The Beach Family Blog: Quarantine: Week 2

Week 2 in quarantine here... Checking in to see how YOUR week is going?!?! I noted while doing laundry this week that there were A LOT less clothes to wash, and the loads are predominantly pajamas... and I'm not sure about you, but I'm ok with that!

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We have gotten dressed though many times and enjoyed a walk outside, a hike in the woods, or some time in our driveway yelling over to the neighbors in their driveway to say hi! It's been a beautiful week here! It does make quarantine "slightly" difficult since all we want to do is be out hanging out with friends...

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Dad built Ben his own Minecraft server, and now he can stay in and play with his friends and actually see them while he's playing! It's ALMOST like you're there together!

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Emily has been helping me out in the kitchen since there has been a lot more cooking going on these days... One day we tackled making some delicious lasagnas! Of course she wouldn't eat it, but it was fun having help, and it took a bunch of time to make, so there's always that!

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The message came through on all of our phones to let us know that the official "Stay at home" order was issued for our county, and later the whole state...

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We might be stuck inside, but we haven't lost our sense of humor here...

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Our newest homeschooling math lessons have been playing darts... who knew subtracting from 101 would prove to be so difficult for everyone?!?!?!? (But I'm just making it known that I am clearly the best mathematician in the family!)

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The basement has turned into quite the school "hang out spot" for everyone! Thank goodness we decided to finish this space!

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One of Ben's lessons this week was about acrostic poems... I'm actually learning a lot in 2nd grade!

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Everyone has been having fun with their Lego challenges...

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You know things are getting kind of crazy when we get excited to find happy faces in our soap, and I get super into cleaning my stove top...

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Facetiming has become a regular thing at our house lately, and special filters are making it even more fun!

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How are you dealing with your "Stay at home" orders??? Abby's been taking to having virtual sleepovers with friends... and why not do it in a Santa hat... because you can! (She woke up one morning and realized they had fallen asleep and she had logged a 700 minute call... thank goodness for unlimited internet here!)

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The news changes by the minute here, and the big news for the day, was that school is NOT going back on March 30, but the earliest will now be May 15... Soooo, yeah... I'll just leave that there...

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All the kids teachers have been having Zoom or Google meetings so everyone can see them and all their friends... but I didn't expect my days to be scheduled around my kids' conference calls!

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... and apparently, this is what my kids are REALLY doing on their conference calls...

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We've been busy getting our work stations set up and schedules made...

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With the beginning of "Mom-school" underway, cue the homeschool humor in memes... Gotta keep it light!

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Thanks to our neighbor, the bread man, we got some sourdough starter to try our hand at feeding it and making bread...

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The starter grew WAY more than we expected, so we had to transfer it into a couple different containers...

The next day, most of the bubbles were gone, and all I had left was enough to make one loaf... not quite sure what happened, but we were determined to make it the best loaf ever!

It rose in the bowl just like it was supposed to!

It was a bit sticky going into the pan, and wasn't exactly in the shape of a "loaf", but we rolled with it...

... and it kept rising!

For all of the things that went awry, we actually ended up with one delicious loaf of sourdough bread that only took a mere 28 hours to make! Good to know we can pull it off if the stores close and we need bread! We might just need to plan ahead a bit!

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A bit of food humor to brighten your day...

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North Carolina timeline of the news at this time:

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If you know me, you know how much I love doing puzzles, so quarantine has been good to me so far in that department! Here's our first 1000 piece puzzle in the books:

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Ben's lesson this week was to learn about different kinds of matter, so we did a science project together on changing a liquid into a solid and we made ourselves some fresh butter for our homemade bread!

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"Gym time" was spent in the woods again on a beautiful hike... We are very lucky to live in an area with so much to keep us busy!

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Ben thought he found a prehistoric dinosaur footprint! Gotta give him props for creativity!

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Our social circle now has to be less than 10 people, and even more spaced out, but we're adapting! Everyone knows they can't cross our driveway line :)

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Some happy hour humor:

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Since we're home, can't go anywhere, and need to find "alternative ways" to get some exercise, we decided to put the kids to work on some gardening and backyard home projects... They were less than thrilled, and I think they just want to go back to school!

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1000 piece puzzle number two in the books (the girls saved the last piece for me since I'd been working on it for days!):

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Emily did some research and found and made a recipe for homemade "butterbeer"... It didn't taste quite like the ones in Universal, but it was a great effort and a lot of fun!

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Just because the salons are closed, doesn't mean you can't do it at home! Emily's first attempt at painting my nails was great... as long as you don't look too close!

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With so many restaurants getting creative in their take out and delivery, we found our favorite bakery in the area was setting up drop offs of online orders for our neighborhood, and we are all about supporting local businesses during this difficult time! We had NO idea what wonderful treats we were in for though! Our loaf of sourdough most DEFINITELY did not turn out like theirs!

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