Quarantine - Continued

We are now entering week 7 at home. It feels like time has flown by yet it seems like our "old life" was a lifetime ago. We have good days and bad, easy ones and difficult ones but overall - we are having FUN! I love being home, spending time with the kids and Josh, walking Sadie and not rushing anywhere. Work has been the biggest stress. Trying to juggle the kids and conference calls, an increased level of expected productivity with teaching school and keeping Owen out of trouble is starting to take its tole. I never realized how easy it had become to switch my mom and work hat throughout the day and now that I am literally wearing them at the same time, its ridiculously hard sometimes. So besides work... things are good. Everyone is honestly really happy. We aren't going to end this with a spotless house, or an endless list of completely projects, we are going to look back on some amazingly fun memories! At least that is what I am hoping :)

Our weeks in pictures:

Based on the last picture of my last post I am sure you guessed it - we bought a trampoline! Something Josh sweared he would never get - but desperate times....

Emmy and Ryan's writing assignment one day was why they think we should get a reason, they had to include pros and cons ;)

After 5 hours - Josh finally had it put together and wedged at the side of the house so it doesn't take up our entire backyard. Its perfect!

We've played lots of game - mostly blokus but squeezed in a game of scrabble when Owen was napping and spelled out a very special name :)

Field trip! Emmy and her friends started a virtual book club so she made them all book marks. We drove around one day to drop them all off and say hi from the car.

Fort night! We built a fort in Emmy's room. Ryan was so excited - it was his first "sleep over"

Even Owie slept on the floor!

Every morning at 9a we have an all staff zoom meeting. I never turn on my camera (yes I am that asshole) so decided I'd make it less miserable and get some exercise at the same time. Multi-tasking at its best!

Drawing with Riley over FaceTime

Ryan's buddy Brodie moved to Texas but is going to finish the school year virtually since he could not enroll in his new time. Great news for Ryan he gets to "See" him all the time! One day they played each other in a video game while face timing. It was the sweetest and saddest thing I have ever seen. They re also mailing each other letters - it is pretty sweet.

Water balloon fight!

My plan was to run a 1/2 marathon for my 40th so I wouldn't feel so old. Ugh. Well, those plans have been put on hold but I am still trying to keep up the running! Not quite 1/2 marathon ready but at least I have another year :)

The weather has been weird - it was super cold!

School time

Lazy Sadie 

Ha! Google 3d never gets old

Baking cookies from scratch. Owen asked if Santa was coming. I sad no and then he asked why we were making cookies? Clearly I have to bake more often. HA!

The kitchen table was not working - change of plans

This kid loves a schedule - just like her mom. She put this one together herself and stuck to it so much we had to encourage her to be a little more flexible. 

A little concert for his friends. 

We took a drive down the the beach - pretty weird to see it EMPTY! All parks, hiking trails and beaches have been closed. It was a bit too much of a tease - Owen freaked out and didn't understand why he couldn't get out.

Yay! The Easter bunny still came :)

New school arrangement. It amazes me how much they do online. Call my old fashioned but what ever happened to reading a book or doing math on paper?!

Virtual multiplication bingo with Reese and Riley. Getting creative over here! 

Now that it is staying light there are lots of bike rides and walks after dinner. I love it!

I love our hood :)

One of our recent art projects - painting rocks

I think I missed my calling. Ahahah 

Cutie 

Have you ever seen anything so sweet?!

We hunted for bugs. One of the things I love about this time is the kids get to be kids again :)

Chalk every day. I feel like we have graffitied the whole neighborhood by now!

A rare picture of me. Sweat pants and no make-up - my happy place :) 

Off around the hood with Reese! You can see how proud he is that he can go by himself. Just like kids should be doing - riding around the hood.

Another day - another craft. Or activity as Owie likes to say 

These are how my work days look these days. Not only do I not have make-up on, I haven't showered most days. This guy wouldn't leave my side all day.

Happy 14 years to us! There is no one in the world I could be stuck at home with. :)

Our new normal. Emmy knows how to put together a homemade mask with a bandana and 2 hair elastics and everyone was ecstatic to receive a box from nana with a bunch of masks in different patterns. 

Living Through the Historic Coronavirus

Wow - I am not sure where to start with this post. I have kept this blog up over the past 11 years so I could document our lives and my kids growing up. This post feels like it is so much more monumental than the past ones. I like to think that my kids and maybe even their kids will look back at this one day to learn about our lives and this moment in time will be especially historic.

Living in California and even San Diego, I feel a bit sheltered from what is going on in other states and countries. We have low numbers, compared to other cities and are pretty well positioned with equipment and space and there is plenty of space for us to spend time outdoors. It has been over a month and is it weird to say we are starting to settle into our new normal? We've been pretty good about trying to maintain a schedule throughout the day, especially on "school days". We've set up work and school stations, getting exercise, eating well and drinking lots (of wine that is!). You'd also think I would have all the time in the world to update the blog but I feel like I have less time that before!

We are juggling trying to work from home and are days seem to be a series of zoom calls so one of us is always on the phone or behind the computer. The kids are getting more and more assignments from their teachers and there was a learning curve to accessing sites, log ins, etc. and then there is Owen. Ha! He has started to refuse a nap and just wants to be the center of attention all day long! Sadie on the other hand is just living the good life! Trying to keep the house clean is virtually impossible!

I have always longed to work from home and/or be a stay at home more and was envious of those moms who got to wear yoga pants all day. There were weeks when I wished my kids weren't in so many sports and I wish Josh didn't travel as much. I feel like I am in some kind of movie because POOF all my dreams came true in an instant! So everyday I remind myself of that and try to enjoy and embrace every moment.

I am going to try and post pictures more often because I have definitely been taking a lot! And the kids are writing in journals everyday so we can all document this unbelievable time.

It would not be a true documentation of this time without a picture of an empty shelve at Vons

We kicked off quarantine with some slime making 

Fort making

Old school tae bo!

Snuggling

Art appreciation at Claremont Square 

Letters to teachers

A hike (before they were all closed!)

A bath

Lots of good dinners. I feel like they have gotten less healthy as we go...

LOTS of scavenger hunts!

Instead of just ticking them off, the kids took pics of what they found :) 

Haircuts!!

Cool dude

Our new normal - zoom calls with friends 

Me and Emmy are working on a paint by numbers. Hopefully we will be done before we can leave the house. Ha!

We are decorating our room with new artwork :)

Our first attempt at school organization. We've improved (more photos to come)

My work station - which has also improved!

Just another school day

tie dye!

our garage has turned into an art studio 

getting creative 

I just hope we can reschedule our NY trip soon...

happy hours with the family!

I guess you can say we are guarantining with the Conkins. Riley and Reese are the only other people we've seen. They ride bikes together everyday and I am pretty sure it is the one thing that is keeping the kids happy. 

We met new friends using Google 3D :)

A tease for the next post ;)