April!

Well, we had the oddest April in the history of Aprils for us.  It was entirely spent in "quarantine"/"social distancing"/"virtual learning".  We never knew what these words meant until now!  We have adjusted as well as possible to this situation, and now, by the end of April, only have 4 more weeks of virtual school!  The girls were off of school from Good Friday through April 19th, which was nice to get a little break from all of the video conferencing and keeping track of each assignment.  We had Easter mass at home and a ham lunch and lots of outdoors time.  One good thing about all of this has been the gorgeous weather!  The weather really has been wonderful.  We have gotten loads of house projects done, including cleaning windows, power washing, replacing the living room ceiling fan and entry light fixture (which required renting a super tall scaffolding...scary!), various Suburban-related projects, and lots of cleaning out of stuff.  Another highlight has been Anna learning to ride a bike!  She LOVES it, and Bob especially has been loving riding with her on his new early birthday present - a mountain bike!  Bob has also been busy on the weekends handing out meals to people in need, and we ladies are helping by baking 200 or so desserts every Friday for them to distribute with the meals.  We are keeping in touch with family and friends virtually, getting takeout for dinner once a week or so, and are trying to keep grocery store visits to once a week.  It is unnerving to go to the store and see so many empty shelves, but it has made us get creative with food.  Finley is mostly loving all of the time with us, but he is very tired!

So, while it hasn't been all bad, it definitely was not the spring we had planned.  We are making the most of it and are thankful that school and piano can continue relatively uninterrupted, and it has been nice to feel less rushed.  However, we are ready and waiting for things to get back to normal!  Last we heard, statewide stay-at-home restrictions may be lifting as of May 8th.  There are 3 phases involved based on how many people have been diagnosed with the virus or something.  Anyway, we have not yet decided on our Banff trip in early June, but as of now, borders are closed at least until May 31st, so that doesn't sound good.  Maybe we can at least do our rescheduled Aruba trip in late July, and we REALLY hope that Erin's ballet camp in July happens as planned.  Fingers crossed!

Here are Anna and Laney catching up through the fence:

Ice cream making lab for states of matter:

Coloring Easter eggs:

Happy Easter!

Strawberry picking:

Cold water!