Week 5 of Our New World: April 11 - April 17, including including Days 29 - 35 of Family Quarantine with Easter at the Lake. Focusing this week on: Blake and My's Relationship and Scheduling in Way More Unstructured Play in the Afternoons.
This weekend, we headed to the lake to enjoy our annual traditions and immediate family. Good Friday service was in the lake living room and Delaney served communion. Easter service was filled with joy and lots of dancing.
Then it was non-stop fun. Instead of decorating Easter eggs this year, we painted bird houses! Addison got the "golden egg" and Carter found the "silver egg."
The annual Easter basket hunt.
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| Egg toss |
Since March 15, when we started our homeschooling, we have started off each morning with the kids taking turns looking up bible verses that are positive, things about HOPE, JOY and TRUST. I can't believe we are starting our 5th week of this tradition.
What's been a struggle regarding having all the kids home? Over the past 30 days, the kids have a couple of days a week where the 3 of them just are in a funk, annoying one another, wining, arguing over silly things. But this week has been exceptionally wonderful.
This is what "work" is looking like for me these days. Finding quiet spots, even in the garage or sitting in the office for 6 hours straight and the kids bring me lunch around 1 or 2 PM. This is all new territory that we are facing an we are learning and adjusting each and every work. Work for me is getting busier and busier as we enter the 2nd month.
This week has been filled with lots of running, enjoying 42 degrees in the morning combined with truly gorgeous afternoon weather. We did SO much yard work this week, including moving rocks up the hill, power washing, trimming all kinds of trees and bushes and burning much of it.
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| The Perkins brought us this amazing little power washing tool! |
Mid-week reflection. As I stop mid week to reflect on how we are all doing, I have to say, it has been a great week, thus far. I keep pausing to think about quotes like this, "It's gonna get harder before it gets easier. But it will get better, you just gotta make through the hard stuff first." 33 days ago on March 13, 2020 when our worlds suddenly stopped overnight in many ways, I don't think I understood what the next couple of weeks would look like. But now, looking back, I can say I feel there is truth in that statement. It's good for me to to stop and think about that so we can have more perspective in the future.
In the afternoon of Friday, April 17, we got the new that all Texas schools would be closed for the rest of the school year. While I new it was more than likely coming, it hit me hard that evening, combined with learning our 29029 Everest challenge was cancelled the same afternoon. It was probably my personal low spot of the past 37 days. I was sad for the kids, not being around their school friends for 6 months. I was sad that they weren't learning in an environments that was specifically set up to aid in learning, like science labs and have teachers that really speak Spanish to them. Up until this point, I always saw the "gift" of them being taken out of their "real world" bubble of public school and after school sports, decreasing the pace and truly connecting at a whole new level as a family. While I am ecstatic all that gets to continue at home, I am still sad for them socially and not have the social life experiences at these critical ages. I had to take a few hours that Friday night to be alone and just take a hot bath and do nothing. For tomorrow starts week 6 and I know I need to turn my mindset around.
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