Night at the Opera - COVID-19 style

James and I have been fans of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera for almost 30 years. We have been privileged to see live performances in Denver, KC, and Las Vegas. So the opportunity to watch this weekend from my living room inspired me to make sure my girls first Phantom experience was memorable. 
















We had a formal dinner including getting dressed up (no pajamas), sparkling juice, candles, and opera cake.















It was a fun evening and the “extra songs” at the end of the production was a beautiful bonus. During this quarantine/isolation time, Andrew Lloyd Webber has posted one of his musicals each weekend on YouTube for 48 hours. The Phantom presented this weekend was filmed live at the 25th anniversary show in 2012.  #TheShowsMustGoOn



Some of my decorating to set the scene. 

Opera cake at intermission.....

Week #3

After the busy Easter week, this week seems a bit quiet and finding normal routines. Our dance Zoom classes were cancelled as Sherry has cancelled the recital. It can not happen in May and it is not beneficial to try to do it in August. She may offer some private zoom lessons and if so we will continue at that time. 

The girls put together a donut puzzle - complete with two missing pieces.... We will have to find a new puzzle to complete.

 Madeline sewed and mailed us some face masks for our next trip to the store. They are hot and not my favorite item to wear but it is cute and made with love. 

















Ellie got to have a class meeting this week over Zoom. She showed her cat to the class. 
















 I am continuing "home visits via Zoom and had fun playing "peek a boo" with some babies!

Easter

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and made memories with new and old traditions. Ours was apparently busy because I didn’t take many pictures.

Here is the one picture we staged to have an Easter picture. Everyone did dress up a bit for the day even though we weren't going anywhere or seeing anyone.

 Yesterday we "Egged" some kiddos in the community by dropping off a bag of plastic eggs with candy at their doors.











 This morning started with sunrise service and then our regular church service-online, FB, radio, and outside speakers. 



















Our only family picture is with out Easter lunch! We were excited that Lexie drove down to spend the weekend with us.















Ellie found her eggs in the cold wind. At 7am it was 58 degrees and calm. By noon it was 35 degrees and windy. Katrianna hid 28 eggs around the yard and Ellie quickly found them. 

While the girls dyed eggs, we FaceTimed with Grandma and Mary. Grandma figured out the filters!

We also made time to play a couple games this   
       weekend!

Ellie is being a true Pastor's Kid. Working on Sunday School papers during the Easter live stream at the church.

Lexie thought it was too cold so she watched from the window.

Week #2

Monday's have been our 'dance night' for years. It's nice to continue that part of the schedule and also a blessing that it only occupies 60 minutes instead of the whole evening plus the drive time. We miss the personal interaction with our long time friends and Ms. Sherry but the 'show will go on' if possible.

Since I do have a bit of time lately, I have tried new bread recipes. Sunday, I made some yummy Italian bread and Monday I made hamburger buns. I found a 40 minute recipe - actually takes me about 60 minutes - but I live 40 minutes round trip from any store. I may never buy buns again. Thankfully they bake in 10 minutes as I walked them to the church to bake in their oven.









This week leading up to Easter, James has presented a devotional each evening from our living room then on Friday he did it from the church. I am getting better at being technical support with our streaming. 😂

The funny this week was when a Katrianna's boyfriend tried to surprise her by stopping by. He knocked at the door during the live stream (in the living room). Without missing a beat - James quoted "And I stand at the door and knock". Then went on to finish his devotion. It was a funny moment. They got to talk for a few moments outside. Social distancing!









Other activities this week: We made birdseed eggs to hang in the trees and played SkipBo.

Weekend vibes

Since everything was cancelled from March through May, we didn't immediately think about what we were missing this weekend. A look at the calendar reminds me that it was supposed to be a busy weekend. There was the annual Women of Joy conference in Branson which was replaced for us as it was Katie's junior Prom and After Prom party. The girls would have had dance lessons and there was a baby shower planned for a close family friend. Instead - we took a walk and bike ride, tried a new bread recipe, and learned to play Scattergories via Zoom with my girls.

I also was able to listen to my favorite christian worship artist on Sunday as James played one of his worship sets through the sound system at our drive-up church service. Then I heard that vocalist was diagnosed with COVID-19.

Because our lives have been hectic for so many years, my "to do" list is always longer than the time I have available. Now I have the time to cross of a few of those tasks. I guess this would be why we are not feeling the isolation or boredom I hear others experiencing. Or I'm such a busy person that I will always find a project to complete or a new idea to tackle. So far I have emptied some boxes from the garage, hung picture frames, files some pictures in photo albums (however many many more yet to go), and completed extra cleaning tasks. It also helps that work is sporadic and I can accomplish some household tasks between work tasks when those used to have to wait until late evening. I'm curious what our habits will be when life changes again and all the busyness is back.

TGIF?

Most weeks we are looking forward to Friday - no work or school, exciting plans happening, going somewhere, etc. This is not the current situation. I still am glad it is Friday. It means no Zoom meetings for a couple of days. Also means nothing else is going on either. And it turned cold! So we won't be going outside much or for any walks. At least until Monday - then it will be 72 degrees. 🙄
This morning we were in a winter weather advisory. IT'S APRIL! The roads were a bit icy all over the state. It felt like 10 degrees when I let Toulouse outside this morning. She looked at me as if I caused that cold blast of air. Ellie tried to make the best of things and rode her bike mounted on the trainer in the garage. Thanks dad! She definitely needs physical activity everyday.

Madeline messaged late in the afternoon to give us a 'heads up' that Hobby Lobby was closing for a month. The store was determined not 'essential' to be open. And we became 'those people' that drop everything and run to the store. There were just a couple items I wanted to finish some wedding flowers and to continue organizing pictures while at home. We also got a few craft things to help occupy time. It was a good opportunity for Katie to get in some drive time. I didn't let her drive there because I thought they were closing by 6pm. Nope they closed at their regular time 8pm. We had plenty of time to get the things we needed and get out. We also made a short stop at Wal-mart. It was busier than I had hoped and avoiding other people was difficult. We still got in/out fairly quickly. 😷

This afternoon we also got the call that our oven repair man would not be coming out on Tuesday to fix the oven. They are now allowed to go into homes. I kinda figured that when he scheduled the appointment and wasn't surprised. Guess we'll see how this works out!

Day 4

Katie and I went on a long walk mid-day. In the middle of the walk the wind kicked up and the temperature dropped 10 degrees. We definitely walked faster on the way home.

Last weekend we went on a walk at Quivera Wildlife Refuge. It is about 25 minutes from here and has two salt marshes which means there is a lot of wildlife especially birds to see in that area. We drove through most of the refuge and saw the marshes then walked the Migrant's Mile trail.

This evening the girls completed an aquarium puzzle and we started watching the series Psych. And the oven is definitely not working but we have a repair man coming on Tuesday.

Day 3

April Fool's Day!!! I didn't make my usual April Fools food - 'grilled cheese' as we didn't have the supplies but I still made them laugh this morning.

The rest of our day was pretty typical. Zoom meetings, Google classroom work, etc. James had youth group on Zoom tonight. That is hilarious to listen from the next room! After supper (the oven is definitely not working) we played a game of Labyrinth. Dun dun dun.

Day 2

I took a nice walk in the middle of the day. It was about 1.5 miles. In the middle of nowhere. It was good, quiet. Lexie called at towards the end of my walk and hearing her voice was wonderful. Maybe I should share our location.

Sylvia is a town in western Reno county comprised of about 200 residents. We have a Post Office and library. There is a gas station on the highway that sells awesome tacos but is only open certain hours. Our streets are sand/dirt and it is rare to see many people. I guess this is a great location to practice social distancing and isolation from people. Animals are another story. There are several dogs in town and the stray cats have discovered our house has cats. We also see a lot of deer, pheasants, raccoons, and o'possums on the drive to school daily. So many people ask if I like it here. I've liked everywhere that I lived for different reasons. Every location has positives and negatives. This location is another adventure to explore, new routines to establish, and people to get to know.

Our day was pretty basic with following the new routine of school and work. This evening we discovered the oven was not working. That's not going to be good when we are having to cook at home all the time.   Supper took about two hours to cook. Then we watched Frozen 2. Ellie loves it as much as she loved the first movie. Having Disney Plus streaming is going to be nice while we are at home. Lots of opportunity to catch up on movies.

Day 1

Although this is not our first day home, I will call it Day 1 because it is the first day of official virtual learning.
I decided it would be best to stick to some sort of routine otherwise someone would need to eat or be in the kitchen all day. Everyone was up, dressed, and ready to work by 9am. The morning went smoothly. Ellie had her chrome book from school and her teachers use Google classroom.She navigates it well. She likes to sing and talk to herself while she is doing her math. At 11:20a on Mondays and Wednesdays, we go to the park to pick up the sack lunch meals that the school provides. It is good to physically see other people and to get some snacks for the week.
For me it is several meetings via Zoom. But I have fun playing with the virtual background and pretending I'm somewhere else.
The girls still have dance on Monday's. Sherry is working with them on their private dances via Zoom. We went to the senior center to have more space. There were a few internet glitches, but we managed to get through the lessons. Although next time we will pick a different spot in the room as Katie was hitting the drop down lights with her arm movements.
After supper, we watched some Monk (TV show) and I cleaned out another box. One benefit of being home is I can purge more stuff from the garage.

These are the days of our lives..... making history.

Isolation, Social distancing, Quarantine, Pandemic - these are all words I didn't expect to be discussing this March.  I expected to be discussing-Spring Break, Bridal Shower/party, Wedding flowers, Prom (dress, hair, shoes, flowers). etc. Just a couple weeks ago I had briefly heard of a terrible virus spreading through China and felt sad for them but went on with my plans. Because we are a trans-global society, that virus didn't stay on another continent. By the first part of this month it had taken hold in the US and was rapidly spreading - faster than the labs could keep up with the diagnosis. I remember dropping Lexie off at the airport on March 7th and thinking "I hope she has a wonderful time with Jacob on her break". I wasn't thinking 'I hope she doesn't get sick'. Six days later her school had cancelled for another week to figure out what to do and how to handle it. Other events were also being cancelled - Prom, Graduations, sports, Basketball tournaments. She opted to stay a few more days with Jacob. By the time she came home,(18th) San Francisco was in a mandatory 'stay home' status and she was required to self-isolate for 14 days in case she had been infected. On March 17th, our Governor closed all public school buildings for the remainder of the year.  The virus numbers had tripled in four days time and each Kansas county began discussing 'stay home' orders.
March 23-27 was supposed to be our Spring Break. We had no major plans for that week because we had so many plans coming up with the wedding. Instead it became our second week out of school and trying to figure out what school was going to be like for the remainder of the year. We set up a new learning area for Ellie to do her work. Katie already had a great desk in her room. Angie set up a table to work from in Lexie's bedroom. We did some relaxing activities - the girls painted, we took a hike, and we made s'mores on the fire. Katie also got in some practice drive time. Life was somewhat normal but yet not at the same time. We were unsure what the upcoming days would be like. We tried to make a list to limit our shopping trips - get it all in one  trip. Plus we have the time now to cook all of our meals and planned the items needed. Monday starts our new normal. Katie and Ellie start their continuous learning at home while mom works from home. Kansas has decided to declare 'stay home' orders.  We have also adjusted our church services. Now we are live-streaming in an empty sanctuary and making plans for online ways to connect with the people. No matter what, we know God is bigger than anything and he is in control. We have to put our trust in God to help us through this crisis.
While its been a few years since I wrote on this blog, I felt it would be a great opportunity to document our upcoming days. One day it will be history to reflect back on and talk about with the girls.