Trying to Keep It Together: Coronavirus Week 9

To sum it up in 4 words, "We Are Over This"!!!  The days feel like they are getting longer and the patience shorter here as we wait yet another week for life outside our home to resume.  We learned this week that the Hopkins July 4th activities have been canceled this year, and it just makes everything seem more frustrating.  We've canceled a major out of state trip for Memorial Day weekend, our annual Thomas outing has been canceled in both venues within Michigan, the Newsboys concert that was set for April has been rescheduled to August, hopefully (we are preparing for disappointment on that front yet), camping in established places we frequent looks questionable for the year, and with the cancellation of our hometown 4th activities, it was hard not to get more discouraged.  Even the kids are frustrated with all of this.  More than anything, they just want to play with their friends and then maybe go somewhere fun.

While we wait for the situation to improve to the point we can begin being around people a little more, we have continued to work on school (1 week left!) and fill time with the Lego challenges being exchanged between our kids and their friends Travis & Emmett.  Last week, one of the challenges was to build a tall tower!

 We made a couple of trips last week for produce boxes from a local farm in Byron Center and have really enjoyed and appreciated those fruits and veggies!  One of those trips left Elam asleep in the van.  He woke up as I moved him in to the house, only to fall asleep again after sitting down on the bench to take his boots off! 

 We had a couple of warm days last week, so we set to getting the gardens prepped and even planted some tomatoes, potatoes, melon starts and a few seeds like bean, zucchini, cucumber and peas.  We have quite a few plants and seeds to get in yet, but a weekend of rain halted that progress.

 The kids have created a new game with the Power Wheels and their Plasma Car.  The endless fun of towing one another up and down the street has been a source of giggles for quite a lot of time.

 Friday morning was the last official MOPS meeting of the 2019-2020 year.  For this meeting, we met virtually and painted together.  It was a lot of fun and the pictures all turned out so well!

 We baked some fresh Zucchini muffins this past week as well.  Elam is always wanting to be right in the middle of everything and insists on helping get the hot things out of the oven!  He gathers all the protective gear anytime he senses it might be time to get something out of the oven.

 Sunday was our 10th week of doing church at home.  This week, we all went for the lazy look.  It was rainy and cold outside and the energy level was pretty low, so we lounged as we watched a Minno kids church program before tuning in to watch our pastor.

 Sunday afternoon, we went all in on a fort project for the kids.  It took over the entire dining room!  Once set up, the girls quickly moved in.

They each made their own room and had all sorts of stuff packed in.  They were eager to spend the night in their fort as well, so we figured, "why not?"  We were surprised that, once they fell asleep, they stayed in the fort the entire night.  

Looking ahead to a wet, chilly start to next week with hopes for warm sunny weather later in the week and the promise of something fun to break up the monotony.