May: Quarantine Edition

 Here we are, still stuck at home, trying to make the best of a situation that has changed the whole world. We are thankful we have each other. We are thankful its warming up outside so we can get out more and play. We are thankful that we can still keep up our schoolwork. Here is what else we have been doing!

Brett and the kids have been creating a fort on a little "island" down the hill from our house. Ok, it's not really an island, but there is a little stream of water you have to cross over to get to it. It's still our property, but far enough away to feel like a fun little adventure-land. So we let the kids go down there together and hang out to play. There's even a log bench inside.

More hiking! Some new places, some old. 

Instead of a garden this year, we opted to plant trees. Our yard is so bare, it needed some work. Brett got a great deal on a bunch of seedlings and bushes and he and Andrew and the girls have been working on planting and watering. We'll have to wait awhile to see the fruits of our labor! 

Sometimes its fun to just hang out in the camper in the driveway, for a change of scenery-- kind of like a vacation without really leaving home!

Brett and I found a nice restaurant open with outdoor, socially distanced seating to celebrate our 14th anniversary! 

Jacob has to finish out his first year of preschool online, using Google Classroom and another platform. Thankfully, he's not required to log on at a particular time of day-- he CAN, but it is not mandatory. His teachers worked hard to put together packets of activities for him to do and send them over each week. So we do his little preschool activities and post pictures for his teachers to see. And when we get on the Google Classroom for a weekly meeting, it is hilarious!

These guys are still plugging along with school. We finished the first book in the Mystery of History series, and they did such a great job we had to post a picture! We're moving on to the second book, learning history in a way I wish I would have learned it in school. I am learning right along with them!

Sometimes the hikes are right on the path by our house!

And then we come home and paint rocks!

Our favorite ice cream place is open again! It's all outdoors so we can still enjoy a treat every now and then! 

Easter 2020

Easter was a bit different this year with the Pandemic. It may very well be the first time in my life I wasn't in church on Easter Sunday. We did watch at home on Facebook Live, which is definitely not the same, and certainly not easy for little ones to pay attention! We tried to keep the traditions we could-- we dyed eggs, we did a little egg hunt in the backyard, and got dressed up to take family photos together. These kids are troopers and one day will look back and talk about how they survived quarantine.

Quarantine: A New Normal

On March 18th, we started to get word that everything was shutting down. A pandemic was sweeping across the country. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) had hit our state and out of an abundance of caution, everything was being cancelled. The older kids were supposed to be in a play that weekend-- cancelled. Church and Bible Study would be online. Even taekwando and dance were switched to ZOOM, an app I had never really even imagined I would need to use before this month! We could go to the grocery store, but many precautions had to be taken. The one thing that could not be cancelled was family time, and time outdoors! 

My resolution at the beginning was to try something new every day of quarantine. It didn't last more than a few weeks, but I still made a point to do something fun as much as we could-- even if it was just trying a new recipe or making a scavenger hunt in the basement. We have been on quite a few hikes. We have played games together. We have baked. We have played outside. We have carried on with our school work. We are thankful for homeschool because our "new normal" isn't a whole lot different than our old normal-- just a lot less outings! 

So here are a few snapshots of our new normal.