Pandemic

This was the first week that the COVID-19 / Coronavirus pandemic impacted our lives.  On Wednesday I went on a school field trip with Luke's class and things were pretty normal. I remember I got a haircut and stopped by Whole Foods on the way home, and didn't think anything of it.  Then Thursday there was talk about schools closing, and then Friday the announcement came that school was not going to take place on Friday, and they wouldn't be going back for the foreseeable future.  I thought it would be a few days, maybe a week.  We did not know then that they would not return to school again for that whole academic year.  That first week the kids started e-learning and Matt took over their education:)

The night of Luke's class field trip was also the night that we decided to cancel our Spring Break trip to Florida because of at-risk family members.  It was such a tough decision, it felt surreal.  I also cancelled my girls' trip to Minneapolis that was supposed to be the weekend of March 14th.  So many things we had been looking forward to for so long just vanished, and all that was left was staying home in the yucky March weather and working from home.  Bad timing, but I had a cold (mostly just a bad sore throat and some congestion, no fever or cough) start that week, too!  I was unsure if my cold was actually COVID, so I had already started working from home/quarantining before Abbott mandated everyone work from home.  I basically starting quarantining on Thursday, March 11th and we would stay pretty quarantined until probably mid-May.    Matt even did all the shopping because I didn't want to leave the house (whatta guy!).  That Whole Foods stop on March 10th was my swan song of in-person shopping for months.

I can't say I had ever thought about being in a global pandemic before, but it seemed to go from 1 to 100 in a matter of days, despite hearing about it from over in China for months before that.  As I write this post it is early August, and while things have improved, it definitely is not behind us.

Quarantine uniform

Baking my friend Hannah's world famous chocolate bundt cake

Puzzling at the lake house - it has been so nice to have a change of scenery to go to during the quarantine

Legos

This week Matt bought a new car!  It is a newer model of the same car already he has, a black GMC Acadia, so he sold his old one and got the new one.  They look identical, but this one has less miles and isn't having problems with its transmission!  It is the last year that GMC kept 3 seats in the third row, so was highly coveted for that.

Requested a "sibling pic" of their Cherokee spirit wear for the yearbook comittee

Kids doing e-learning while Matt does his work from the kitchen table - I took over his office with my endless video conference calls.

E-learning wellness class

My Zoom capabilities weren't quite dialed in on my laptop at the beginning of the pandemic, so I would have to take  Zoom calls on why phone for full day workshops.

Celebrating St. Patty's Day at home

Green Water (I'm hoping??)