We’re now in July, which means we survived another “June Birthday Weekend.” Susan’s birthday is June 26, and Morgan’s falls two days later on June 28.

Birthday celebrations are just the latest thing to be affected by coronavirus. I feel like I sound like a broken record for mentioning Covid-19 yet again, but the truth of the matter is, it has affected almost every part of our lives — from eating out (or simply going out) to get togethers and, yes, birthdays.

Normally, we would have celebrated the girls’ birthdays with multiple dinners at local restaurants. We all would have gone out as a family for Susan’s birthday, and again for Morgan’s. Then we would have thrown a separate party for Morgan to celebrate with her friends.

This year, we invited our closest family members over for Mexican food. Initially we had planned to eat outside on the back porch (social distancing and all), but warm temperatures, high winds, and a dust storm straight from the Sahara desert moved the party inside. We had eight people show up, which was not bad for the space. Some years we have separate gatherings for Susan and Morgan, but this year it seemed easiest to combine them.

Sunday afternoon, Morgan had a few of her friends over to the house to celebrate her birthday. We started a movie playing out in the movie room, but for the most part the kids stood around outside. We were afraid there wouldn’t be enough for the kids to do, but for the most part they seemed thrilled to simply be in the presence of other human beings.

Gifts were exchanged, food was consumed, and congratulations were given. Even if the details of the celebrations were a little different this year, the sentiments were the same.