Quarantine Week 6 - April 19 - 25

Sunday April 19
Zoom church, is what we started calling it. We had two weeks of no church meetings. It was Thursday, March 12th that the announcement came from the first presidency of the church that church meetings would be on hold. The two weeks of family church were so great. I was so happy and felt so blessed that Ken could bless the sacrament. The girls were so engaged and happy.

The week before General Conference our ward leaders started doing zoom church - zoom is an online tool for hosting meetings. The first week wasn't great, but it was okay. Last week was awful. It was so so bad. The kids had primary, we had a sacrament meeting, and then there was a Sunday School lesson. It was long, and the girls were miserable! SO MISERABLE! And they of course made Ken and I miserable. It wasn't good. This week, after much soul searching I decided that even though I felt guilty, we weren't going to do church online. We had our own meeting and it was good, but I felt a little sad. Then I heard about how great the devotional was and I was sad! Ah well. It sounds like they've actually got it figured out so that the little zoom meeting is a nice addition and is no longer completely taking over.

It was supposed to rain today, so Ken and the girls got up bright and early to put the finishing touches on the trampoline before the rain started.

Kate jumped a few times, but Alice and Fiona were in and out, between the rain and in the rain. They wore ten different pairs of socks, but they were in heaven. They stayed outside almost the whole day!


Monday April 20
What a day. There were so many tears, there was way too much yelling, and boy oh boy am I done with whining. So. Done. The girls all hate online school. I can't say that I blame them, but it's a very small portion of their day, I don't know why there has to be so much drama. Oh and Kate is not going to be eating breakfast and lunch with her sisters - as much as we can help it. Their chewing is making her insane.

Here's week part five of self-isolation spirit week!

 Thankfully the day ended well! Fiona lost a tooth. We had a fun Scientist day pic with Kate. We had a fun Family Home Evening - laser maze and DQ.

Tuesday, April 21
I finished cleaning off my desk today. I still need some sort of filing system, but for now, this feels really good! I can actually use my work space!

Today was Storybook Character day. And if I do say so myself, I had a stroke of genius! It's bound to happen every once in a while. It took a really long time to pic our characters. But they girls did great!

I can't remember how I learned about this book. It was probably on Instagram, but I did. I ordered it ages ago, and it came today. It's beautiful. So beautiful. Kate spent a little time reading it. Oh and I found out Johanna Buchert-Smith was one of the editors of the book which is awesome!

Wednesday, April 22
Today is Earth Day, both in Spirit Week Quarantine, and real life! I love that the girls still wear their Earth Day sweatshirts we bought last year all the time.

Trampoline update: Alice and Fiona bounced so much on Sunday that they hurt themselves. They haven't really been on the trampoline since Sunday. Also the non-biting midges have been really bad.

Alice was sad in the pic above because she just wanted to do a yoga pose. So she did a separate pic.

Fiona and Alice played under the table today which made my heart happy, they're still little!

On Wednesday afternoon I got all ready for my second book club and well, there was no book club. Dawn Alton who is one of the sisters I minister to, she was also a sister I was in the RS presidency with (Dawn got released a couple of months ago), she is almost a birthday twin. She is one day older than me! Anyway, Dawn invited me to join this online book club with some women that she knew in one of the many places she's lived in - I think Florida, but I'm not sure! I took a selfie because I thought I looked cute, and sent it to Dawn, and she let me know that book club would be the next day instead. We're going to finish talking about the book "Courage to Be You: Inspiring Lessons from an Unexpected Journey" by Gail Miller, Jason F. Wright. I liked the book okay. I would never have read it if it weren't for book club so there's that.

Wednesday night is always Ken's toast masters, and they're doing their meetings online so Ken is still essentially out on a Wednesday. Tonight I wanted to go by Holly and Jeff Grant's to say goodbye. I'm Holly's ministering sister, and Holly is the girls song leader in primary. Alice had made pillows for Abi and James - their kids, a while back, and I had the girls all make cards. They're moving to Brantford eventually. They're buying a new house and it won't be ready for a while, so they're heading to London to stay with Holly's parents for a bit. We drove over and they came out on their balcony and we chatted. It was quite cold so the girls stayed in the car with the windows rolled down. I wasn't thinking and I just left the lights on and the car off as we stood there chatting. We weren't there for more than ten minutes... anyway, we said our goodbyes and I tried to start the car. And it wouldn't start. We managed to get the windows rolled up, but that was it. Jeff came down and got a neighbour who tried two different battery packs, and success! The car started!

Kate was a little freaked out by the experience. Before we left the house I told the girls we would get Wendy's frostys on the way home but of course I hadn't planned on being there as long as we were. I hadn't planned on my battery dying! I decided that we would go ahead and get frostys because what the heck, it was a crazy night! We went through the drive-thru and it was announced that they are no longer serving vanilla frostys during the pandemic. Kate was devastated again, but embarrassed and looked out the window as tears rolled down her cheeks. Instead we went to McDonald's and got McFlurrys. What a cuckoo night!

Thursday, April 23
Today started out much the same way every other day starts!

I keep meaning to take a screen shot of one of our facebook messenger chats with the missionaries! Our Pickering Ward missionaries are really stuck with not much to do! They can't do many of the things they normally do. They're stuck in their apartment. When all of this started I reached out to the sisters to do some classes with Fiona. Tuesday-Friday (almost all the time) we've had a little 10-15 minute lesson. We started out talking about prayer, and then kind of coming up with different ideas. But then something that happened in one of the conversations, I thought, Fiona doesn't know the bible stories. So we've been talking about the old testament. The coolest was one night, this week or last, we were reading in Mosiah and it talked about Moses, and Fiona totally got the reference!

Today was Detective Day. I took a bunch of pictures of the girls, and we came up with a silly little story!

Alice the detective considers her evidence.

Fiona the spy has captured Kate.

Alice sees something.

Could this be Fiona the spy's secret lair?

It is! Alice the detective has found Kate and the spy Fiona.

The detective Alice taking the sad spy away.

Mission complete, it's popcorn time!

It was still cold, but not as bad as it has been, so we went out rock hunting! The person who is the administrator of the Durham Region Sun Rocks lives in North Ajax, and right now you're not supposed to park down by the lake, so she can't go rock hunting for herself. I don't know her personally, but we've had many exchanges in the group so I offered our rock hunting services! Kate was there too, but I didn't get a picture.

When we got home we checked the mail. Fiona got a letter from Hazel, which was totally fun because when we were down at the beach we got a call from Emily and Hazel and found out that Hazel got the card that we sent!

Friday, April 24th
Today was disco day. But it never really was disco day, it was another pajama day. It also happened to be fight a lot with Kate day. Kate has been so upset about online school work. She hasn't done any this week and it has been a real source of contention.

Disco Day... I felt truly uninspired by this day. TRULY! I looked online thinking maybe I would get some inspiration for something that we could do, but truly there was nothing, so instead I took a pic of each girl and popped their head onto a disco costumed person's body.

It was a long day. I wanted to go on a walk with Ken. We'd been fighting lots with Kate, so when she said she wanted to come for a walk with us I didn't really want her to, but I didn't want her to be sad and alone in her room. It wasn't the best walk ever, but we did get to talk to Kate lots. Hopefully something we said got through to her!

Saturday, April 25th
This morning Kate got up and did her school work for the week. All of it. Her Dad recommended she do it, and she did. It was such a nice surprise when I came downstairs and she told me!

Ken decided that we should go on a little family outing today, and I was happy to comply. We decided to drive up to Willowtree Farm in Port Perry, about a half an hour drive. Ken went into the store to get a few things, and the girls and I wandered around and looked at the animals on display, some goats and pigs. The sun felt good. Being somewhere different felt good.

Next we drove down to Ken's office to pick up his webcam. The girls played hockey and we all poked around a little.

Fiona inherited a new box! She cracks me up, I think she's part cat!

Ken finally solved the rubics cube! It's been five weeks of on and off consulting of websites, and today, success!!

 I did some marking this afternoon, and then we had take out pizza. It was so good.  After dinner we watched Dora and the Lost City of Gold - a live action Dora the Explorer movie. It was super cute! We all really enjoyed.

It was another weeks of ups and downs, of real highs and real lows. There is no end in sight yet, and we don't know when life will go back to normal. We keep praying it will, and we keep trying to stay sane and happy.