Weekly Happenings: As my rather alliterative title suggests, we spent a lot of time together this past week. School is still closed (and will be until April 26th, unless they extend it even more) and Paul was able to work from home, so the only places we’ve been is to different stores to get groceries (Paul did go to Lowe’s to get me some plants so we can get our garden started again).
The Weekly Weather: Sunday was chilly, but the rest of the week has been warm, sunny, and dry…except for this morning when a random thunderstorm (that hadn’t even been on the forecast, as far as I could remember) moved through at about 4:00.
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been working from home (thank goodness for his office!) and has been doing a few things around the yard in his free time.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve been making sure Joseph’s been getting some of his assignments done online for school, keeping Abigail from getting too stir crazy (sometimes we just go for a drive around), and the like. Since San Antonio pretty much issued a stay-at-home ordinance, I’ve discontinued my piano lessons until we ride this whole thing out.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been doing work online, reading, playing with his toys, LEGOs, video games…it’s almost like summer vacation for him, haha.
What Abigail’s Been Up To: I think this has been the hardest on her since she’s too little to understand why our normal routine has been upended. She’s been acting out a little more than normal, but I try to remember and to be patient (and give her extra hugs and snuggles).
This Week in Pictures:
Snuggling on the couch while watching some classic cartoons (this is the Incredible Hulk).Getting stir crazy……they both were, so we loaded up and went for a drive.I got her this little unicorn that comes with its own carrying case (you can kind of see it in the bottom of the picture)…she decided she needed to try to ride it, haha.Riding her “couch horse”.We got (from left to right): cilantro, cherry tomatoes, and basil.We also got a couple more strawberry plants.This has been my view a lot this week. Thank goodness the tree is pretty. 😉I love this little air plant. It makes me happy. I had just watered it (it gets a spritz of water once a week) and I thought it looked pretty with the water droplets on the vase.Sometimes you gotta just make a tent.My mint has come back in full force.She wanted to see herself. 🙂She makes me laugh every day. I love this little girl!She’s channeling her inner ’80s rock star. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na…Batman!So, something cool we can do with our phones is search for an animal on Google and follow some steps to “see” a 3D version in our house (through our camera). Then, you can take people’s pictures. Here’s Abigail chatting it up with an octopus. 😜Here she is chillin’ with a panda… …and swimming with a sea turtle.
Weekly Happenings: Thanks to the presence of the COVID-19 virus, our spring break has been extended all the way through April 3rd, with Joseph potentially going back on the 6th. As we get closer to that date, though, they may extend it even more. Joseph’s regular teacher and GT teacher have both gotten us set up with remote learning, so thanks to technology, he’ll still get to do school work so that he doesn’t forget what he’s learned so far. We’re pretty much staying home. I did have students come, but only if they were well and believe me, EVERYBODY washed their hands (including Abigail, who had to have a turn every time, haha). I’ve only been to the store once and luckily got everything I needed. I hope that’ll still be the case when I try to go again on Monday.
Weekly Weather: It’s been beautiful lately: warm (but not hot) and sunny. It’s made it hard to stay home, but we’re doing what we can to make the spread of this virus not as bad. A cold front moved in yesterday and into today, so it’s been a bit easier to stay home today since it’s cold and rainy. 😉
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s still going to work. He has set it up so that it’s possible to work remotely, but there hasn’t been any word as to if they are going to start doing that. Luckily he doesn’t have to interact with too many people in too close of quarters at work.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I have had to find a way to get outside ever day (even if it’s just to water my plants). I always imagined myself a homebody, preferring to be home over other places, but this “social distancing” as the CDC has labeled it, has been harder than expected. I didn’t realize how much I was doing until I was told not to do it anymore.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s doing fine with his remote learning. Luckily, his classrooms (both regular and GT) were already heavy on technology-based learning, so it hasn’t been too much of a shift for him. He’s just doing it at home instead.
What Abigail’s Been Up To: I think this staying home business has been the hardest on her. She’s so used to our routine. There have been many, many times this past week that she’s asked if we could go in the car or if it was time to take Joseph to school. Thankfully, Disney+ (Disney’s version of a streaming service, similar to Netflix or Amazon) released Frozen 2 earlier than planned (they had originally planned to wait until June, but wanted to release it early to give people something good to look forward to during this hard time). We’ve watched it (and the first Frozen as well as other Frozen-themed shows) many times this past week. 🙂
This Week in Pictures:
While waiting for traffic to clear enough for me to get onto the access road, I noticed the hill in front of me was full of bluebonnets, so I snapped a quick picture.After I got home, I zoomed in on the picture so that it was easier to actually see the flowers.New neon-green leaves on the oak trees. 🙂My outdoor plants have been quite happy with the mild weather.This is one of my favorite sights.This is another one.I’m still amazed with how much these trees have grown in the almost-eight years we’ve been here.The kids still wanted to wear their St. Patrick’s Day shirts even if we didn’t go anywhere.Joseph was pretty happy that I managed to find one with Pikachu on it.One of my wildflowers (Paul planted seeds several years ago and they keep reseeding themselves). I’m glad I snapped this picture when I did because upon further research, I think this one is called an Asiatic dayflower and the blooms only last one day. I was so excited to see new leaves on my poinsettia. I had already moved it outside, thinking most of our cold weather was over, but then we had a few more days where the lows got below 45 degrees and it wasn’t too happy with that. I just kept watering it and it’s nice to see those new leaves sprouting!I was also happy to see new leaves on a couple of my plants in the back yard. Paul kept reassuring me that they had just gone dormant for winter and that they would come back with spring, but it was a bit hard for me to look at those bare branches and envision life still being present.This picture just oozes “San Antonio”…the Spurs shirt…the boots…I love this girl!She was digging through the storage bench and found Joseph’s cold-weather gear and insisted I help her put it on.Yup. That says $1.69/gallon. Using the drink carrier (which she originally absconded with in order to use as a tin for imaginary muffins) as a tablet stand. She’s nothing short of resourceful, haha.She asked that I take a picture of her with her “couch horse”.Soggy Saturdays are meant for relaxing…also, when did he get so grown?Abigail was playing hide-and-seek with Paul. Do you see her? 😉
Weekly Happenings: This past week Joseph was on Spring Break. It was nice to be able to sleep in every day (especially since a couple of us are still struggling with the time change that comes with Daylight Saving Time). We had play dates, went to the zoo, and relaxed at home. Because of the craziness that’s going on with the coronavirus, we’ve also made sure to wash our hands more often than before and have kind of kept close to home. Thankfully, we normally keep a couple flats of water on hand to begin with, and I happened to stock up on toilet paper and hand soap before a lot of the activities and events started getting canceled, so we haven’t been affected by the shortages at all. It will be interesting to have church at home, though (since the leaders in Salt Lake have told us to cancel all meetings, including Sacrament meeting). Also, Joseph’s school district has decided to close down all the schools for the next week, so Spring Break has been extended. I think that we’ll be keeping even more close to home this time, though. We want to be able to help with the social distancing that the city leaders are advising, which will hopefully prevent mass spreading of the virus.
The Weekly Weather: It’s been really nice spring weather: sunny and warm (but not too warm). We’re supposed to get quite a bit of rain this next week, so I’m glad we got to enjoy a bit of the sunshine.
What Paul’s Been Up To:He only worked part of the week and then took Thursday and Friday off. He spent a lot of that time doing some yard work and starting some needed maintenance on some of the pipes for the irrigation system.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve mainly been an entertainment device this week…also a transporter to fun places. 😉
What Joseph’s Been Up To: I’ve sort of let him rot his brain on video games this week, haha. I was not anticipating also having school off next week, so next week I’ll probably make sure he does something a bit more constructive.
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s been perfecting her “little sister” game by pretty much shadowing her older brother. Thankfully, he’s extremely patient with her!
This Week in Pictures:
Home made beef and broccoli. It was pretty good! I love having an enamel-coated cast iron pan. I have the benefits of cast iron (even heating, good browning), but I can cook things that would normally wreak havoc on the seasoning of the cast iron.More daylight in the evenings means more time for bubbles!It also means more time for swinging (this was after Paul dug out and killed the fire ants that had decided to “build” their hill inside one of the legs of the swing set).A relatively recent discovery: fresh chopped garlic stored in water (that I can keep in the fridge). No more messy garlic press and garlicky smelling fingers!This is what Abigail thinks about mornings that feel earlier than they are.They always need a picture on the hippo statue at the zoo.Abigail was fascinated by these birds that were literally a few feet away from her.Checking out the African crested porcupines.This was all that Abigail talked about for almost the entire car-ride to the zoo: wanting to see the elephants.Hanging out on the bronze elephant.Seeing the dwarf mongoose all piled on top of each other was pretty funny.Checking out the okapi.In front of the Nile crocodile. I’m glad there’s a thick pane of glass between us and it!They also found it amusing that the hippos were stacked.They both love seeing the tropical fish.On the zoo train. I’m not sure what caused the scrunchy nose, but it was cute, so I kept the picture.Here’s a non-scrunchy-nosed one.Super Sky!She said she wanted to share the chair with him…he didn’t realize that meant she was going to pile on top of him.It’s hard to believe they’re getting as big as they are.Abigail was convinced that this was perfectly safe…Joseph had his doubts, haha.Sword fighting.It was a good thing he had his shield. 😉I could tell he was going easy on her.Such a good big brother!Living the toddler-dream: munching on cookies and watching a show.I made eggs for breakfast this morning. As I was putting my pan away, Abigail told me she wanted to play with it. Figuring that would be an excellent way for her to break a few toes, I suggested she play with this mini cast iron pan instead. She told me she was eating eggs. 😀
