Finished. I think.

 After Julia tested positive, we waited the 5 days from exposure and tested Philip, Thomas, Nicholas and Jeremy again.  Praise Jesus everyone was negative!  We were able to return to our normal activities.  As of Tuesday we were all out of quarantine.  Then Thomas came home and said he had a sore throat and was running a 99.1 fever.  Ug.  That was the same as Julia's and Samuel's first symptoms.  We kept him home Wednesday and had him tested.  Praise Jesus, he was negative!  There is a cold going around school and Samuel was sick over the weekend.  We knew he couldn't have COVID again so soon but he must have brought that home to Thomas.  As of tomorrow it will have been 14 days since the boys were exposed to Julia and as of Sunday 14 days since Jeremy was exposed to her.  Assuming no one goes down in the next three days we should be done with our almost month long stint with this.  Due to days off and snow days the kids didn't miss a ton of school but they were definitely out of school more than they were in during January!  Thank God our symptoms were mild and we were able to get it stopped without it going through our whole family!

In the Midst of Our Quarantine

 Thomas turned 16!

He has 2 more hours to drive with an instructor and then he can get his license.  Quarantine messed up getting that done the week before his birthday.

We love you Thomas!

Making the Most of It

I found isolating to be delightful.  How often does a working mother of 5 have so few responsibilities?  

My holding-down-the-rest-of-the-fort husband didn't enjoy it so much.  I tried to be sympathetic.

After taking care of responsibility #1, finding subs and sending off plans for the week, I settled back to make the most of my time.

I reread the entire Harry Potter series.  So fun.

Jeremy and the kids brought me up my meals. No cooking for 10 days?  Hasn't happened since my dorm days. That circa 1980 goose tray of my grandma's that was on its way to Goodwill turned out to be super useful. 

We played some socially distanced battleship, and later, after my mom and Lynn sent a lovely care package, Guess Who.

My wonderful sister in law brought me all the papers my students had handed in at school on Thursday.  Good thing I was done with Harry Potter by then.  It was a big pile.  Responsibility #2.  She brought me more on Friday.  They are almost all graded and entered into the grade book.  I thought I had a 6th grade math manual here and I don't.  I am able to find the student book online but not the manual.  I'm not doing all that math, it can wait.

I also read The War that Saved my Life and it's sequel, The War I Finally Won on my Kindle along with The Assignment.  10 books in 11 days (had to finish up the last one the day after I got out) we have to go way back to high school to find the last time I could've managed that.  

Covid is still stupid but I'll give it one point for giving me a 10 day staycation!

Covid Comes to Town

Well, we've had a small turn with Covid and we're all just fine.  It was actually two separate occasions that overlapped by one day.  Which turned out to be good.  But I'm ahead of myself.

Jeremy and his mom rode together to watch Samuel and Thomas wrestle On Friday Jan 8th.  Two days later, Raleen tested positive so Jeremy had to quarantine.  He stayed in our bedroom and I bunked in with Julia.  He tested negative five days later so he could be done with quarantine on the 14th.  

In the meantime two kids on the wrestling team tested positive but they were lighter weights so Samuel and Thomas were not in direct contact with them and did not have to quarantine.  Then the morning of Thursday Jan 14 Sam took his temperature before heading to school and it was a little high.  It didn't go down in the next half hour so he stayed home and we signed him up to get tested.  At school they started to realize more wrestlers were feeling sick and the whole team was put on quarantine until the following Tuesday.  And that night we got Sam's positive results.  That put all of us but Jeremy in quarantine.  Since Jeremy had been isolated all week he was not exposed to Sam.  That was super helpful because he could run to the grocery store and cook.

And just to keep things hopping, I had woken up with a sore throat a couple mornings that week but I often do because of allergies.  By Thursday after school it was clear I wasn't feeling right either.  I started isolating, Sam was isolating and we wanted Thomas away from the three littles because he'd had the highest risk exposure since he'd been with Sam and the other wrestlers.  Complicated.  

Friday there was a big snowstorm so we had a snow day which was nice.  Our test site doesn't test on weekends so I tested Monday morning. Negative. I did a telehealth with my doctor who thought I might have gotten a false negative and advised me to continue isolating until 10 days from when my symptoms started.  That put me back to real life Jan 25.  My symptoms were mild, I seemed to have a different one off the list each day but only one at a time.  Sore throat, headache, body ache, chest congestion, cough.  I feel fine now but it sure would have been nice to get my "get out of quarantine free" card for testing positive!

Tuesday all four of the other kids tested negative, praise Jesus!  They could go back to school on Friday.  

Wednesday Philip threw up twice and slept all morning.  I thought we were back in quarantine for sure.  I contacted our school nurse, who relayed the information to our health district and they said since all he did was throw up, everyone, including the now totally recovered Philip, could return to school. So off the four of them went on Friday.

Sunday morning Julia woke up with a 99.1 temperature and a headache.  We isolated her to her bedroom right away.  Since she's still in the 14 day window from her exposure to Sam she'll need to test again.  But it blizzarded Sunday night so they weren't testing yesterday.  We'll take her today (assuming it's not cancelled again) and are praying she is still negative.  After a couple hours Sunday morning she's been fine, so here's hoping.  And we had snow days yesterday and today so that helps some.  If we get her results tonight we'll know if we're back in quarantine or good.  I'm hoping since I was isolated I won't have to quarantine even if she is positive.  

Samuel is done with his ten days and is feeling fine again too.  He had congestion, headaches and lost his taste and smell.  He's slightly annoyed about the snow days.  He won't have to quarantine if Julia's positive since he is now in the "can't give or get covid" 90 day window.  That will get us almost to the end of the school year!

Stupid Covid.

Happy Birthday Nicholas!

Happy 8th Birthday to our best snuggler, work-avoider, and mess maker!

He chose just to open one present on his actual birthday.

He and Daddy started putting it together, but it's more complicated than Legos and they haven't sat down to finish it yet.

A couple days later he got new pigeon socks from Lynn and Logan and fam.  He'd loved his old ones so much they had huge holes and had to be thrown away.

The next day we did a little birthday party Zoom so the family could see his cake and watch him open presents.  Julia did a great job on the Minion cake!

Here are his guests.

Why did Julia do the cake and why is our family not all in the living room with the birthday boy?  Well that's another post...

 

Family Vacation

After lots of weeks in total quarantine and more in mostly quarantine we decided a family vacation was in order.  Not just Jeremy and I and the kids, my parents and sisters and nephews too!

We stayed in cabins at the Broom Tree Family Camp.  We were the only ones there except the camp hosts, who worked during the day, a family that left soon after we arrived, a family who arrived just before we left and a few silent retreatants out walking.  So for all basic purposes we had the place to ourselves and could pretend there was no COVID for 4 days!  It was great!

There was fun out in the cabin yards,

inside the cabins (we celebrated everything we missed during quarantine),

swimming every day,

time at the playground,

a morning of paddle boating (the lucky people sat on the left, the right side was not actually helping paddle...which we didn't realize until late in the morning),

a walk on the double bridge was fun, it has a story walk, which I love!

and of course, smores!

It was a great get away!

Don't Tell Him it's Project Time

If I call it Project Time like I did in the past Nicholas rebels.  Just suggest a fun project?  He's usually in.

Thick bubbles to paint onto stuff outside on a hot day.

 A Lego hot air balloon.

A nerf gun target

and a "lava lamp".  Water, oil and an alkaseltzer tab.  It did not explode, just made the oil and water bubble around for a bit.

And sprinkler fun

Philip is enjoying a week at G&G's and Julia has been reading, reading, reading.  The big boys have been doing various things other than project time too.  Thomas will do pretty much any yard job you suggest and Sam finds things to do to keep busy.

Rescheduled

but happening!  The priests in our diocese have been given permission to do any Confirmations that were scheduled during quarantine (instead of rescheduling the Bishops and them going out into so many communities) so tomorrow's the day!

New Hobbies

My oven has been acting up for awhile.  We replaced a cheap part hoping it was the problem but after two days of working perfectly it started acting up again. It's not maintaining the temperature correctly.   Jeremy thinks it's the main (expensive) computer board so looks like I'll be trying to choose an oven during COVID restrictions on shopping.  Fun.  Julia and I managed to get these donuts baked by turning the oven off and on a lot because when you turn it off and then on it recognizes that the temperature is lower than it's supposed to be and adjusts up but then doesn't maintain again.

I had to find a new hobby since I can't bake.  I've been dabbling with hand lettering.  It's fun.

I grilled this new, delicious recipe.  Mini peppers stuffed with goat cheese and herbs.

And I searched crayon crafts due to the overabundance of half used and broken crayons at our house.  This was the most adult one.  You stick the crayon in a candle flame so it gets melty and then make dots.  Julia tried it too but didn't have the patience for all those dots.  I didn't suggest the little boys try it.

Not sure what my next project/hobby will be.  If we get our new reading curriculum in, it'll be looking through and planning for that!  My classes are changing a little for next year (assuming we have any semblance of normal next year) I'll have 3rd and 6th grade reading classes, 2nd, 3rd and 6th grade math and 5th and 6th computer.  3rd grade reading is what's new and I'm losing 1st grade math and K-4 computers.  It's actually a little more than an hour less of time with kids than last year so I'm happy about that.  I was bringing papers home every night so maybe I can get that more under control!

First Round of Cooks

Nicholas LOVES crab and shrimp so one Friday he made us seafood quiche along with a couple salads and no bake cookies.  It was tasty!  I think the quiche may make it into my rotation.

Philip grilled steaks (with Dad's help) and made garlic bread and a salad too.  His dessert was peanut butter bars.

Julia made sliders on the grill due to the oven situation, salads and s'mores rice krispie bars.

They all did a great job.  It's almost time for another grocery trip so they'll be planning more meals.  I love the days I don't have to figure out and make dinner!

We had Time to

take down the tree that got hit by lightening last fall.

And have a little fun with it

We've been watching the How to Train Your Dragon movies.  These are his Viking horns.

There's more sticks to build forts out of in the burn pile too.

Quarantine Attire

I've accepted leggings as pants-but ONLY in my own home.  I will.not.leave.the.house in them.

We have vetoed this leaving the house as well

and the new...high?  low?  I'm not sure what... in quarantine attire.

If the Weather would Cooperate

it sure would help.  Snow in April does little for morale.

 They decided to make snow cones with real snow.

The consensus was it was not tasty. 

Julia had a tick on her after she came in from playing outside.  Seriously?  A tick and snow on the same day.  Make up your mind weather.

Thankfully the snow was all gone by the next day!

Alternately Great and Oppressive

is how quarantine feels to this extroverted introvert.  My introverted self was pretty content for a month but now that little bit of extrovert, that usually spends itself in the classroom, is yelling to get out.  Playing with new technology has run out of fun.  Also turns out teaching to a virtual audience takes out a lot of the enjoyment.  Especially because it's time consuming to make all those tutorials that your students may or may not be watching and correct the huge pile of papers you get once a week.

Our question of the day at dinner the other night was: On a scale of 1-10 how close are you to exploding because of quarantine?
Jeremy:  6
Lisa: 7
Samuel:  6.5
Thomas:  5
Julia:10
Philip:  5
Nicholas:  9
Those are fairly accurate by my judgement.  If I didn't have to cook every time I turn around I could be a solid 6.  And without papers to grade probably a 5.  But it is what it is.  I lowered my number by having a long chat with a friend one night and having a Zoom, complete with Boggle, with my old roomies the next.  But then it was time to figure out what everyone was eating again....

We have been playing a few games and doing some puzzles

 and enjoying the nice weather 

Nick had lunch in the fire truck

We played a game of life size Clue.

I did some retail therapy with the credit card points I'd never used and got this nice knife set.

in between doing lots of school work and fussing about being bored.  The warmer weather helps a lot with lowering numbers!

Thomas's homework for Foods is to make a breakfast, lunch and dinner.  For breakfast he made donuts in the air fryer, his favorite appliance.

 They were very dense but still tasty.

Working outside helps some with the complaining from this one.