Sunday, April 5, 2020

COVID 19: Week Two

Week two came and we were ready for a full week of home at school and home for work. 
We were just getting off of spring break so our school wasn't quite ready for sending us assignments to the kids. So I took it upon myself to become a teacher. And we started our school schedule from 10am-2pm. It was flexible to things going on around us, but it has worked for us very well. 

For science one day we made these nature bracelets and we had a lesson on plants and flowers. It was a lot of fun and it was a huge hit with the kids. 



I'm so grateful that we have had good weather! We have been able to play outside a lot and that includes swimsuits and water balloons. The sun and out doors have been our saving grace. 

Someone on our neighborhood page asked anyone if they had any puzzles. Well turns out Dan and I love to puzzle and we have saved all of them. So we started a puzzle library with our neighbors. We have a return box so the puzzles can be sanitized and safe for the next person. It has been a huge hit. Others have started adding their puzzles and people have been returning and taking new ones too. It's been a lot of fun! 

I'm not hating the more family time! 

Our church has called home a lot of missionaries due to COVID-19. This picture I thought was really cool!! 

The second week we started getting baseball practice in 

And June and Kate's dance studio started live dance classes. 

Our official order to Shelter in Place 


Our Shelter in Place didn't start until Wednesday, thankfully our teachers scheduled a Teacher Parade through all the neighborhoods to see all the kiddos. Hanging out in our cup-de-sac with our neighbors and watching the parade. 

Honestly I was holding it together pretty good with all of this, until I saw the teachers and seeing how much the kids missed them. I started crying and I genuinely couldn't stop. It all just came crashing down that this is reality. 

Owen made this picture for his teacher as she drove by. 

And on the back was a broken heart because he is sad that he can't go to school. He misses his teacher and friends so much. 

Home school projects. These were for Kate but the older kids ended up loving them too. 

We did a fun science project with the kids where we grew hot ice with vinegar and baking soda. The first time it didn't work but the second attempt totally did!! It was awesome! 



My friends have a group chat and we have been chatting up a storm simply because we can't see each other in person and its awful. Especially when we see each other basically everyday and spend the weekends together. Always so we send each other funny things and this one was sent. I thought it was pretty funny! 

No Quarantine is going to stop Dan from getting his blizzard of the month. So we had to go drive like a half hour to get it. This picture is proof to his co-workers that he got one this month.

Owen and his little bestie Max have been exchanging fun things in the mail. Max made Owen this little house with a note. 

My workouts have been in my yoga room everyday now, and everyday Ranger comes in and joins me. Hahaha he's so chill. 

One Friday we went up to Mineral Wells and went digging for fossils. It was a nice afternoon to get out of the house and have a different view! 




















Working from home has been rough! 

We got our garden going for the summer!

Little Kate has no fear when it comes to bugs or critters. She loves picking them up and playing with them. We found a lot of worms in our soil and she was in heaven. She was beside herself with excitement and played with those worms all afternoon. I was grossed out the entire time. Haha 


 New's article Titles for the week. 

Coronavirus count for this week 


We decided to have a backyard campout and it was a lot of fun. We put up our big tent, had a fire and enjoyed the night. We had hotdogs and smokes and just enjoyed the night together. 




The kids did great! Owen, June and Dan slept through the night in the tent, Kate woke up around 2:30am and was cold and scared so I ended up taking her inside. I had no complaints. Haha I was grateful to get into our bed. 

Each week with our Come Follow Me we have a board that we write the theme of the week on to help us remember what we should be focusing on. This week was Owen's turn to write it and I loved his art work on the board too. 

We started a quarantine chain and each day we add a link. We are excited to see how long it gets through all of this! 

And there we have week two. We fell into a pretty good rhythm and things seemed to find its pace. We thought that this was all going to end soon....

We thought wrong. 

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Coronavirus Week One

I am trying to document everything that I possibly can regarding the affect COVID-19 has had on us personally as a family. 

I want this to be a record of all that happened to us during this insanely crazy time. So let's start from the beginning. 

A type of virus, a strand of Coronavirus attached Wuhan, China in December 2019. It honestly didn't make us worry, or turn to the headlines/news too much regarding this virus. As it became more serious the beginning of January, things started to appear more on our news but nothing too crazy. 

It wasn't until the beginning of March when things started getting really weird and then it just felt like everything escalated by 1000 overnight. It was a whirlwind to watch our Country, The United States of America be taken over. Economically, emotionally, physically. It hit everywhere. But I'm here to take it slow and go week by week. 

So lets start the week of March 12th. Things started getting more serious then, as June and I had a trip planned for San Francisco, but because of COVID-19 San Francisco basically shut down, so we canceled our trip. We were super bummed, but in all honesty we thought it would not escalate from there.


The kids were still on spring break, and we received this email from the school district. It was big news. We couldn't believe that school would be held off for another week and a half. Haha how naive we were! 

So we continued on with our spring break, we played, built forts and did our thing for the next few days. 


Things then just escalated from there. EVERYTHING was getting canceled. Our rec center, our gyms, everything was beginning to close down. We thought that was it. NOPE! 




Item's started flying off the shelves, like Clorox Wipes, hand sanitize and toilet paper. Holy moly the toilet paper situation got OUT OF CONTROL!!! Thankfully Dan and I had done a Costco run the Friday before all this went down and stocked up! 

I also found some small bottle of hand sanitizer. 

Everyday we went to the stores looking for things. One day my friends and I were at the store and saw them stocking up on Clorox wipes. So we each grabbed some. 

I couldn't believe all the weights were gone from this! 

One of my shopping adventures I ended up with a big bottle of sanitizer  but gave it to a friend. We had plenty and they didn't have any. 

Lines for food got longer and things were become short on supply. It was grab as you saw because you didn't know when you would see it again. 



Then things really started escalating! We soon were asked to not be in larger groups than 10. 

And Dan officially started work from home. 

After spring break I knew it was on me to get the kids back on a schedule and get back to school work. Our teachers at the time were working on getting curriculum to us, but for the time being I taught what I could to these kiddos. It made me so grateful for teachers!!! HOLY COW!!! It's so much stress and work and I felt completely overwhelmed by the task. 

We have enjoyed having Dan home and we have had such beautiful weather so it helps letting the kids get outside and run around, ride bikes and play at the ponds behind our house. 

We did our first baking lesson with my mom over ZOOM. It was a lot of fun and we got to do it with cousins too. I think the kids enjoyed talking to their cousins and making bread. 


I just liked this. 

One morning a few of my gal pals and I headed to Costco EARLY to get a few essential items. (PRE-LOCKDOWN ) The line was clear back by the other store! We couldn't believe it!! SO SO CRAZY!!! 

We stocked up really good and found some essentials! 


That was the end of week one. 
Things started to go down hill even more after this!