Jack's allowance has been burning a big hole in his pocket. He keeps dreaming about pets to buy: snakes, hamsters, birds, turtles. He loves watching the turtles that live in the creek near our house.
I've been trying to convince him that no other pet he buys will give him the kind of satisfaction our cats can. He has been spending more time snuggling them and admits they're pretty great. But he hasn't quit window shopping.
Gemma loves the cats soooo much! She loves to spend time with them.
Rumors about being ordered to stay at home due to the coronavirus started to spread farther and faster as we made it deeper into March. There was mass hysteria everywhere. Stores filled with panicked people - including myself - trying to buy food and supplies to hunker away with. Honestly, there was just not enough information out, and lots of fear that although the government was telling us there would be enough food for everyone and we would still be able to go shopping, really everything was going to close. It felt like we were prepping for an apocalypse, like we had to have enough food, toilet paper, deodorant, shampoo, gasoline ... to last a month or more without being able to step outside. It was scary. Stores ran out of everything you really wanted - milk, eggs, cheese, toilet paper, produce, meat, canned vegetables, frozen vegetables, flour, sugar.
The kids went to school for the last time on Friday, March 13th. Later that day, we received emails from the school informing us that the schools would be physically closed for the next three weeks, followed by our regularly scheduled spring break. We anticipated coming back to school April 14th. It was sort of exciting at first, like summer break with the lovely spring weather. That first week was lots of fun. I still tried to give schoolwork to do for a couple hours a day, but mostly we played outside and tried not to freak out about the news.
Little did we realize how quickly and dramatically things would change over the next couple of weeks. We went from being recommended to social distance - trying to stand a few feet away from people we didn't live with - to businesses closing down left and right, to a state-wide "shelter in place" order within a week after school closing. We were allowed to leave to exercise or perform essential tasks, like buying groceries, but otherwise were told to stay at home as much as possible to avoid getting or spreading the virus.
It was just another week or two before it was officially announced that school would remain closed through the remainder of the school year. Teachers planned to open "distance learning" after spring break, with online assignments.
Meanwhile, everything else got cancelled as well: tennis, soccer, volleyball, 5th grade science camp, girls' camp, swim team.... National parks closed up - no more Yosemite for us. State parks started closing parking lots. You could technically still go and hike, but only if you lived close enough to get there on foot or bike. Picnics at the park are off-limits. Playground equipment forbidden. Library closed.
That first weekend school closed, we insulated the attic. The whole family worked hard for two days solid. Hazel and I were loading the machine in the garage, and breaking the blocks up into smaller chunks. Todd was blowing it upstairs. Jack was the runner, communicating between groups and helping out on both ends. Gemma lent a hand when she could, and was a good sport about playing in the culdesac on her own and coming over to wave at me whenever she got lonely.
Hazel and Jack had practiced hard to perform Pachabel's Canon for the school talent show. Cancelled. They were also preparing a duet for church. Cancelled.
The kids have online meetings with their classes once or twice a week. They love seeing their classmates and teachers. It's better than nothing, but it's no classroom.
We've been hiking a lot. Thank goodness the weather is so amazing here in the spring! It's been mostly in the low 60's and the hills have been so green. We've tried out lots of different spots. This is Brushy Peak, just 10 minutes from our house.
My favorite part of this hike is when the kids played "Mother, May I?" They got super creative and silly with their moves, squiggling like squirrels and such. It was a happy afternoon.
The kids made lots of sweet door posters for people. This one is for our neighbor Marion, who is like an adopted grandma to them. She's the sweetest, always buying them cookies at the grocery store and talking to them for a good half hour at her porch when they come by.
We started going on hour long walks pretty much every day. We had lots of time and nowhere to be. We discovered the golf course near the trail has some pretty good climbing trees.
Hazel and I spent hours making croissants because, why not? Sure it takes tons of time. We've got time.
Heck, we even made our own tortillas! Everyone helped.
We used a friends' HOA tennis court (before the restrictions got tighter and that was no longer allowed). Two kids at the net, odd one out hitting a volleyball to me. That was a good afternoon. Oh, and we walked over as well. Might as well. We've got time.
The kids had such a blast playing with each other the first few weeks! The end of April ... not as much. But in the beginning, they were having so much fun together.
Pizza picnic in the back of the van ... because we're not allowed to sit at the tables in the park.
Hazel went to great lengths to defend her nickname of "Shaun the Sheep" to her friend Zena, whose brother claims he is the true Shaun. Getting just a little cray-cray over here!
When we sneaked the door poster over to the bishop's house, we found a grassy area to explore behind his neighborhood. It was an unplanned expedition. Hazel and I were both in flip flops, so we didn't go too far, but it's always good to let the kids move their bodies.
We hiked Del Valle. We chose a creek-side walk instead of heading uphill, and it was just lovely.
My game night group has been meeting via Zoom. It's not the same, but it's good to connect nonetheless. I'm an introvert, so I'm craving alone time to recharge more than social time, but there's still something meaningful about getting to talk with good friends, especially when we can all commiserate about this crazy shelter-in-place we're experiencing.
We rode scooters to a distant park and found the biggest tumbleweed on Earth. Jack wanted to pull it home, but abandoned the project when I revealed that he would then have to break it down and get it to fit in the green bin.
One of the things Todd and I have loved the most during all this has been holding church at home. Every Sunday, each of us prepares a talk or a lesson to share with the family. Todd blesses and passes the sacrament. Hazel and Jack play hymns on the piano and sometimes the violin. It's been a really wonderful experience. We actually feel the kids are learning more than they normally do. We generally spend an hour or two in the living room sharing testimonies and discussing gospel topics, scriptures stories, and Conference talks. It's been awesome.
Gemma wrote this talk for one of our first family church. It says, "I'm going to talk about faith. Yesterday we watched General Conference. There was a person that was teaching that he was at a funeral. And a person asked to an old lady, he asked, "How do you still have faith when you are surrounded by darkness?" and she said, "If I am surrounded by darkness, I know that when there is a light, then I know that I have faith." And I really liked listening to that because I felt no matter how old or how young you can still have faith."
I have hardly had any time to myself the last two months. I keep telling myself it's important and I need to make it happen, but then it doesn't. I worry a lot about the kids getting mad at each other while I'm gone and me not being able to help them diffuse things, creating a bigger stressor when I get home than the one I would leave behind in the first place. But one afternoon, everyone was doing their own thing. Hazel was talking with a friend on the phone, Gemma was taking a long bath with her dolls, and I can't remember what Jack was doing, but he was content. The sky was cloudy, like a storm was trying to roll through. That's my favorite weather for walking down the trail to Marshland. I just seized the moment and told Hazel to hold down the fort, then I went for a walk all, by. myself. It was completely restorative. The birds were going nuts, the wind was blowing, the sky was gorgeous, the air felt so fresh.
Spring break, I tried to shake things up so it would still feel special. Everyone was assigned a day, and they got to plan how we would exercise, what we would eat for dinner, as well as an indoor and an outdoor activity for the day. I think it was a big success!
I was in charge of Monday. We did Zumba. Jack refused to participate, so he did yard work while the girls and I had a party in the house.
Then we did spring cleaning. I had the kids washing down walls and cupboards, wiping down the couch and doing all sorts of off jobs.
In the afternoon, we watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, the kids played on the rain-soaked trampoline and then had a bathtub pool party, and we ended the day with a read-a-thon, complete with cozy reading "nests."
Hazel planned Tuesday. We did yoga, played outside a ton, watched an episode of Great British Baking Show for inspiration, then had a muffin-making competition. We started with a base batter that I divided into four bowls, and then the kids and I each customized ours, added a side dish, plated them, and Todd judged blind when he got home from work. Jack put so many ingredients into his that I was afraid to try it, but it ended up being the hands-down winner.
Jack planned Wednesday. We spent the morning making tracks for his OzoBot, then took a new hike at Sycamore Grove in the afternoon. We will have to bring scooters next time we go there. We got passed by lots of people on bikes and it made us jealous. I didn't know what to expect, but the path was paved and fairly flat, so it's definitely a spot for wheels. It had an awesome tree the kids loved playing in right at the end, so although we dealt with some grumpiness along the way, it all ended well. We had pizza that night.
We rode bikes to our neighborhood park on Thursday. The kids found tons of mushrooms in the field and created a new game they call 'Shroom Kick. It is what it sounds like: dropkick mushrooms and watch they disintegrate in midair. Pretty awesome, actually.
Gemma's big idea was to pretend to be animals all day. That reached it's apex at dinnertime, when we got down on all fours on the floor to eat our ribs and potatoes without hands. Everyone loved it. Animal Day is actually a kickback to Todd's childhood, so we totally have Grammie to thank for that fun idea.
We spent all week sewing masks as well, in anticipation of the likely upcoming mandate to wear a face covering in public. Yep, that's now a thing. Poor Todd has to wear one all day while he works.
I have to wear one when I grocery shop. Things are still spotty on the shelves, but they're getting better.
At General Conference, President Nelson invited us to participate in a worldwide day of fasting. That hit the week on Friday. Hazel did an awesome job of reaching out to all her friends of other faiths to invite them to join in with us. She is a natural missionary. Hazel and Jack fasted all the way to dinnertime for their first times ever, and Gemma fasted breakfast and only had a small lunch. Todd even fasted while working a normal day. We all joined faith and prayed for relief from Covid-19.
We did sidewalk chalk at the park. Jack's is a giant math equation. That boy ...
For the first four weeks of distance learning, Jack wasn't getting enough work from school. Todd and I gave him assignments to help keep him occupied. He has created informative reports on types of snakes, strange animals, cute baby animals, types of surgeons, and Chopin.
We ended Spring Break with a sibling sleepover. The kids loved it. I would totally let them have them more often if they would just sleep in the next morning!
Easter was small and simple this year. We dyed eggs, hid eggs, hid baskets, made resurrection rolls, went on a family bike ride, did all the fun things, but we were bummed we weren't having our Easter potluck with Suzanne and Chrissy's families like we had planned. We had such a blast with them last year and really missed seeing them.
Back to school. Every morning from about nine to noon, the kids are working, largely at computers, while I bounce between them, trouble-shooting technology issues and academic concerns, and always just keeping Gemma on task. I can only walk away from her for about five minutes and still find her hard at work, so I'm basically at her side all morning long. Occasionally, I'm able to scrub a sink or fold a load of laundry at the same time, but I'm not nearly as productive as I am when the kids are really at school. I'm totally a teacher again. Some days it's really nuts.
Todd and I went grocery shopping for date night. He buys fancy cheese when he comes with me.
Todd and Jack build this sweet scooter hook for our garage. I love it!
I started rotating the kids through the calendar as my kitchen helper. When it's their day, they are 100% in charge of either breakfast or lunch, and help me with the other meals. They are learning good skills, spending quality time with me, helping carry the load of feeding everyone three meals a day from home, and seriously giving me a break.
Gemma saw this idea for peanut butter and jelly sushi in a book we read and wanted to give it a go. Everyone enjoyed rolling their bread flat with the rolling pin. It made for a fun one-time experience.
Hazel made a pool in the backyard with a tarp, some string, and the patio chairs. The kids LOVED it.
Gemma decided she wanted to learn how to roller blade. Hazel has been a patient teacher.
The kids' piano teacher decided Zoom lessons were frustrating and started giving them from a sanitized keyboard in her garage. She sits six feet away. It's way better than having a lesson from a computer screen. Gemma and I walked over with them, then headed home on our own. It took us ages to get back because there were ducks in the creek that needed to be admired. It was fabulous weather out, so I didn't mind.
Todd and Hazel spent an entire Saturday creating an intense scavenger hunt go give to all Hazel's friends. They're calling it the Corona Quest. Jack and I were the guinea pigs the next afternoon, so they could check for kinks. It took us a solid three hours. Only one family from Hazel's group have started and completed it in one day. Todd doesn't always understand that he works at super-human level. But it's okay. Everyone's got plenty of time!
I talked Jack into letting me cut a lot of his hair. I love his new look!
Hazel is learning how to braid her own hair.
Gemma sometimes does her homework outside with the cats.
We have a birds' nest behind the wreath on the front door.
We spent a couple hours at Marshland one afternoon. We brought Jack's binoculars and Hazel's birding books she's received from our neighbor Marion. It was so relaxing to sit beside the water and listen to nature and soak up the warm sun. We even saw a great blue heron.
Jack sometimes has virtual play dates. Jonah had the genius idea for them to play battleship.
Gemma sometimes goes online to talk to friends, but they just do dumb stuff with their pictures. They don't know how to talk to each other when they're not in person.
Hazel presented her state report through the computer. It was such a shame that she couldn't do it in person, because her float is stunning.
The tarp pool continues to bring great joy. Todd and I decided we should use our Yosemite refund to buy a small above-ground pool for the kids to use in the backyard this summer. Too bad all the factories have shut down and we can't find one for sale anywhere. Fingers crossed something will become available in May.
The cats have stepped up their hunting game. We've seen birds, mice, lizards, and even a snake.
Gemma will try to read any book she can lay her hands on. She's not so hot about reading from cover to cover, but she sure is cute!
And her legs are absolutely covered in bruises and scratches. This little girl plays hard!
We discovered a new place to hike - Holdener Park. There's goats the kids fell in love with, and we even found horses on our walk as well. Everyone wants to come back often.
I haven't taken this many pictures in ages. We're all sick of sheltering in place, but we're grateful we live in such a lovely place, and that the weather has been so enjoyable. We're trying our best to get along with each other and focus on the good parts of this forced slowdown. We're grateful to be healthy and have a comfortable home and access to lovely open spaces. We're thankful for internet and the capacity to still check in with the people we care about. We appreciate how our family is growing closer.
