Day 47

The morning was spent wrapping up schoolwork for the week and enjoying some beautiful spring weather. Grant went to the farm with Pops in the evening to prepare for their fishing day Friday. Laks open back up May 1! But only two people to a boat! Ima had Elizabeth over to watch Yes to the Dress all night long!!

Brandon and I barely knew what to do! We had crab cakes and built a fire in our new solo stove. I still needed a heater next to me too but it was a lovely night.

Day 46

I woke to having a crazy vivid early morning dream. There was a boat and an RV and different families and a fork in the water and then an accident on the highway....this is why we should set alarms - the dream just kept going!

Next up I tried take Auggie for a walk...it started raining. I came home and noticed a shadow at the front door. I tried to tell myself it wasn't there but then I saw it fly away. I have a new flower arrangement on the front door and it was trying to build a nest. There wasn't very much to it so I picked it off and put a piece of foil in there. As I am writing this I see it come back. I go out again and it put more nesting stuff right on top of the foil. Apparently the foil doesn't bother them. I look out in the yard and there in the tree is a robin looking at me. Another bird staring at us trying to figure out why we are destroying their home! So I had a talk with the bird - I really hope no one was walking by or I might be deemed the "crazy lady". I know she needs a place to lay her eggs - but her and her brood will not be happy in a door that keeps opening and closing! BUILD A NEST IN A TREE!!

The weather didn't improve and we had a movie afternoon. That night the kids wanted to have a campout in the sunroom. Grant fell asleep first and then it was all over for Elizabeth and she struggled with where to sleep for the next hour, keeping us informed all along the way. This child needs to learn to fall sleep!

Day 74

Elizabeth has piano lessons at 10:00 and at 7:45 I announced that we were leaving the house in 15 minutes to go for a short morning hike. There was a new trail I wanted to try. This is pretty bold because 1) it was new 2) I still get lost easily 3) we were under a time constraint. It started off a little rocky because I drove to the wrong road, but it was all great after we got there! I really liked this place - maybe because it was new, maybe because it had well marked trails! (and I took a picture of the map!) There was water, hills, the sun was shining - all around great hike and we made it back in time for piano.

The afternoon was hot. The kids ran back and fourth between our pool and the neighbor's. The sounds of summer were in the hood.

Day 45

How can your day go wrong when it start with this:

Elizabeth asked for oatmeal as well and ironically enough I this picture popped up from 10 years ago of her eating oatmeal!

 The morning was spent on schoolwork and flower pot preparations. It is going to be BIG this year! I am talking diagrams, spreadsheets, sketches, research...now to manage the greenhouse - which makes me a little nervous.
It was a gorgeous day and perfect for riding. We feel like a horse naturally puts 6 feet between you so we have allowed her to go back to riding. She was pretty nervous ahead of time and didn't want much to eat, but once she got there she was just fine! She got to ride Jewels and had a super long lesson. Her instructor said it was time she graduated to a horse that was a bit more challenging. Sitting outside in the beautiful sunshine watching your daughter do what she loves was a perfect way to spend the afternoon. Best of all it included no google chats, hangouts or zoom calls. Brandon said he even worked outside for a bit.

It is spring and beautiful weather doesn't come without consequence...thunderstorms rolled in at about 5:00!

Day 44

A new school week! Grant was extra motivated to get his schoolwork done as we he was getting a special mowing lesson at the farm today. Elizabeth hopes of getting to see a horse today also keep her moving. So all in all the morning went really smooth.

In the afternoon I went to get met and to pick up a grocery order. The freedom of being in the car along with the music cranked was like a flashback to, well, non-quarantine times when I did this on a regular basis!

I came home and started sketching my flower plan for by window boxes and pots. When I asked Elizabeth why there was no pink colored pencil, without hesitation she said "Because you only buy me the 12 count, so I get red." Apparently there is no pink in the 12 pack. I will try to remember that next year when procuring school supplies.

Brandon grilled chops for us and after dinner he and Elizabeth tried to conquer the Oregon Trail! Yes there was dysentery, broken bones, dead ox and high waters! All five members made it!

Grant had a wonderful day at the farm. He told me about it once. Then I got Ima and Pops' version (very similar), plus he told me all about it again when I tucked him in. My mom always says, everyone loves being an only child! I think he was excited to leave the zip code too! I wish I had a picture of the smile on his face when they were pulling out of the driveway! He mowed, rode the 4 wheeler, prepped the boat and gear for fishing and he said "Pops and I talked". Melt my heart.

The rain came in and Elizabeth's horse hopes were put on hold until tomorrow...

Day 43

Well you don't get two lazy days in a row! We had to wake Elizabeth up for church! I made donut muffins and we had church service and then transitioned into work mode. I power washed pavers all morning and Brandon ground rust off a fence. This is why it was ok to be lazy! I had sand in my teeth - like I needed floss, sand in my teeth. Later when I showered I also discovered it other places. The afternoon was beautiful. A perfectly, partly sunny afternoon made for priming that fence!

That evening around the fire, we witnessed the most amazing thing in the sky. Grant was laying his head on my lap and was looking up at the sky and all of sudden started shouting "Oh my gosh, look at that! What is it?!" It was a perfectly straight line of lights way up in the sky passing over us. They had some space in between them. At first I shouted, "is it Morse code?" and then asked "Is this in the book of Revelations" because I thought maybe this is it and the world really is ending. We tried to capture a picture or video but it didn't work. More amazingly is that within 5 minutes we researched what this strange sight was. Not so amazing, Grant was also sound asleep!

Elon Musk (owner or Tesla) has launched satellites into orbit as part of his SpaceX program and quest for internet to everyone, everywhere. What we saw were about 40 satellites, 340 miles above us, moving at speeds of 17,000 miles and hour - all in a perfect line (orbit). It was so crazy to see this and have no idea what it was!

With all that spring rain we get the beauty or things in bloom. A few signs of spring:

Day 42

It started raining last evening and DID NOT STOP ALL DAY! We got up and had breakfast and then all piled back in bed! It was perfect and we hadn't done that in ages. Around 11 (yes we were bums) we emerged and showered. We had a bite to eat - lots of yummy leftovers and then decided to start a new Amazing Race. We watched about 6 episodes of that! (yes super lazy!). We grabbed sushi and burgers for dinner - it took forever but I didn't have to cook so it was ok! And yes it was still raining. We watched two more episodes and when we emerged this time the rain had stopped and it was time to go to bed! Sometimes we need these rainy days to re-charge! When we went to bed I said "why am I tired, we literally did nothing today!" Maybe it's my age :)

Grant's peached posted these pictures of his classroom. She went in and packed them all up. Not the way you want to close out a school year. We don't have any big milestones, like graduations, but this was Grant's last year at the primary school. Next year he moves to the intermediate school. 

Day 41

It might be day 41 of quarantine, but it's 40 years of me being alive :) A birthday to remember for sure. I woke up at 6, thinking I heard Auggie throwing up. That sounds really jolts you out of bed. Luckily she was not sick. Brandon and I went down to sit outside for coffee. Grant joined us. Elizabeth is starting to get the hang of sleeping in. We had a quiet morning. Brandon worked in the morning but took the afternoon off. The kids had about 10 minutes of school work to complete. I made pancakes, had a few birthday phone calls and then cuddled up on the couch. It was rainy and dreary - cloudy most of the day. I think I actually fell back asleep on the couch!

We treated ourselves to lunch out. I went and picked up Michael's. After lunch we played Blockus - a game we hadn't played in a long time. Then I remembered why! Brandon is really good at it - despite it having colored pieces.

We had firewood delivered the day before and it needed to moved to the backyard. It wasn't raining while we played our games, but when we went to move the wood it was a constant drizzle- if not more. At one point the whole pile fell over - on my watch. I was the stacker, Brandon was on the transport side. He was very calm and patient and helped me restack it. Our work was interrupted by a surprise flower delivery and birthday serenade.

I had another surprise visit in the afternoon - the kind were we all stand 6 feet a part outside and you don't get to hug!

My parents brought over dinner and a friend had made dessert for me. We had steak and chicken kabobs, Gruyere au gratins and green beans. After dinner I was surprised with a few more visitors to wish me happy birthday.  It was a lovely day and 40 is just a number!

Day 40

Last day of school for the kids this week. They worked on their schoolwork in the morning. Elizabeth entered an art contest at school. We planted herbs in the afternoon. I had a special delivery of NY cheesecake from my brother. I had to try a piece before bedtime! It was a pretty quiet day.

Day 39

 We started the morning with a math lesson with Daddy. It was all about edges - best illustrated using a Rubix cube.

 Brandon and my Dad created the moment they were supposed to be having in Scotland. My mom and I worked on the fence all afternoon. My dad came over and joined us later. When Brandon finished working he grilled burgers. It was a really pretty evening to be outside and we had our first dinner outside of the year.

The official location of Fire Club meetings

Day 38

The debate all day long was if the kids could read for their 30 mins in the tree. Can we climb the tree?  Can we do this in the tree?.... Do you know what happens when you kids don't have friends to play with. You join their made up fire club. I don't like imaginary play. I would play board games all day long...house, puppy, school, not so much. But after your 11 year old can only handle so much fake fire you step in get inducted into the fire club. Yes Grant made up the Fire Club. No there is no fire. At first he thought I was too old - you had to be less than 25, but since enrollment was down he decided to make an exception. Remember that pile of rocks that I gave the kids to move? Well I did with them what I wanted (see pictures below) but there were still quite a bit leftover. I thought it might be fun for them to stack the rocks. We had seen that by the lake in Michigan last summer. Grant wanted to make a fire ring and thus the Fire Club was born. What does one have to do to enter the Fire Club? 1) Toss 10 rocks into the "ring of fire" which is a pile of rocks, which mean they bounce off and it is actually quite hard. 2) Make a rock stand up to look a like a flame 3) Match two rocks together 4) Push the kids really high in the swing (I think they just wanted me to push them in the swing!)

My zen rock garden...it could also represent different homes - separate yet still connected

Lots of math today for Grant!

They did their schoolwork in the morning really well. Elizabeth's was a little light. Grant is doing better taking his class chats in an upright position. I actually left the house and ran errands, which seemed really weird. I went to the bank, Walgreens and the greenhouse and never got out of my car.

The request for dinner was meatballs. Luckily I had some in the freezer from when I made a batch last time. We have had tomato plants in the past and I started making homemade tomato sauce. However, last year because of the move we didn't have any and I am very concerned about the wildlife having a buffet if we create a garden here. I have found the San Marzan tomatoes are the best. A few months ago when we were in Eatly (wow when we used to be able to go places!) in Chicago we bought canned whole san marzan tomatoes. Well Brandon found some at Costco. He sent me a picture and asked how many I wanted. I said 6. They were #10 size cans! So we opened one of those up and worked on our homemade sauce - with non-home grown tomatoes. And all I can say, there is no reason for us plant tomatoes!

At 6:30 we said - wow this is too early for dinner. So Brandon and I walked around the yard looking at the landscaping, progress and beauty!

We ate at 7:30 :)

Grant just informed me there is a Fire Club meeting tomorrow at 3:30 - he hopes I can make it!

Eb figured out how to stack them. Also representing family togetherness...yet social distancing   

Brandon caved and said -Go climb the tree!

Pici bread with homemade sauce!

Day 37

Back to school. I am so grateful that for the most part the kids don't fight me on their school work. Grant was not loving his reading today, but he got it done. We even bookmarked those google hangouts so we are good to go now on that! As far as Monday mornings go it was good. They get up and get dressed and get started and know what they need to do. It also helps that the afternoon was nice and it is always extra motivation to get work done so they can have outside time. Poor Auggie has to get her naps in the morning because the afternoons are just too busy and she doesn't get a moments rest! She basically has her breakfast bone and then curls up on the couch for a morning snooze!

Around lunch my parents came over to help with some outside work. My mom has special rose gloves and she helped show me how to trim my rose bushes. Every time we turned around there was another rose bush. It took several hours. Of course there may have been a few other distractions like reorganizing the lawn ornaments (or scaling back). Once you have moved a gazing globe five times and it still doesn't look right, take the hint.... I was able to order herbs from the greenhouse for curbside pick up so I am excited to get those tomorrow.

Ordering herbs online - that is a lot of Thyme!

The kids spent much of the afternoon debating the point system from the previous day's fitness challenge. Grant would come out and complain and I just put his muscles to work - moving some of the heavier yard ornaments! At one point I had a pile of rocks that needed to be moved and I told them they could each pick out 1 rock to paint if they loaded them all up in the wagon. Before they started they said, "how many rocks do we get?" I caved and said two. They loaded the whole wagon and didn't complain once....for 2 rocks each. I am convinced this manual labor and outside work I make them do is starting to work - building some work ethic!

At 5:00 I thought it was quitting time...we had been trimming and hacking and rearranging the yard for almost 5 hours. Dad had been grinding on the fence and B had joined him after his day had wrapped up. Pops announced he was ready for his primers. (Fence project: grind, wipe, prime, wait 24 hours, wipe, paint, paint again - I should make a song out of this project). I looked at the kids and the chicken breasts that were thawing. Our standing joke is that eat dinner at 8:00, which is a poke at my family's traditionally late dinners! "Hey kids do you want to play Chopped? You have two chicken breasts and anything else you can find!" They really wanted to climb the tree in the front yard some more. It was making me a bit nervous. I don't want a trip to the ER for broken bones. I looked right at Elizabeth and said "Ms. I've broken 3 bones!" She started tell me how none of those were her fault. And this would be the tree's fault. Go play in the ravine. I've never let them play in there before. Last year there was too much water. Today seemed like a good day to go explore. Apparently it is pretty steep. Elizabeth slid going down and caught some roots on her hip and they weren't sure how they were going to get back up, but they figured it all out and still managed to make us dinner! We had chicken tacos and homemade dinner rolls. We ate at 8:00 and we watch the LegoMasters finale while we ate. We don't ever have the TV on during dinner. They did such a good job. More sunshine ahead.

Day 36

The fitness challenge started with alarms going off at 6:50 am. Well technically the house alarm went off at 2:00 am (faulty sensor) and a charlie horse cramp at 6. The kids had a schedule from 7:00 am to 3:30pm. They were awesome. They rode bikes, ran, walked the dog, took breaks, played basketball. Mom and Dad come over to help paint and we ended up running out of paint so we took advantage of the warm sunshine and sat outside and had a drink and just socialized...like normal, non-fence repairing people. We need more of this!!

Dinner was pick up from Buffalo Wild Wings, which Brandon gave very low scores to for their social distancing.

Monday is back to school so a quick hot tub soak and to bed for all. I was in bed at 8:30.

Day 35

Weather is turning springish...which means worked all day on the fence. The kids worked with their cousins on creating a fitness challenge for Sunday.

We had a two hour virtual cocktail hour with Arizona and Chicago. I made part II of our wedding dinner...Chicken Boursin, rice and broccoli. Brandon bought a really big bag of broccoli...broccoli is our vegetable until it is all gone.

We sat down for dinner at 8:45. I kid you not, this is getting really out of hand. But we are working hard during the daylight!

Day 34

No school today - it is a teacher planning day! Normally this might ruffle my feathers but honestly waking up and only having to worry about my cup of coffee and not how to enter one more Google chat made for a very pleasant morning! Plus I got to wake up next to my husband of 16 years and the snow falling. I think that is a first on our anniversary. Not sure we got even an inch so major winter storm disappointment there. As someone said, the kids can't even get a decent snow day!

We played some Mario (Mario 2 is now my obsession). Elizabeth slept in. We reheated some of the donuts we made a few weeks ago. I took the kids downstairs and led them in a work out. That was a lot of fun...(insert eye roll). They wanted to get in the hot tub - sure what the heck. We then showered and it was time for lunch.

Horrible picture quality...but in case you needed a reminder of what Mario 2 looks like!

I am not sure Brandon and I have ever had an anniversary lunch together on a Friday. We dined on...wait for it... chicken nuggets and cheese quesadillas. Why are we eating like toddlers? Well there might have been an adult beverage consumed to make up for it.

In unrelated news...I ate the last of the quarantine peanut M&Ms

The rumors have started circulating that at our governor's press conference this afternoon school will be closed for the rest of the year. So we are tuning in at 2:30 for the new...stay tuned. I did prep the kids. Elizabeth was upset. Grant seemed happy to stay home with me. He then ran to the bathroom and I thought he was maybe really upset - no he just needed to blow his nose. Ok drama over...until the announcement anyway.

Ok so now school if officially out until the fall - which by the way is a late start for us anyway due to construction. So school is out until September. I can't even wrap my mind around 4 MORE months away from school.

Tonight we created part I of our anniversary dinner- Steak, twice baked potatoes, broccoli. The kids made brownie sundaes. We played a game, sat in the hot tub....are our evenings beginining to sound a bit repeatitive?

Happy 16th anniversary babe!

Day 33

Thursday is garbage day. We have a double decker bird's nest outside our back door. The apartment complex and one by the pergola. Now we also have these adorable turtle doves that we have named Cooie and Louie. I like them. They don't make messes. However, it was brought to my attention that bird nests attract mice. I do not like mice. I asked Brandon to check for eggs and as long as there were none to please take the nests down and put them out with the trash. Within 30 mins of their removal Cooie and Louis were on the deck rail staring in at Brandon through his office window! As if they are saying, "Really, you took down all of our homes?! And weather prediction is 4-8 inches of snow tomorrow? Really?!". The kids were not too happy. I had to tell them that we were helping make smarter birds by encouraging them to build their nests in a safer space - like a TREE!!

Cooie and Louie

 Today was make your stairway safer day at our house. We had a carpet runner installed on the upstairs staircase and in the evening Brandon applied a treatment to the basement staircase to help with slips. We have had a few accidents in the past...hoping this helps. Ironically since we have all been home basically 24 hours for the last month - not ONE fall!

Elizabeth and I received a wonderful surprise in the afternoon from my parents.  Embracing the mantra that faith overcomes fear we got 91>19 bracelets. Psalms 91 > COVID-19. I love the meaning behind it. (PS you can get your 91>19 at Jones Bros. ;)  And please try to overlook that even in the winter Elizabeth's skin color is 5 times darker than me!

Day 32

We woke up to snow. Of course, why not snow. It all melted by noon. Brandon used his completed face mask and made a Costco run for us. The kids did another magic show for the GA cousins. And I found two more bird's nests. Schoolwork was fairly routine today. Grant had his first speech session with his therapist online and Elizabeth had piano lessons. In the afternoon they were getting bored so I suggested they play an Osmo game together. I think they still like each other. They are the only people they have played with in 32 days...and they still like each other, for the most part. We all have our moments right?!

The apartment complex bird nests

Tangram on Osmo

Cousins watching the magic show - don't they look mesmerized?1

Day 31

Tuesday, back in school. Which really just translates to another google classroom challenge for mom. Grant logged onto a class chat and there was only one girl on, so I chatted with her. He was not going to chat with a girl. Then another girl joined - I got to see her chicken coop and her stuffed flamingo collection. When the 3rd student joined and still no teacher - I said "ladies, do you think we are in the wrong chat room?" So 20 minutes late to class. Thank goodness there are no virtual tardies! I am so thankful for Elizabeth's independent working habits. She finished quickly and wanted to sew masks. I brought up the sewing machine. Thank goodness the bobbin was wound and ready to go. The first prototype went pretty well. We made improvements on the 2nd one. I was feeling confident and wanted to take a try so I started to make one for Brandon. It had been going too well for too long. I got half way through and the bobbin and I were starting to not get a long. I pulled the plug and said I'm done for the day. Maybe tomorrow and a fresh start will go better.

The constant state of the dining room table.

Wine and a cookie - it's all good!

We played a few games of Catan and had a nice dinner. Pork loin and rice and broccoli. Grant even said "Can I trade in my pork for more broccoli - it's really good!" Yes I definitely needed to put that in writing! A quick soak in the hot tub and off to bed for everyone!