Losing and Gaining: Coronavirus Week 6

The big news of last week is Tierney's first lost tooth!  She was very excited to join her sisters in the camp of having lost a tooth.  After having wiggled at it for quite some time, she was outside playing with her sisters on Monday and playfully bit Ezri's sleeve, which popped it right out!

 Thankfully, we had already completed a Tooth Fairy pillow a few days prior, so she was super excited to go put her little tooth in the pocket of her pillow and scurried to bed that night, anxiously awaiting the visit from the Tooth Fairy.  She woke Tuesday morning a very happy girl, having found a sparkly dollar where she had left her tooth the night before!

We went on a new venture Tuesday morning, for the purpose of obtaining a produce box from Van Solkema Family Farms in Bryon Center.  It was fantastic to get a box of fresh veggies for $20 and a little bit of time in a line of cars, with no need to get out, enter a store, or even have contact with another person aside from a quick conversation through my passenger window.  We came home with a box full of delicious, fresh goodies, and will absolutely be returning regularly for this!

I had started some seeds a couple weeks earlier, but as more arrive and I expand my planting capacity, I have built a little greenhouse of sorts on my back porch where the heater runs during the day on cool days and the sunshine heats up on sunny days.  We've got some promising growth already and I am excited to get the garden season going!

 The major portion of our week was as normal - work and school, with some cold, wet, rainy days nearly every day of the week which meant some crazy kids by week's end (parents too!)  We had a surprise visit from Grandpa and Grandma on Thursday night, where we chatted outside from a distance while the kids played.  Grandpa and Grandma brought us some frozen chicken and left with some hand sewn face masks.

Friday evening, we did our usual zoom and a movie for the kids followed by a few hours of Zoom with our friends.  Saturday was a nicer day so we got some things done around the house, including planting a few early season vegetables in the garden (onions, beets, carrots, lettuce and spinach) as well as some grass seed on the poor torn up stretch of yard that has taken a beating from construction and driveway work the past two years and was very thin and mostly mud.  We are hopeful for a nice green patch of grass to appear in a few weeks!  At dinner time, we loaded up and headed to Hilliards for a pig roast meal that we had pre-ordered to pick up and go.  We ran into our friends the Sebrights, so we parked at a school and distance enjoyed a meal and let the kids run around for a bit.

Our 7th Sunday doing home church, we went through the websites and watched the videos and messages from our living room.   After lunch and a Zoom meeting with the Westrates, we headed out into the beautifully sunny spring day of warmer weather, loaded our kids up and met up with our friends to grab some Elephant Ears from a food truck in Dumont before driving to the Allegan Dam for some fresh air and distance hanging out in nature.  The kids had a great time searching for, climbing on and tossing rocks into the river.

The adults enjoyed the blue skies, budding trees, fresh air and warm sunshine as we chatted together in real life for the first time in way too long!  It was hard not to be closer together, but just being out and doing something with our friends in the same place was therapeutic!

With another executive order on Friday extending our Stay Home order until May 15th, we are in this a while longer as the virus seems to be settling down some in Michigan, yet beginning to rise in our area of the state.  We keep doing what we can to stay home and safe, buying everything possible online, learning to wait weeks for what used to come in days and anticipating the release that will allow us to timidly get back together with close friends and family.

Spring or Winter?: Coronavirus Week 5

We didn't do much aside from stay home and do school and work, not surprisingly!

 Tuesday evening, we did leave the house for a little while in order to help celebrate a birthday for Bella, a friend of our kids and the daughter of a dear friend.  We lined up with many other vehicles at a time arranged by her mom and then paraded past her house with a sign and balloons and honking horns shouting Happy Birthday to her as we drove by!  It was fun for all of us to get out, celebrate, see our friends from a distance, and break up our time at home.

 After the drive by, we met up with our friends the Sebrights and Poldermans for a distanced conversation in some very chilly air.

 It was good to see so many friends live, instead of on a screen, and it made us miss them even more!

The majority of our week was wet and snowy, so the kids were inside more than out.  It was windy, chilly and the snow very wet if it did stick or melted into puddles if it didn't, but cold and yucky all the same.  We did our schooling and work for the week, mixed in some MOPS meetings on Zoom and were glad for the weekend to arrive, if for nothing more than the anticipation of time with friends.

Friday evening, we got the kids set up in their bedroom with a movie, this time upgrading to two computers so they could watch Disney+ on one laptop (our school computer) while zooming with their friends so they could talk and see one another on the other laptop (Daddy's work computer).  It worked out great!  Then we got ourselves connected on a third laptop (Mommy's computer), so we could chat the night away with our friends.  We had some fun and laughs during the hours we had together, chatted about the goings on in the state and world around us, and shared dismay at the continued distance we have to maintain.  We are all so eager to be able to be with one another again, but also understanding of the need for the distance and grateful for our health.

 Saturday, the girls and I set to the task of making a batch of masks in anticipation of needing them for future outings as the regulations begin to hopefully lift.  With the help of all three girls we cut fabric, wire and rope for 12 child masks and 13 adult masks, then set to the task of sewing them together one at a time.  The girls were eager to help make their own.

We got through a set of child masks for our family as well as a couple of adult masks before calling a time out on the sewing for the day.  Sunday, I set to finishing a mask each for Becky, Christine, Uncle Mike, Aunt Kerri, Aubrey and Wesley, a second set of masks for Opa & Oma, and a couple each for Grandpa & Grandma, .  We still need to finish a second set for our family to have spares, but are in a good place should we need to wear them.  

It sure is a crazy time we are living in right now, but we are making the best of it and using our resources to share blessings and help with others around us, thankful that we have the ability to do so.

Happy Easter! (Coronavirus Week 4)

Last week was Spring Break for us, and the week started out with some beautiful weather!  We enjoyed a couple of days of warm, sunny days that afforded us the chance to play outside, work in the gardens, clean up the yard, picnic, and even have ice cream cones and S'mores!

 We noticed that the park across the street was roped off early in the week, however, yet another sign of the very different world around us right now.  We are on week 4 of our state mandated stay home order.  This week, our governor has extended the Stay-home order, which was set to expire next week, to the end of April.

 Tierney got to open another birthday gift this week, a cute unicorn apron and chef hat from Travis and Emmett, and she thought it was pretty great!

There have been a pair of Turkey Vultures hanging around our neighborhood lately, so one evening we walked a street over to where they were sitting high up in a tree, just to get a closer look.  

As is usual, life here is unpredictable, and this past week was no different.  We ended up with a stray kitty hanging around starting last Sunday night.  The girls played with him all day Monday and named him Frisky.  He didn't seem too motivated to move very far and wasn't into food much, but he was so friendly.  Tuesday, he was allowed into our  back porch in a kennel due to his questionable state and the incoming rain.  When he did not improve Tuesday and sheltered in through a storm again that night, I agreed to take him to our vet for a quick check to make sure there wasn't something obviously wrong.  This meant a new process because with the coronavirus scare, we are not allowed into the vet office.  Instead, payments are made over the phone, a tech came out to get the cat and he stayed until the vet had looked him over and run a couple of tests, then called that afternoon with the news.  Then we returned to get him again.  As far as could be known with basic testing, he was cat disease free and seemingly healthy.  

We made arrangements with my sister for him to be a new resident at their house and, after another day with us, we met Kerri and her kids to exchange the cat on Friday.

Friday was Good Friday, as this was Holy Week.  Since we could not attend a church service, we made a point of celebrating with our kids.  Thursday, the girls and I baked unlevened bread.  After dinner on Friday, we read scripture and took communion together - our bread and grape juice!  Then we watched our church Good Friday service online.

That night, the kids had another Netflix Party movie watching hang out time remotely and then were off to bed, after which we connected with our friends for our weekly Friday Night fun that has been forced into Zoom meetings right now.  Still, it is good to be able to see and spend time with our friends in any way we can right now!  Even Tobi wanted in on it!

 Saturday morning, the kids were eager to decorate eggs!

 Sunday, they woke to find their Easter baskets (with minimal items inside) and eggs hidden all around the house.  The girls were so excited to wear their new Easter dresses that they had gotten themselves and their dolls changed into them before they even left their room in the morning.

 They were eager to see what was in those baskets first!

 

They each got a chocolate bunny, Elam got a new Thomas t-shirt and the girls each matching nightgowns with matching nightgowns for their dolls too, which they all thought was pretty great!  Then it was a mad dash to find the eggs!

Following the hunt, they were excited to discover the treasures in the eggs.  I had fortunately grabbed some Easter candy on impulse on my last shopping trip, right before the madness set in.

Once the eggs were sorted and the treasures inspected, we got ready for church, all of us getting dressed up.  Then we headed outside for some pictures.

 Following the pictures, it was time for church!  Our 5th Sunday at home, not the same at all, and the only time I can ever remember not being in a church on Easter, it did not matter because Easter still came and we still recognized the celebration worthy day!  We watched our pastor, and then the kids watched their children's worship program

 Though we could not be with our extended family on Easter, and we were disappointed to be missing the fun that would have happened at Great Grandma's, we did our best to have a nice meal at home and enjoy our day.  We had ham, mashed potatoes, peas, deviled eggs and Easter shaped cookies on our fancy china dishes!

 Sunday afternoon, we headed outside for a while to enjoy a bit of warm weather before returning inside to watch Frozen 2 with the kids.  They were so excited to see the movie, and to wear their new matching pajamas.  When Elam saw that the girls had their dolls all dressed up and ready for bed, he had to have his baby too!

Things around the world are still crazy, things in our state are chaotic and divided, but our family is healthy and weathering this storm with hope.  It's hard to be away from friends and to not have the luxury to go places, but we are grateful for applications like Zoom that enable us to connect with friends, family, even my MOPS group weekly.  We've had to cancel plans for a surprise trip to Chicago - our hotel has actually canceled on us due to extended time of unknown with this virus.  There is always a reason to be discouraged, but if we look, there are plenty more reasons to be happy and realize our blessings.