joshua and Mike went to fetch her home from college at the beginning of the shutdowns. They had to pull over in Texas to hide from a tornado in a gas station refrigerator with a bunch of strangers but survived both storm and pestilence.
Sophia (17) decided to keep her senior year public school an online experience. She has been looking into several colleges in Texas, but unlike Esther she hasn’t visited any campuses. She and her boyfriend were hit by an oncoming driver who ran a red light when Anthony was turning left. We thank God that they are both okay! Now we have another minivan and a car for Sophia to take to college.
Basil (15) is our upcoming driver. He’s taking online lessons and should get his permit sometime in December. This is his first year in high school and he’s enjoying being back with his friends. He’s hosted a couple of parties with the handful of kids he goes to school with. He’s much taller than me and looks more manly all the time.
Jonah (11) is also growing a lot as he nears the teenage years. He still gives the best hugs. He’s doing well in sixth grade and looks forward to the perks of being in middle school next year. He’s been taking piano lessons at school and loves to read.
Xenia (9) is in fourth grade. She loves playing Minecraft with her friends over the phone and is always walking around the house with an audio book playing on Esther’s old cell phone. She also takes piano lessons.
Justin (7) is at the cute second grade stage. He’s a happy boy who enjoys school. He loves to play with his friends during recess and with his siblings. He spends part of every day outside greeting the day. He loves golf and takes piano lessons.
Mike started working from home when the city shut down last April and has continued ever since. We see more of him now that he doesn’t have to commute downtown, and he likes eating lunch at home. Travel to California is discontinued until further notice.
Syra published her third book. Syra’s Scribbles III: 2008-2010. It’s available on Amazon. Buy it! She also started teaching part time as a math teacher in her kids’ school. She’s had great fun working with the middle and upper-schoolers and especially loves pre-calculus. Check out her website syrasscribbles.com for up to date stories about our family life.
Love, Syra
Dear Friends and Family,
My name is Justin. I am seven. I have a really interesting family. Jonah is the second oldest boy in the family. Jonah is a really nice brother. Sometimes he gets a little angry, but that’s okay because all of us get angry sometimes. Basil is the first oldest boy. Basil likes a lot of things. He really likes watching YouTube. It’s very common. Basil does have some driving lessons now. The second youngest child in the family, Xenia is a really nice sister. She cares about me a lot. She likes playing games with people like her friends. The second oldest girl in the family is Sophia. She’s really nice. She helps me. She is almost in college. She has her driving license. She has a really fun game on her phone. Esther is the oldest child in the family. She graduated last year. She goes to St. Thomas Aquinas College. She has a really nice room. I saw it through FaceTime. Esther is really helpful when I am sad. One year, she helped me know how many days until my birthday. My mom is really nice. She likes playing Mahjong with me. She likes doing puzzles with my siblings and me. She likes playing board games like “Ticket to Ride Junior” with me. That’s why I love her. My dad is really kind. He knows a lot. He is an engineer. He works on the weekdays at home. Dad reads “The Hobbit” to me. It is very nice. It’s really nice spending time with dad. I am in second grade. I have a lot of friends. My teacher is Mrs. Kreger. She is very patient. She is a nice teacher. She doesn’t get angry at us that much. Everyone in my family is different, but they are similar. This year we had a pandemic. It is kind of annoying, but staying isolated is for our own good. I can’t see my friends that often. I have to wear a mask. We cannot go to see my grandmother. There is one good thing about the pandemic. We can protect our neighbors and be with our family more often than we could before.
Yours truly,
Justin
Dear friends and family,
Hi/Hello I am Xenia. I am nine going on to ten years old. I am in fourth grade. My favorite color is green, if you are interested. I have five siblings Justin, Jonah, Basil, Sophia and Esther and a mom and dad. Justin is 7 years old, is cute, can be a pest sometimes, and is great at doing push-ups. He interferes when Jonah and I fight, but it makes him an annoying brother and doesn’t help. Jonah is 11 years old a great reader and is great at grammar but corrects me and I don’t like it. He and I do not get along well. Basil is 15 years old, is really tall, loves videogames, and is a great person to play catch with. Sophia is 17 years old, really cool, has a boyfriend Anthony, and is my only remaining sister in my house. She is doing school at home and is almost in collage! Esther is 19 years old, has a boyfriend Joshua, is in collage, and is an awesome music player, writer, and singer, and is a really good sister, and is really good at typing! My dad is a great reader, a fighter-stopper, engineer, and dad. My mom is a great mom, a great baker, not the best in fights, but is so great to be around.
The pandemic started as soon as I threw up on our car trip for Spring Break. We came home just in time to buy toilet paper before it sold out. I don’t like wearing a mask. That’s why we don’t go to church every week or any fun places. My classmate got COVID, but he’s okay.
THE END
Love Xenia
Dear friends and family,
I am Jonah. I’m in sixth grade, and my favorite subject is math. My favorite thing to do at home is reading. My favorite author is Rick Riordan. His books are about mythological things in the present. I really relate to his characters, even though I don’t get into life and death situations every other day. In this pandemic, the activities I do at home are reading, spending time with family, playing video games, and imaginary games.
I share a room with Justin, so we get to spend time with each other a lot. His favorite book is Curious George. Susha and I are across the hall from each other. Susha and I have a strange relationship. Part of the time we are fierce enemies. Other times we are neutral, but sometimes we are the best of friends. When Susha plays with me, one of the only things that helps us from getting too angry with each other is Justin. He helps calm us down and listens to both sides of the story. Basil is farther down the hallway. He has two doors with usable locks, so most of the time I don’t see his room. I do see him a lot. Most of the time he is helping and understanding, but like all siblings, we get into arguments. Since the corona virus has kept him from seeing his friends, he has been online to play with them. Sophia is one story above me and gets the guest room until guests kick her out. She is a good cook, and she is the person who does most of the heavy lifting around the house. I was very concerned when I heard she was in a car accident, but she was okay. After our Sunday Typica service, dad told me that if the cost to repair a car was more than it was worth, the car was called a totaled car. Our minivan was totaled. Mom and Dad bought two new cars. Esther is my oldest sibling. She is in the college Thomas Aquinas. I do not get to see her much because the college does not want her to leave for short times like Thanksgiving break. Her summer break was extra-long because of COVID, I liked seeing her. My mom has been very nice and understanding during COVID. In the beginning, before this new year of school, my mom had to go through a lot of patience for zoom schooling. I’m glad to get to go to school in person. My mom was very, very kind for letting me take home the class pet, a bunny, for the weekend. My dad has been working home since COVID, and I really like to see him around the house. Even though he could go back to his office downtown, he has remained home. My dad and I have started playing a board game called Arkham Horror. Later my dad was nice enough to even buy us a basketball hoop for us to play basketball in the driveway.
It has been hard staying home and not going out to be with people, so I’m glad to be in school. Being at home has made life a little difficult because my family does not get as much space with each other.
Even though I can’t be in person, I hope you enjoy this letter.
Yours truly,
Jonah
Dear friends and family!
Merry Christmas! This is Basil!
I have five siblings, and we live in Texas! Fort Worth, that’s the city! We currently live in a large neighborhood in a super large house. We need one to keep us kids from attacking each other, but we get along pretty well anyway. My siblings are all great, my brother Justin is the youngest and is thankfully fully potty trained, and he loves playing Bloons Tower Defense games, Susha is more of a phone player, and plays on phones a lot! Jonah and I don’t get along as well as the others, but he is pretty cool! He loves reading and playing Minecraft, like me, but I am much more experienced. My name is Basil, and I am fifteen, I am in the process of learning to drive, and I play Minecraft and Among Us most! I also have large parties from time to time! After me comes Sophia, she now has a boyfriend, and he’s pretty cool. Sophia has been cooking more food recently, and that’s cool. Lastly, there’s my sister Esther, she is the oldest, but I have not seen much of her this year, she’s been at college for the whole year with the exception of the summer.
Covid has kept me inside the whole summer, which is really sad since we had some amazing plans, such as a trip to Europe, but I simply played on the computer for the rest of the summer. This school year has been much more difficult due to covid, but my school did not want to go online so we have kept going. And now my mom is teaching at school! I do have a laptop now so that’s cool!
Well, have a good Christmas!!! And a happy new year!!!
-Basil
Dear friends and family,
Merry Christmas! This year has been kind of hectic, to say the least. Thankfully, the pandemic has not hit my family too hard; staying home was a different experience but I have been so thankful that we have the ability to comfortably do so. In other news, I got a boyfriend this year. His name is Anthony, and he is a wonderful person (with a lot of wonderful jackets.) The only other big thing I can think of that happened this year is that I was in a bad car accident. My car was totaled, and I ended up with a fractured arm. Anthony, who was also in the car, got a bad concussion and a badly fractured hand. As I write this both of us are healing from the longer lasting effects, but it seems we will both make a full recovery. I have a new car, a newly healed arm, and am ready to go. College applications are a bit stressful now that I’m a senior, but I am confident that I will get accepted to a great college where I can study accounting.
Esther came home early from college to avoid the virus, although a sickness spread though her college before then that may have been the virus, and spent an extra-long summer with us this year. She, my dad, and I spent many nights in lockdown sitting and talking. She is still with Joshua, who has now joined her at Thomas Aquinas College, and it looks like they will be together for a long time. Basil also has a… I am not sure if we are calling her his girlfriend yet. She likes to play video games so is the perfect match for him as he truly embodies a teen boy. Basil is just started driving lessons and the little kids are already asking when he can drive them places. Mom, however, is not entirely looking forward to Basil as a new driver. Jonah is 11? It’s hard to remember all of them. He loves reading, especially anything by Rick Riordan and I will often find him with a book and refusing to go to bed. Xenia, though she may be nine going on ten, acts like she is thirteen. She has her own style which has a lot of black and absolutely nothing that could be construed as girly. She and I have been spending a lot of time together, going on outings, watching movies, or just talking. I’m both excited and scared to see how she is when she is actually thirteen. Justin is about to turn eight. He loves playing games with anyone in the family and is easy to bring back to joyful when he is having a hard time. He is extremely creative and will often show up with some insane contraption or art project he has made from a cardboard box; I think he likes them more than cats.
So that is it for our family. Almost none of us have had anything that might be the virus and I hope it stays that way with us and all of you. Have a wonderful year.
Sincerely,
Sophia
Dear family and friends,
Merry Christmas! I am halfway through my Sophomore year of college, and I am loving it. My class reading this year has included Cicero, Augustine, and Ptolemy. Because of the pandemic, our campus is essentially quarantined in the mountains. This last March we were forced to transition to Zoom classes, and nobody wants that to happen again, so we’re all on board with the plan to be as self-contained as possible. My boyfriend Joshua is a freshman at my college this year, which has been absolutely wonderful. We coordinate dress/bow tie colors for the formal dances and lectures. I am keeping in contact with my family by phone and video call until we can see each other in person. We had lots of family time over the summer quarantine, and I hope it continues over Christmas break. I miss my dad’s sous vide cooking and going grocery shopping with my mom, and of course I miss all my siblings.
Lots of love!
Esther
Syra's Scribbles 