Parentheticals

We are starting to get into the swing of social isolation. We know that we're very lucky; Mike's job was already remote and isn't likely to be impacted too much by the closures (his company makes software that other companies use to do payroll and HR stuff), and we already homeschooled. But we had social activities every day of the week, and losing all of them at once was really difficult for us. It took a while to get a hang of things. The kids discovered that they can play their imagination games with friends over the video messaging app Marco Polo (thanks, Amy, for the tip!). We set up an old phone for them (after a few days of them using Alison's phone for hours until the battery died), and we find them crawling under the table whispering into the phone, "I have to hide! Someone's coming!" or such. They love getting Marco Polos back and run off to watch them immediately (although the new phone is quieter, so they've been less responsive the past

Not last week but the week before people in our family were sick for the first half of the week That Thursday we played outside for the first time in a few days, however people also started freaking out about the Corona virus. Friday we went to the park, and we played Near and Far for our date. We decided to delay going to Grandma and Grandpa's house because of the virus (we didn't want to get them sick, in case we had picked it up at the convention, and weren't yet showing symptoms) however on Saturday morning, Grandpa called us and told us to come anyway, so we did. We droved to their house and enjoyed a lazy Sunday (all church world wide was cancelled, so we didn't attend, however they had the missionaries over for dinner and had church type meetings anyway.) Monday through Friday we mostly holed up in grandparents house and watched movies, did puzzles, and played games - only leaving to hike up to a waterfall that was entirely frozen. Gideon loved going

Monday of last week we painted the counters with a gray coat of paint in preparation for installing the new countertops. Tuesday morning Gideon started throwing up - he was sick all day, but by Wednesday he felt better. Baby Elizabeth also was possibly sick, however, it is hard to tell with babies - perhaps she was just throwing up with babyness. Tuesday during the day we had the arborists come over to chop down the dead spruce in our front yard, and the trees of heaven on the south side of our house. They made short work of the trees, but apparently, they dropped a branch on one of the trees owned by our southern neighbor, and he was unhappy about that for a while. He got over it, and nothing came of it, however. On Tuesday night Caitlin and Sal came over and helped us to apply the first layer of epoxy to them. This layer had coloring, sparkles, and various types of paint added to it in order to make it look like stone. It ended up looking good by the time that we were done

At the game day last week, Caitlin and Sal told us about something that they have been learning: how to use epoxy and mixed media in order to refurbish a counter to look like it is stone. They have been practising their skills on tiles that they bought, and they showed us the samples. They looked really amazing, and we told them so, so they asked if we would let them do our counter as a practice for the house that they are planning on buying and renovating. We agreed to that, because even if the equipment costs a couple hundred, the things looked really good, and it seems worth the effort to have better-looking counters. On Monday we went to the library and got the usual things (tons of books for the kids). Mike also went to the accountant's office where he gets his taxes done and tried to get his returns from them, however, they were not ready yet (despite them having texted mike and said that they were.) On Tuesday, the accountant texted again saying that the tax documents we