March Random

  Here are some random pictures from March:

Boredom really wore Gracie out

Gracie napping again

Before the shut down, the kids had their Chinese New Year's dance.  Emmy loved dancing!

The girls at the doctor's

Ashlyn at her band concert

Entertaining Ourselves During a Pandemic

  Living through a pandemic is the most surreal experience ever.  As humans, we are very social people.  We are constantly going and going places and are around all sorts of people.  For this to all of a sudden come to a screeching halt, with little warning, is quite the challenge.  We have been stuck in our house for a couple of days before due to snow storms, but never for weeks at a time with no end in sight.  We knew we had to find creative ways to entertain ourselves without little luxuries like parks, movies, bowling, etc.  Luckily, we had the Leones right next door to spend time with.  We also spent time with our other neighbors, the Wongs.  We all were strictly quarantining, and even though it was breaking the "rules", we all needed one another for our sanity.



  Colorado never has a shortness of wind.  Gracie had never flown a kite and was so excited to go and fly one.  She was an instant pro!  She did such a good job of keeping it in the sky.  I had forgotten how much fun it is to fly kites!

  We did a lot of movie nights with the kids.  We made it fun with popcorn and candy.  It was the same as going to a movie theater, but it was the best we could do.

    Living through a pandemic is the most surreal experience ever.  As humans, we are very social people.  We are constantly going and going places and are around all sorts of people.  For this to all of a sudden come to a screeching halt, with little warning, is quite the challenge.  We have been stuck in our house for a couple of days before due to snow storms, but never for weeks at a time with no end in sight.  We knew we had to find creative ways to entertain ourselves without little luxuries like parks, movies, bowling, etc.  Luckily, we had the Leones right next door to spend time with.  We also spent time with our other neighbors, the Wongs.  We all were strictly quarantining, and even though it was breaking the "rules", we all needed one another for our sanity.

One afternoon, my neighbor and I spent several hours coloring this master piece.  We did get a lot of compliments from neighbors walking by.  

Another day, we set up an obstacle course.  The kids had to crawl under pool noodles, do pushups, etc.  They really seemed to like it.

Grace in mid-pushup

   Another saving grace, was this whole thing started in late March when the weather was nice on some days.  Spring weather can be very dicey in Colorado, but by some miracle, we got a lot of really nice weather.  We took full advantage of it!  I don't think I have ever been on more walks in my life.  It was the only thing to do to get out of the house.

One of our many, many, many walks

My sister and I are really into True Crime.  We ordered a fake "case" to solve.  The girls wanted to help too.  We still haven't solved it.  Lol

Another walk. We took a lot of walks down to the lake near our house.

My three perfect daughters

E-Learning/Covid

     
*I am writing about our experiences so we can look back in years to come and remember what it was like.

The entire Covid pandemic experience is definitely the most trying and challenging experience any of us have ever lived through.  We had been hearing rumors for weeks that Covid was making it's way to the US.  It started in China, but I honestly was very naive and thought we would be able to eradicate it or stop the spread to the U.S.  The nightly news kept reporting each night more and more cases.  I still don't think we took it too seriously as it wasn't a big problem in Colorado yet.
   Joey and I decide last fall that we wanted to take the kids somewhere special for spring break this year.  We decided to go to California and also go to Disneyland.  We surprised the kids with the trip on Christmas.  My parents were going to come along as well.  We had everything planned and booked for our trip.  We were all so excited.  Especially Gracie as we kept telling her she got to celebrate her birthday in California. As our trip got closer and closer, we kept hearing news reports about increasing Covid cases.  I was nervous, but I was trying to stay positive and tell myself that the trip would still happen.  About a week before we were supposed to go, Disneyland announced that it would be closing for the foreseeable future.  Well, that definitely made up our decision for us.  We were all pretty devastated to lose our trip, but we soon realized it would just be the first in a string of changes and cancellations during this global pandemic.
    The district I work in does a two week spring break.  I got out of school a week before the kids.  At my school we met as a staff and discussed what things would look like if we had to go to e-learning.  I was still optimistic and so hopeful it would not come to this.  The following Wednesday, the kids had a normal day of school and were supposed to go two more days before spring break.  That evening, it was announced by the district that school would be closed indefinitely.  It was such a shock and we were all pretty numb.  We had never experienced anything like this before.  We were also ordered to stay at home and limit contact with pretty much anyone.
     We spent spring break at home trying to find fun ways to entertain the kids (more blog posts to come).  The only saving grace through this whole pandemic is that my sister and her family live right next door.  We knew immediately that we would be comfortable seeing them.  It was just not realistic for us to quarantine ourselves indefinitely with no contact.  My sister and I decided to create a learning schedule for the kids.  The schools were still scrambling to figure out how e-learning would look. I figured it would be easy for me to do stuff with them at home since I am a teacher and all.  Whoa.  Not the case at all.  I love kids.  I love teaching.  I do not love teaching my own kids.  It was such a struggle to give the all attention at the same time.  It was basically a disaster!!!
    After a few weeks, their teachers starting posting assignments.  I know we were all in emergency mode, but I was very disappointed in the e-learning that was provided.  Gracie missed all of the end of her kindergarten year.  That is pretty important.  I loved her teacher to death, but her assignments almost solely consisted of watching Youtube videos.  Dawson's and Ashlyn's teachers were not much better.  I will never, ever take normal, in-person learning and teaching again!!!  School is not meant to be taught virtually!  We will see what the future holds for next school year.  I hope and pray dearly that we can return to some level of normalcy.

The "schedule" we created for the kids.  I don't think we stuck to it for even a day.  We set our hopes a little high.  I will admit we were in panic mode and creating a schedule and a plan helped to ease our anxiety a bit.  

Our little students ready to learn

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Gracie's 6th Birthday

     I can't believe that Gracie is already six years old.  Gracie is such a special, special girl.  She is my world and she definitely has my heart.  She is the sweetest most caring child ever.  She is always thinking of others and will always be the one to make someone feel better if they are sad.  She is always writing Joey and I the sweetest notes telling us how much she loves us.  She is truly a gem!
   Gracie is super athletic and loves riding her bike, playing soccer, and jumping on the trampoline.  She is a smart little thing and is doing a great job learning to read.  She did so well in kindergarten and made so many friends.  Her teacher said she was such a joy to have in class and was so well behaved. 
    Gracie is such a girlie girl.  She loves wearing dresses, playing with her pretend makeup, nail polish, jewelry, and general fanciness.  Barbies are by far her favorite thing to play with.  She can play Barbies in her room for hours and hours. 
     Boy did I feel bad for Graice's on her birthday this year.  We had been talking up her celebrating in  Disneyland so much and she was so very excited for it.  I was pretty upset when we had to break it to her that we wouldn't get to go and she wouldn't get her special birthday in Disney.  The other bummer was that since this is when the pandemic got real serious, almost everything was shut down.  It was hard to make her birthday special when we had nowhere to go.
    I did my best in trying to make it special for her.  We had a little party with just family and the neighbors.  She wanted Chinese food, so we ordered a bunch of Panda Express.  She requested an ice cream cake that I made for her.  We did some "old school" party games like musical chairs and the limbo.  The kids LOVED the limbo and a lot of laughs were had.  We also did a piñata which is always so fun.  Luckily, I had bought presents far in advance so she still go some great gifts.  She said she had a great birthday and that's all that matters!
     God truly, truly blessed us with our amazing, spunky, sweet, and funny blonde haired blue eyed beauty.  I truly could not ask for a better daughter. 

What the elf left her

Birthday elf

Checking out her donuts

Birthday donuts are the best

Emmy loved the donuts too!

The kids enjoying yummy Chinese food!  

Emmy was not very happy she couldn't open any presents

   Gracie's big present was a giant Barbie Dream House.  She has been wanting one for a long time, and she was so excited to finally get one! 

Checking out her Dream House

Pinata time

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