Not a typical Spring Break week

*Real time post about last week.

A couple of months ago I was looking ahead to Spring Break week and planning all the fun things we were going to do.  Go to a children's museum, do a science thing at a local library, visit friends a hour south of us, spend a few days in MN with my family etc.  We did zero of those things, but we did make many great memories during our week at home.

Last week was really a rare treasure in this season of isolation.  We were able to have lots of good family time and not have to stress about schooling.  Once I get caught up on the blog (it will happen, I am confident), I will post the pics from spring break, but here are some of the highlights.

On Monday our dryer was delivered.  We stayed VERY far away from the delivery man and he was wearing a mask.  About 2 minutes after the dryer was delivered I received a text from a friend saying that our state had new sheltering at home guidelines beginning soon.  I am not sure if the dryer was considered essential, but I got pretty emotional about the timing and God's provision for our family.

On Tuesday I finally convinced my kids to start some puzzles in the basement.  T and I started a 1,000 piece and M started with a 100 piece but trickier because it has similar colors.  The kids really enjoyed puzzling time and we spend a long time doing it.

On Wednesday we left the house for real.  Brandon had an eye surgery followup appointment almost an hour away.  When we got home from Mexico we were wondering if that appointment would actually happen.  On Sunday the nurse called and confirmed that Brandon would be coming and told him that family should wait in the car (which we were already planning to do). Brandon and the nurser talked about our recent trip to Mexico and the dates we were gone etc.  The appointment was a go! We loaded up the van with snacks and put some fun kids podcasts on my phone and headed south.  Brandon went in for the appointment and we set up camp in the back of the van.  We had just started listening to "Paws and Tails" when the kids started shouting, "Here comes Daddy."  I thought maybe he forgot something.  Sadly, he said that he couldn't be seen that day because we had been out of the country lass than two weeks before.  What?!  Why didn't we learn about this before driving there? They rescheduled him for this Friday.  Now we all have to go back, but this time the kids are not on spring break so we have to move the school day all around.  Sigh.  Hopefully Brandon was not exposed to anything in the elevator or waiting room or bathroom. One the way home we went through the bank drive thru so we did get something accomplished. The kids were pretty sad about the whole thing, but we told them at least we got out of the house and had a nice little drive.

We did a lot of puzzle time on Thursday.  On Thursday night I recorded the children's message and Brandon recorded the message for Sunday.  He asked me about it earlier that day and I told him I didn't really want to.  I changed my mind and I am glad.  I was able to connect with the kids in the church even if it made for a later night.

On Friday we finished the 1,000 piece puzzle.  M did his 100 piece and then did a 200 piece and then helped us on the last day.  I am glad my kids love puzzling.  I am thankful that we have more fun puzzles to do as well.  They are good for the brain and body and soul!


On Saturday Brandon spend a lot of time with the kids while I took a very extensive inventory of our freezer items and began assembling grocery lists.  I made actual lists and then store lists organizing the store lists by the aisle the item is found on to avoid doing lots of backtracking. Monday (today) was the day of the big shopping trip.  I will write more about it in the next post.  Also on Saturday I did quite a bit of prep work for the daily homeschool schedule.  Meanwhile Brandon taught the kids how to actually use the workout equipment in the basement.  They were quite pumped about this!

On Sunday morning we had virtual church in the morning and then a pretty low-key day.  I tried to watch The Hiding Place with the kids, but it was very tricky to watch.  It moves quite slowly and I had to pause it almost every minute to explain terms and context in what was happening.  They finally asked if they could watch something else and I said yes.  While they were watching Brandon was uploading pictures to Lightroom so that I can put them in blogger.  It is so exciting to be getting closer and closer to being caught up and only a couple of posts away from the Florida blogposts. I ended Sunday with an adoption support group on Zoom.  It was my first Zoom experience and I much prefer face to face.  I think it would be great for a meeting with an agenda, but in a free flowing support setting I think it was hard to know when to speak and when to be silent.  Watching all the faces was hard on my eyes and head.  They want to meet a lot during the isolation, but I think it might not be fore me.  It was very lovely to see many faces last night and to see some of their kiddos too.

Stay tuned for my next post about my first venture out into the NEW real world... to get groceries!