Well, we've made it through another week of quarantining from COVID-19, and this week I decided to step back a little from all of the bad news, and focus on the things that made us happy. We had fun with some front porch pictures, the girls cooked us dinner for a date night, we celebrated a friend's birthday from the trunks of our cars, and our teachers had a driveby parade so we could see them and they could let us know how much they've missed the kids. The week's news was mostly focused on increasing cases and plans for "reopening" the country, but our biggest news came on Friday that our schools would not be opening again before the summer, so our "remote learning" would continue until June. We're slowly getting into a routine here, but it's amazing how much life has changed in just two months...
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So to start out our week of "mostly" positive thoughts...
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It turns out all of this crazy social distancing has been doing wonders for our planet, and it's kind of cool to watch... Our air quality is improving, animals are living in peace, and even our water is cleaner! The canals in Venice are so clear without all the boats and pollution that you can actually see fish in them!
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A little bit of humor is still coming through on the memes:
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This news article was pretty funny... Don't tell me some of you aren't jealous that this man got to go to a restaurant!
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We've been keeping virtual learning going strong, and much to Ben's dismay, I still make him practice his handwriting... You can't do EVERYTHING on the computer...
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We're still knocking out the puzzles, but slowing down a little with all the other work we have to do... Here's our next one sorted out and ready to go, but it's 1500 pieces so it might take us a bit to finish!
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Despite our "focusing on the positive", the case numbers are still going up, and the news isn't always great, but not focusing on it too much helps a bit...
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I've been enjoying my walks, and this day, I had the bike path in our neighborhood to myself, which was a nice treat! It seems like everyone is out exercising these days...
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I bought a Hello Fresh meal kit to make for dinner one night, and the girls made it all by themselves, set the table with candles and music, and made us get dressed up for a "date night". I could get used to this help with meal time! It was delicious, and we only had a few thousand dishes to wash that night!
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On the menu: Sirloin with a sherry shallot sauce, garlic parmesan potatoes and roasted green beans! It was awesome!
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It was nice, but kind of weird to get dressed up, put on make-up and wear jewelry!
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We still have "specials" in homeschool, and today was art class, where the kids made posters for the teacher parade, Abby had "band" and had a concert for Mor-Mor over Facetime, and Ben got to read a story to Mor-Mor too!
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I also decided to have a front-porch photo shoot to capture what quarantined homeschool looks like these days, and we had fun! There's more pictures of this day in a separate post if you want to check them out here: Front Porch Pictures
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Yes, we have still been reading, and not JUST online all day... In fact, Abby read through the whole Hunger Games series this week, and since we only had one of the books, she had to read the rest on Kindle... Check out her kindle usage for the week! Great job Abby... Now we get to watch all the movies!
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I love Emily's new quarantine shirt... Thanks Bridget and Kevin for the perfect gift for this home body kid of ours!
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The kids have been watching a lot of Youtube and Tik Tok videos in their spare time these days, and come up with all kids of crazy ideas to keep themselves entertained, and they bring a lot of laughter to the house!
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It was interesting to see what people are saying about the questions over when and how to start lifting restrictions, so even though this may not be the most "positive" part of our post, I didn't want to miss documenting where we are at these days...
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Thursday was a big news day as our Governor extended our stay-at-home order another week to May 8th, and laid out a detailed plan for the phases we will go through to re-open and lift restrictions. All I can say is that when we finally make it to the second phase and more people are allowed to be together again, we are TOTALLY having a "Phase 2 Bash" in our basement with close friends! It's been almost 6 weeks since anyone has been in our house, and if you know me and my love for entertaining at all, you know that's driving me crazy! I will definitely be checking temperatures though before anyone is allowed in... and disinfecting when they leave!
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Friday was a special day, as all of our favorite teachers did a drive-by parade to show the kids some love! We made posters and dressed in our school spirit and cheered them on as they all drove by! The kids miss their teachers, but I don't think they miss them half as much as I do!
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Ben's teacher had written all her kids names on the back of her car... a little tear may have formed in my eye from that one... I'm not going to lie!
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After the parade, we headed to Chick-Fil-A to pick up lunch for our good friend's birthday... The curbside pick up there is very well done, where you order online, pull into a numbered parking spot and enter it on the app when you arrive. When your food is ready, they bring it out to a table in front of your car (wearing gloves and masks), and when they go back inside, you can go out and get it. It's quite a process, and a REALLY strange time to be living in, but I appreciate how serious they are about keeping us all safe!
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We brought lunch to the pool parking lot in our neighborhood, decorated our car and ate in our trunks to celebrate Lexie's 7th birthday together. We are getting really good at these socially distanced birthday celebrations...
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It was kind of crazy that on the same day of our teacher parade, they later announced that school would not be returning this year, and we would be continuing virtual learning until our summer break in June. They also announced that schools will "look different" in the 2020-2021 school year, but we don't have any insight yet into what those changes might be. But for now, we will just keep on, keeping on...
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We hope you have all had a good week, are staying safe, and staying home! Thanks for continuing to check in with us here!
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