August 2020

Here's a link to more photos and videos from August.

Our routine hasn't changed much during August; we are still at the apartment in the Hudson Valley most of the time where I am working from home and Becky is staying on top of Alex's therapy and doing a bit of teletherapy herself with some of her clients. I still go to the house in Binghamton once a week to make my weekly appearance in the office and prepare the house for the next AirBnB guests. And we are still exploring all the parks around us wherever we go. I've counted about 30 parks within a 20-30 minute drive of our apartment and several more within the same radius of our house, and you can see those in the bulk of our photos and videos.  This is one of the best things about New York, in addition to the number of tractors per capita and abundance of bodies of water and nearby rocks that Alex can toss in them. You'll notice most of the photos are of Alex as usual, and most of the time he has a tractor or other vehicle in his hands. He derives a lot of comfort from holding on to his toy tractors and hardly lets go of them, even during sleep sometimes. 

Early this month Alex had a slight fever, runny nose and cough and so he had to stay home from his clinic for a while. I got it too, but Becky didn't show any symptoms. Was it COVID? Who knows -- I submitted my name to get tested at the drive through testing on campus, but they never called me to set up a time. I've thought about donating blood so I can get a free antibody test, because we were certainly sick a lot pre-lockdown. 

During the last weekend of the month, we all came to the house for an extended stay and I took Friday and Monday off work. These occasional mini-vacations at the house are always a nice change of scenery from our small apartment. We mostly just enjoyed cooking some good meals, playing and working on therapy with Alex at home, and going to parks. We rented a boat and rowed around a reservoir at Nathaniel Cole State and we played at the beach there. We hiked at Jones park and found a large pile of stacked rocks and the fireplace remains of a house built about 100 years ago. That weekend Alex also went to the dentist for the first time. It was one that specializes in pediatrics where we figured they would be prepared to handle difficult kids. Alex did well though, and just like with brushing his teeth every night, he resisted at first but then let them get in there to see his teeth and give him a quick cleaning. No dental problems were found.

This month we also celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Becky wrote a few notes about what we did to celebrate while in the Hudson Valley area:

Saturday, August 15th was our 5-year anniversary.  It turned out to be a fantastic day with two of my favorite people (Rob being one, of course- and we took Alex along).  I have to give Rob the credit for planning it all out.  He made plans for us to have breakfast at Jones Farm.  There are a lot of beautiful farms in upstate New York and this one did not disappoint.  We had pancakes, eggs, and bacon outside on the deck and Alex got to wander around and see another tractor.  It was a beautiful farm with lots to explore, but we made another cool discovery on the way home. 

We found the road to the Hudson Highlands Children Museum and Nature Park, which was closed, of course.  But the grounds surrounding the old buildings were amazing.  There were grass trails mowed through the meadows and forest so we just followed the trails and took in the scenery.  Alex was content to ride in our “off-roading” stroller most of the time.  We went by a nice pond and then discovered the museum’s “Outdoor Discovery Center”.  It was an enclosure with play equipment and a couple pretend play centers all made out of carved out trees and things from nature.  We included a picture of the carved entrance gate.  It was getting late in the morning so there were some kids there and we learned you could make a reservation for 45 minutes of playtime with your kid. 

We were happy to make the discovery and spent the following Friday evening there.  It’s always cool to drive along and just discover really great parks, playgrounds, hiking trails, etc. around here.  Even though we know how to Google, some of our favorite places are those we’ve discovered by accident on our way to someplace else.  The Hudson Valley really is a pretty nice place to be when your best or only options for entertainment are outdoor spaces.