Quarantine Day 9

I had to do the math today because nine days both sounded like a lot and not very long. 

I couldn't sleep again last night. I read in bed until after midnight, but when I went to lay down and sleep, I just couldn't get my brain to quiet down. I ended up staying up until 3am, but Thomas woke up at 3:30 am crying for me, so I ended up crashing with him until he woke up and then zombie walked to my own bed and slept until 10:30.

We spent the day inside again. It was freezing outside and gloomy. The boys played superheroes while Evan and I drank coffee and read/watched a Cubs game from 1988.

The girls have decided to start sending letters to their friends. They are alternating between handwriting them and typing them. It was sweet to watch Julia help Vivian type her letter. (If you receive letters from us, you know, just disinfect them and wash your hands and whatnot!)

There is a lot of baking going on in our house. This weekend it was Evan making sourdough bowls for our leftover soup and it was DELICIOUS! I am very thankful for our baking bread cookbook.

After lunch we watched Mass from our Parish's website.

I printed out coloring sheets that went with the readings from the Bible.

Not going to Mass today was really hard for me. They zoomed out to show the full church so we could see the priests leaving and it was so empty. It was sad and weird and it hurt to see pews that we normally have to kindly ask people to skooch over (because we are always running at least 5 minutes late and the church is always full, no matter the Mass time) completely empty. I ended up going up stairs to cry for a while. I miss going to church, I miss receiving Mass, I miss seeing our friends.


We have resurrected our old Wii and original X-box so the kids can play video games. The boys were THRILLED to find out Evan had a race car game.

The kids have started video chatting with friends! We don't have FaceTime, so it's been over FB messenger. They've also been old-school talking on the phone. Like, just talking. They love that, too.

Here's my menu plan for the week:

I went to the Walmart app on my phone to put a few more things in my cart and went to see how far out I could reserve a time. They had no openings and weren't offering anything into the future. They said to check daily for future time slots. I'm not going to worry about that today (or tomorrow), but I had planned on making another grocery run at the end of the month, which is only 9 days away. But, as we all know, a lot can happen in nine days, so maybe I'll be able to place an order by then.

Oh, and it snowed today.

We caught up on our art from McHarper Manor (air dry clay animals!) and are ready to create art with them next week. Discovering them has definitely been a huge blessing in all of this.

We nixed making pancakes for dinner and decided on popcorn, a veggie tray, and chocolate chip cookies that Julia made. We also ate in the living room while watching Lego Masters.

David declared it was the best meal of his life and it felt like we were having a party!
I'm really glad he's so happy. He's probably loved us all being home together the mostest. He's definitely a homebody and likes having all of his people together where he can keep tabs on them.

Tonight when I was laying with Thomas, waiting impatiently for him to shut up long enough to actually fall asleep, he kept asking me what tomorrow was, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day. It's a game he loves to play (because he likes hearing the days of the week in order), but it was making me feel a little anxious because just saying those days back to him, knowing we're still going to be in this house, quarantined, not knowing what the future holds or when definite answers are going to appear, made me feel trapped (well, that and the fact that Thomas insists on holding the face of the person who is putting him to bed, and that also feels claustrophobic-y).

But, you know what, there's nothing you can do with unknowns. You can only focus on what you do know; with what is right in front of you. So, here's what I know:

-Evan has set up an office in our room with his monitors and laptop from work. He has to get work done, but he can come eat lunch with us and take a break as needed, and the kids like seeing him home during the day. I can also move dinner time up a bit (therefore moving bedtime up a bit) because Evan is already home, so I'm not having to wait for him to pack up and head home from his office.
-We were already homeschooling. Our schedule doesn't change except we don't have our science classes or co-op (which is a huge thing we miss). I am just going to keep going with our planned curriculum and add in the resources being so generously offered by people trying to help all of these kids having to do be home instead of at school.
-We have a great back yard and a beautiful neighborhood with sidewalks. It's one of the reasons we house hunted in this area. Starting tomorrow, unless the weather is unbearable, we're going to carve time to be outside moving.
-I have menu planned and we're good with food right now. I don't need to think about stores or grocery shopping again for a while.
-We have friends and family to lean on; who pray for us as we are praying for them; who miss us like we miss them.
-We will take it one day at a time. There's nothing else we can do.

Our Second Weekend of Quarantine

Yesterday I woke and got ready to be at Aldi when it opened. I had a list (our fav Aldi snacks, fresh produce, milk, coffee, cheese, meat) and had planned on maybe grabbing more rice and one more thing of toilet paper (ha! yeah right, like it'd be there). When I got there, this was the line:

I sent this picture to Evan and then had to calm myself down because this was what I had been worried about. No one was rude, everyone was polite and kind, but we were all on a mission, and most of us had hand written lists in our hands. A few people had on masks, but I've been seeing people driving around with masks for a bit now. 

They were completely out of eggs, flour, toilet paper (told ya), rice, most of the Mexican food selection (including tortillas), almost all the bread was gone, there was no chicken left but the drumsticks. There was tons of fresh produce, a good supply of milk (and I could take more than 2!), a good selection of pork and beef, no sliced cheese at all, but blocks of cheese was still available. They did have paper towels, which was good because I saw them and remember we only had 3 rolls left, but no baby wipes. Oh, and their frozen selection did not have much left to choose. They had whole hams (I'm just now realizing those are probably for Easter...), but I don't have room for a whole ham to live in my freezer right now. They did have their Winking Owl wines discounted and that was MUCH APPRECIATED. The lines there were long and for as many people as there were when it first opened, there were that many people coming in as I was leaving, so it was a steady stream of people.

I think not seeing the flour, eggs, and rice were hardest for me. That actually made me feel really wound up and I had to kind of talk myself down. I definitely cried in the car. I ended up making another trip to Valli because they always have the best produce and a great selection of meat (they were low on chicken, too, but did have all the produce). No eggs, no toilet paper, no rice, and they were almost out of flour. The lines there were ridiculously long, the longest I have ever seen them. Again, people were kind, workers were patient, but it was surreal.

I think we're going to mainly use Walmart pick up from now on, not only to avoid being in public, but for my anxiety levels. 

All that to say, I did leave with groceries. We are going to be fine for the next few weeks with another produce trip needed in probably a week or so. But, I didn't have it in me to blog yesterday. I decided to hole up and really dive into my book instead (which is wonderful!!! The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes) and watch the younger kids pretend to be superheroes and villians and play with kinetic sand.

Today, we had nothing planned but art projects we didn't get to during the week. Evan tried out the sourdough recipe from the baking cookbook I'm working my way through. He made the starter at the beginning of the week and then made sourdough bread bowls for us to eat leftover soup tomorrow for lunch! My favorite!

I am endlessly grateful for all of the art classes and tutorials sprouting up all over the internet. Painting with Thomas is not relaxing (by any means of the word), but he loves it, and once he paints his masterpiece, he tends to wander off and the rest of us can then take our time finishing longer projects. 

We are doing some sort of art project almost daily right now, which is not our norm, so I am going to be doing some rearranging to accommodate all of the supplies we have gathered (both from the basement and Amazon) to avoid getting them off of my dining room table.

I also read a lot today and banned most screens after 11am to avoid the rage that screen time tends to bring to my children when I let them use them too long.

We also have reinstituted saying our Favorite and Least Favorite at dinner time. I had wanted to bring it back to practice being quiet when people talk and listening to what they say (because dinner had become one, giant scream-fest), but I think it's going to be a great way to talk about what's happening and to look for positives. Everyone's Least Favorite is that we're stuck in quarantine, but everyone has had Favorites.

I'm worried about people I know starting to get sick, but I'm thankful for all these ways of communicating with them to keep tabs on them. I hate the news, but am checking it daily because I need to and have to. I'm trying to just think about tomorrow and not what next week will bring. So, with all of that turmoil, our plans today, our mood today in our house, was a balm.

It was a good day.

Making Food For Others Is My Love Language

I didn't take any pictures today except this one today:

Julia painted two little Olafs for the boys.

I can usually tell how the day has gone if I haven't taken pictures because I love taking pictures. I love documenting our days with snapshots of what we're doing. I usually send a few pictures of the kids to Evan throughout the day. (Although, as of this evening, he is now working from home for the foreseeable future, so he can just see it all with his own eyes!!!)

But today...well today was a hard one.

I feel anxious about going to the store tomorrow for perishables. A lot of my mental wellness, I have learned over the years, revolves around the kitchen. I like being in the kitchen, I like cooking and baking, I like providing food for my family and loved ones. Food is my love language. It's how I tell you congratulations after having a baby. It's how I thank you for inviting us over to your house. It's how I show you I'm so glad you came to our house to eat with us. I like sharing cooking tips, favorite recipes, kitchen gadgets I love. It's a really big part of who I am.

In January 2011, I broke my ankle while 8 months pregnant with Vivian. If you would like to read about the hell of those weeks of hobbling around in a boot while being the most pregnant I have ever been, I wrote about it here.  Anyway, one thing that really bothered me was that I couldn't be in my kitchen. I was couch bound for weeks (literally weeks...I slept there...it was miserable) and would just watch Evan and my mom (who flew down to take care of me!) make dinners and lunches and go grocery shop and I just hated it. Don't get me wrong, I am very thankful that they fed the kids and me, but I felt displaced.

This pandemic has caused a real panic, rightly so, but the shortages of foods and necessities in the grocery stores really unsettles me. Tomorrow I am supposed to go run to the store, and I am dreading seeing empty shelves. I hate thinking about people who are now worried about feeding their families. I'm just in knots about it all.

One of my facebook friends commented that, since I've rebooted Elisablog, maybe I'd think about rebooting my Viriginia Cooks! blog. I had almost forgotten about my cooking blog, but now I think I might reboot it. When I started Virginia Cooks! I was wanting to share recipes on a small budget. We were a family of four back then and we really did have a pretty tight grocery budget. I'm thinking that maybe it might be a good idea to share meal ideas, not only on a budget money wise, but on a tight pantry supply "budget". Now, please keep in mind, there is no way I could blog daily on a cooking blog, but I probably could a couple times a week!

Since I can not personally bake every one of you a loaf of banana bread and drop it by your house as a way of showing you all that I care about you and am worried about you and this whole crazy world, I'd love to hear from any of you if you have any questions about recipes or meal ideas!

The Difference Seven Days Makes

Last week at this time, I had my regular Wednesday babysitter over in the morning. She got her at 9am and Elisabeth and I headed out to my favorite coffee shop. We ordered our usual coffees and sat down so I could spend a couple of hours reading my book and she could get some work done before I drove her to school for her afternoon classes.

When I got home, I piled all of the kids into our car so we could drive the babysitter home. I forgot to put the new checks in my purse and had no cash (per usual), so I told her I would just pay her for both weeks next Wednesday. 

I dropped Julia and Vivian off over at their friends' house (they are both friends with sisters from a family we go to co-op with) and their mom was going to drop the girls back off at our house before dinner time because her oldest was in both weekends of the show Julia was in--Music Man. It was tech week for Weekend One and Julia's friend wasn't going to get to go to youth group. Julia was disappointed, but the next week was going to be her turn to miss youth group for Weekend Two's tech week. I had sighed at the time because Julia was in the local community theater's (The Studio) production of The Music Man and Elisabeth was in her high school's production of Once Upon A Mattress and both of their shows were the same weekend. The next week was going to be chaos schedule wise.

I came home with only David and Thomas, which is rare since we homeschool, and the boys were SO WONDERFUL!! Seriously, it was like a gift. I added to the Walmart list I was making because Evan and I had been talking earlier in the week to make a big grocery run this Friday, just in case. We had decided to have enough food for two weeks at a time and to make a plan to do that for a while, just in case. 

I am sure I fiddle farted around on social media, did some laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, and read my book some more. Elisabeth had play practice after school and I didn't have to get her until 8. Julia was getting a ride home from a friend, so I didn't have to worry about being two places at once. Evan came home at his normal time and we had dinner with the younger three. After dinner clean up, I went to go get Elisabeth and got home just as my friend was bringing Julia home. She and I chatted in the driveway for a while about how two of her kids were sick again, how hard it was to believe that some of our friends' schools in other states were closing for a couple of weeks because of this coronavirus. We both wondered if that would happen with our district as well. Later that night, I offered to host a few friends on Friday morning for coffee because we were on spring break from co-op and we try to meet for coffee on Fridays during the school year when we can (something we do every Friday in the summer!).

Everyone went to bed that night like normal; I put Vivian to bed after reading a chapter of Harry Potter, Evan read books to the boys and Julia helped him by cuddling with Thomas (the worst kid at bedtime currently! Holy moly, he is a beast), and Ebeth worked on homework in her room.

I'm writing all of this down because that was just one week ago from today and it feels like a freaking lifetime ago. I feel like every day since last week had actually been a week unto itself. I want to have it written down what we were doing that last week before our lives were turned upside down. 

Today, we woke up and got dressed. One friend told me about the shortage of eggs in all of the stores she had tried in Rockford and I let her know I had reached out to another friend who (THANK GOD) has chickens and that I would go and pick up some eggs for the both of us. I asked the kids if they want to go with me and they all enthusiastically said yes! (Except for Elisabeth who decided to take her hour of solo time while we were gone because she is a genius). We all piled into the car and I realized I hadn't driven since last Friday when I had gone grocery shopping at noon. I looked at the gas prices as we drove to our friends' house and realized that the prices had really tanked and felt that continuous knot in my stomach get tighter.

We got to our friend's house, the same friend I had dropped my girls off to the week before, and kept a socially acceptable distance from each other as we talked the last few days, things we can't find at stores, meals we're planning, how bizarre the world has become. 

We drove home, had lunch, and went about our new schedule: school work, playing, art work everywhere, not leaving the house, washing out hands to the point they are now cracking, worrying that there is a new news break that I both do and don't want to read.

But, as with all things in life, time keeps moving forward, and we adjust and adapt and hope for better days soon. We make the most of what we have and try to live life well. It's our job to make home a safe place, and not just from this virus. It's our job to keep our home the safe place--where expectations of kindness, responsibility, growth, love stay stable and firm--when the world feels scary and unsure.  

So, I have decided I am going to keep trying to bake my way through this cook book:

 I love Judith Jones! I read her memoir years ago and bought this cookbook. She was good friends with Julia Child and I just found her life of cooking and working as a cookbook editor fascinating. I had made it a goal last year to bake our way through the whole cookbook, but as my mother-in-law's health continued to deteriorate, and with her passing away last summer, I found myself avoiding the kitchen because it reminded me too much of her. She'd taught me to cook and bake and really ignited my passion for the kitchen, but being in there was too painful and raw.

But, I have found myself drawn to the kitchen during this past week. Baking is how I often deal with really stressful things, and I wanted to be doing something that I know Jana would have totally understood--using the kitchen as a way of making something productive at a time when I have zero control. So, I used this cookbook last week to make pumpkin bread, we are using the recipe in it to make a sourdough starter, and tonight we made cloverleaf dinner rolls.

We are also loving the free art classes from McHarper Manor in Ohio that has opened it's studio online to anyone who wants to participate! The owners are putting up live videos daily and leaving them up for people to look at at their leisure. Tonight, the girls and I painted peg dolls.

 Vivian painted a penguin, a girl, and a fox (who still needs ears, she'd like me to clarify).

Julia made Harry Potter, a dotted non-person thing (?), and a girl.

I made me and Evan.

We ended up staying up later than normal, but it was fun.

Now, if this bedtime monster would SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT, I will be much better prepared for another day of quarantine in the Bonnett household.

This Will All Make Sense When I Am Older

Another day of isolation in the books for the Bonnetts. 

I didn't have us go back to our usual homeschool schedule because, to be honest, I needed one more day to process this new reality. I needed another day to let it really sink in. Honestly, my kids have been really great about all of this. They've been accepting of us being strict with restrictions and not getting to do things. It's actually been Thomas who asks almost daily, "Where are we going today?" When I answer, "Nowhere", he's just kind of nods and goes about his way to find something in the house to destroy.

It was absolutely gorgeous today. The kind of spring day we wait for all winter long. I told the kids we could go for a walk, which they were thrilled about. Elisabeth went for a run on her own, Julia rode her bike with us for a bit and then rode around the neighborhood by herself, so the three younger ones and I were left to meander on our own. Every person we ran into crossed the street and waved at my kids; same with older kids on bikes and scooters. 

We saw signs of spring! Birds were singing! Trees were budding! Green grass is growing!

Where the Sidewalk Ends.

As were walking back home, I noticed this:

 I have no idea, but my kids thought it was amazing and suggested we get one.

Junior highers practicing social distancing.

Actually, today was kind of hard with friends. It was a beautiful day, my kids wanted to be outside, but so did the neighborhood kids. I can tell Julia to stay 6ft away from friends and have her understand what I mean, but it's hard with the younger three. Vivian played soccer in our cul-de-sac with her best friend, which they stayed far apart from each other pretty well for the most part, but then they went to play with chalk and were shoulder to shoulder. They don't even think about it, because why should they?!

I ended up calling the kids in (and making them scrub themselves) and telling them that we probably should only play in the backyard, especially the boys. I think I can trust the girls to play within social distancing standards by being more specific, but I can't with the boys. But, maybe I should just make the girls stay in the backyard, too. Ugh. I feel like it's just such a hard thing for them and today was so lovely and I desperately wanted to be like, "Yes!! Go play!!".

This all is just scary. And it sucks.

Tomorrow we're going back to our regular schedule. Every one up by 8:30 (which is really just Julia and Elisabeth because the younger three are always up before 7), everyone breakfasted and dressed by 9. Do some school work, holler at the boys for trying to break all of our possessions, keep trying to do school work. Break for lunch, do some arts and crafts and/or play while Julia finishes anything she has left on her schedule for the day. Then it's a free for all till dinner.

Something we are adding is scheduled break times for me, Elisabeth, Julia, and Vivian. The older two and I get an hour each where we get to go to our rooms and do whatever we want with no interruptions. We started it today, and it was exactly what I needed. I read in my bed and was shocked how fast an hour can go by when not constantly interrupted. Vivian gets to take a break from having to play with the boys and can either go play in her room for 30 minutes alone or gets to play on the Wii by herself for 30 minutes. (Elisabeth got the Wiii working again! 10 years old and still kicking!!!)

One thing that is a concern for us is the our next grocery shopping trip. We did a huge grocery run on this past Friday, but since then it sounds like the stores are all short on supplies. I am planning on going this weekend to restock on perishables, but I am kind of dreading seeing what the stores look like. It gives me some anxiety and it's something that we can't control and are just going to have to do the best we can with what the stores have to offer. Honestly, thanks to my mother-in-law and her mad cooking skills that she taught me, I am confident I can make a lot of things from scratch if I have to (like bread) and can make meals from those odd cuts of meat that seem to still be in stores. I told the kids the other day that I could make pasta if the stores didn't have any and they all looked at me like I had lost my mind. Jana had bought me a pasta roller ages ago and I haven't used it in years, but she had me make it with her enough times I know I could if needed. But, as Evan pointed out, I can't make toilet paper, so I'm going to need people to quit hoarding it (and the soap and the paper towels and the loaves of bread and the chicken because, honestly, hoarding it is just not neighborly).

Here's to another day of making it through! I'm so thankful for smart phones and social media right now for being means of communication with loved ones. Despite their many flaws (I sometimes have to put my phone down for hours to stop myself from constantly trying to refresh the news), their redeeming qualities are much appreciated during these days of quarantine.

Into The Unknown

This might be a bit harder than I thought.

Not necessarily the homeschooling part, we're at a good place with that aspect. It took a while (which is why those of you with kids suddenly off of school should *not* panic!), because we basically had to find our rhythm and figure out how to get everyone's needs met while having babies and toddlers underfoot. It still gets sticky at times, but we've kind of found a groove.

What's going to be hard is not having our outside activities to break up our day. Vivian usually has piano lessons on Monday, which means school and things need to be done and picked up by 4:30. Elisabeth has to be at her high school by 11:15 to get to her first class of the day on time, which means that now our morning routine doesn't have a definitive time to be done.

No play practices, no times that neighborhood friends come home from school, no kids asking if our kids can play that gives us all a much needed break from each other (sibling bickering is strong with my crew).

It kind of dawned on me today that our new routine during these weeks of quarantine is going to be a lot like how it was first starting out with full time homeschooling--a big learning curve. We're going to  have to figure out how to live together-together. Like the Ingalls. We're like full up Little House on the Prairie-ing it up now, just with occasional trips to Walmart's pick up lane.

I think there's going to be a lot of fighting and crabbiness while we learn to carve out alone time in this house and how to always be around each other in a way we've never really had to be before. It isn't like a few snow days where we're all cooped up with movies and hot cocoa and a few days off of our normal routines. We're being forced to actually change our routine.

One thing that I am trying to be mature about is that I will not be getting any alone/away time for a loooooooooooong time. I have a sitter that comes each Wednesday for a couple of hours to watch the younger four kids while I get away and read a book at my favorite coffee shop. I usually go and run errands or grocery shop solo on weekends or after Elisabeth gets home from school. Evan and I try to go out for dinner alone every month or so. I think I am going to to have figure out how I can institute some alone time in my room. I'm sure no one will mind my disappearing regularly...

So, we're going to be doing learning as usual, but I'm going to try to implement more down time. I've never really had a designated quiet time, but I think we're going to all really need to add this to our schedule. I also would like to set up some goals, both domestic (all the cleaning and organizing!!) and personal (I'm looking at you TBR pile).

I'm thankful this is happening in as the weather is getting warmer all the time and I can kick kids outside. I'm thankful for the ability to still be able to connect with others through social medias and phones. I'm thankful for this space as somewhere where I can dump my thoughts and try to process this all. I'm also thankful to Disney+ for releasing Frozen II early because it truly was such a treat for them and they have watched it a million times already!

Vivian in head to toe leopard print! Her fav.

All of my kids are really into coloring and painting right now. It's actually a perfect activity right now.

Quarantined Times

Over four years is a long time to go between blog posts. I'm not even sure I remember how to write anymore!

I have been toying with the idea of blogging again for a few months. I wasn't sure if I should just start a brand new blog, if I should resurrect Elisablog, or just scrap the whole idea. But, my lovely friend Sarah suggested that those mommy-bloggers of ol' should chronicle our lives during this weird, frightening time of coronavirus and quarantine, and I thought that she might be right.

I remember messaging my friends on February 29th about what this coronavirus deal was and if I should be worried about it.  That seems like a really long time ago, but it was only a little over two weeks...which is so bizarre to really think about for too long.

Anyway, Evan (who loves the news and keeps up on it religiously) told me that it was something that was going to get serious and it wouldn't hurt to make sure that we weren't going to run out of things from the store anytime soon. I believe he suggested we make a small stock pile.

Usually, I am not someone who follows the news, but I really felt led to find out more about this virus and to take it seriously. I started following the fabulous Jenna Lee over at SmartHer News (if you are not following her, do it! She's on Instagram and she is such a levelheaded, honest news source). Evan and I started talking about what quarantine would look like for us after seeing Italy shut down and decided to make a big grocery run and start talking to the kids about coronavirus in an age appropriate manner for each of them.

Fast forward to Friday, March 13, when every school in Illinois was told they needed to be shut down by March 16th; all extracurricular events like sports, theater, and anything that would have more than 25 people was to be cancelled; to Sunday when they declared that all restaurants and bars in Illinois would be closed as of Monday (excluding drive thru and delivery). That is a lot of information to try to take in and I have no doubt that Monday morning will bring more changes.

We're holing up. We homeschool now anyway (besides Elisabeth, who is homeschooled half the day and attends the Catholic high school for the other half of the day), so our academic routine won't change too much, but all of our social and extra curriculars are done. No play practice (both girls were to have performances next weekend), no piano lessons, no youth groups, no science classes at the forest preserves or Discovery Center. We decided to not have anyone come into our house anymore and that the kids could play outside with the two families of neighborhood kids that make up our cul-de-sac crew, but after tonight, we're saying no to that, too.

I really feel wound up about this whole thing. I'm struggling with this being so epic and new and not having background knowledge to lean on besides what information China, Italy, and South Korea have given us just a few weeks ahead of our crisis.  I know plenty of people that think this is all being blown out of proportion, but I am following my gut. This is going to be huge and it is going to be like nothing we have experienced before. New things are hard to wrap our brains around, especially things that ask us as a culture to sacrifice in such a big way. We're being asked to think of others that we don't know, to trust medical professionals going through things in other countries that we can't see or witness. It would be so simple to just assume that the powers that be directing our country, state, county, city are talking to everyone else but *us*.

So, I am going to take the suggestion of Sarah and record this time in history with my family--what we're doing, how it's going for us. If anything, it will be cathartic for me and a journal for my kids one day about the crazy year in 2020 when the world shut down.

It's been a long time, but it is so nice to be back blogging. I started this blog eleven years ago to help Evan (who had just started training for the Air Force) keep up to date on me and our girls (little kindergarten Elisabeth and baby Julia!) and so that when we moved to our first base as an Air Force family, our families back in Illinois could keep tabs on our daily ins and outs (we didn't have smartphones yet!!!) with pictures and a play-by-play of our little family's moments.

Now we have five kiddos, we're settled back in Illinois after six years of moving to two different states with the Air Force, and I am rebooting this blog to chronicle a pandemic sweeping the world.

Crazy.