Easter 2020

Easter this year was unlike any Easter of the past, obviously.  Being at home for Easter was bittersweet.  On one hand, we are still healthy and safe here in our home, we have all we need, and the reason we celebrate Easter has not changed.  On the other hand, we always look forward to spending Easter with family.  We enjoy going to church and then having food and fun with the rest of the family, most often at Mouse and Pops house, afterwards.  So, while we weren’t able to spend the day with family, we did try to make it fun/special at home.  Mark made delicious homemade cinnamon rolls, and I made a broccoli and bacon quiche, and we watched church online on our TV screen then had our own version of an egg hunt.

 

We decided this year to have Nina go out first and hide eggs for Lyla, then once Lyla found all her eggs, she went out and hid the eggs for Nina to hunt for.  They enjoyed hiding the eggs for each other and trailing the other around, ensuring they found everything.

   

 

 

  

 

  

Of course, Cayenne had to have her egg hunt. This got started a couple years ago after she snipered off the kids’ eggs during their egg hunts at Mousey and Poppy’s house.  We have to leave her inside (much to her dismay) while the kids do their hunt.  She whines and cries inside, but once they’re done, we filled some eggs with chicken jerky pieces, and Nina and Lyla hid them for her.  She’s got such a good nose that she sniffs out the eggs, opens them with her mouth, and gets the chicken jerky from the inside.  It’s very cute and she loves it, and no, she’s not spoiled at all! 

  

  

 

April at Home

While the “stay at home” order rolls on, sadly life at home is becoming the new normal.  It doesn’t feel as strange to be home all day.  That’s not to say I like it.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m very very excited for the day when we get back to normal again, but I guess after a month of this routine, it feels like what we expect versus something brand new.  The kids are settling into “Distance Learning” and we continue to be thankful that it’s spring.  The ability to get outside to enjoy some fresh air, take walks, or do activity are sanity for everyone.  

Lyla should be in the prime time of the spring soccer season right now.  While her coach has been active in communicating with the girls and giving them “assignments” to work on, she/we miss seeing all the girls in person.  We miss that interaction and watching them play together on the weekends.  We’re not sure if there will be any official soccer or not before the fall season, but we’re hopeful the team will be able to reconnect again.

  

Nina’s outdoor track season may also likely be scrapped.  We’ve heard from the club that they are hopeful to have some sort of outdoor season, but with most (if not all) facilities, school, etc. off limits through the first part of June, that may be unlikely.  She enjoys skateboarding for fun, and she’s been working out with her homemade hurdles some, and jogging some, but she really misses the chance to work on high jump.  At her last meet, she got her PR of 4’8” in high jump and was so looking forward to continuing to build on that, but that meet was the last opportunity she had.  Sadly, everything shut down right after.   So, like Lyla’s situation, we’d love to see the track team back together again this season, but everything in the world is to be determined at this point, so we’ll just wait and see.

 

Cayenne is still loving pandemic life.  She is happy to have us all home all day and is loving the walks and time outside or inside with the family.  As long as she’s getting attention, she doesn’t really care what else is happening in life!

We did get to see the beautiful Pink Moon Supermoon at the end of the first week of April.  It was the closest that the moon would be to earth, and it was easily the most first-hand detail I’ve ever been able to see of the moon.  It was beautiful!

When we are stuck inside, we’ve managed to crank out a couple puzzles.  I would definitely not consider us “puzzle people” before this whole pandemic, but at the start of it when we got wind that we’d be spending a lot of time at home, I ordered a couple neat looking puzzles.  We had to wait awhile for them to be delivered (seems I wasn’t the only one with this idea), but after completing an old 750 piece dog puzzle that the girls had on hand, we graduated to the 1000 piece Mustang puzzle, and followed that up with our first 2000 piece Route 66 puzzle.  That one was a ton of fun, and we have all really enjoyed having something to work on together.  We have one more 1000 piece puzzle to complete, then I guess we’ll have to start back at the beginning and do them all over again.  

 

I snapped with picture with my phone as Nina was chatting with me and scooting back and forth on her skateboard, but I think it fits her perfectly.  It’s hard to believe that when this girl heads back to school, it’s going to be to high school!  That thought just blows my mind (and scares me a bit as well)! I’m sad that there will be so many things she’ll miss out on to close out her 8th grade year.   Her class had a fun trip to Kings Dominion planned for next week, they had their Independence High School tour day to look forward to, the 8th grade awards, and as an Ambassador, she got to induct the next round of kids for next year’s 8th Grade Ambassadors, etc.  While there are many things she is bummed to miss out on, my hope is that things will have returned to normal by the start of school in the fall, and all the kids can at least get a fresh start into the new school year.  

However, most importantly, we are all heathy and safe at the moment, and that is the most important thing, so we’ll try our best to let go of what we can’t control and try to make the best of this situation and the time we have.

 

Social Distancing Life

It’s been a couple weeks now since we’ve been social distancing.  It’s taken some adjustment, but we’re starting to settle into the feeling of it all now.  Mark is working from home, I’m no longer teaching (the gyms are closed), and the girls are now dialed into Distance Learning as of this week.  While I really miss life as it was before COVID-19, I try not to think about all the things we’re missing too much.  Since it’s out of our control, there’s not much we can do but accept the situation we’re in and try to make the best of it one day at a time.  The girls do miss their sports, activities, friends, school, and family, but we’ve been doing out best to make some fun in the new life of social distancing.  

 

Mark has been taking the girls out fishing, and for the most part, they’ve had success catching fish.  Our neighborhood has several ponds where they can go and keep their distance from others, so that has been a nice diversion.  It helps us to get outside as much as we can.  Sometimes the girls and I will go on jogs, and every day we’re at least getting out to fish, play, jog, or walk.  Cayenne has been living her best life (as all dogs, I’m sure) with the family at home.  She’s constantly surrounded by people and attention, and she’s more than happy to have this go on forever!  The only thing she doesn’t like is when we work on puzzles.  Because she can’t see what we’re doing at the table, she’s not a part, and nobody is paying attention to her, she has been whinining or acting out when we do puzzles.  Such a high maintance dog, this one!

   

   

One of the fun activities that the girls did was a baking challenge.  Given just the items we had in the house, they had to make something creative and tasty.  Mark and I were the “judges” and got to take the first crack at taste testing the creations.  Nina made brownie s’mores cupcakes, and Lyla made brownie chocolate bundt cakes with a small side of ice cream.  While our waisteline can’t take too many of these type of challenges, they certainly were fun and tasty!

  

  

Other than walks and jogs, we have been playing badminton and volleyball in the back yard.  One sad thing about the pandemic hitting in spring is that we’re not able to venture out and do/see all the spring things we’d like, however I’m thankful that this isn’t hitting in the dead of winter when it’s hard to spend much time outside.  Having the sun shining, some warm days, and longer daylight certainly helps lift my spirits even when we’re staying home.

  

So, while the pictures aren’t great (because I took them all with my phone), and the activities aren’t terribly exciting, it still feels good to keep track of our days right now.  Hopefully someday in in the not-so-long future, we’ll be out of this time of isolation, and when we are, I think we’ll appreciate all the activities, sports, connections, outings, etc. that we took for granted in the past.  In the meantime, we’ll do our best to enjoy today, our health, our family, and make the most of the opportunities we’re given.