Well according to my calendar we’ve been socially distancing for 35 days and under “stay at home” orders for I think 21 (!?) days. It’s hard to keep track of the days since life’s normal rhythms are different. I can’t believe it’s already April 20th!

I do know it’s been 2 weeks without our beach walks. We have been truly blessed with very few covid cases in our county and beautiful warm weather. We are more than ready to get back out to the beach even if it’s just to walk. I truly feel for people in hotspots like my Jersey family. And I really feel for those – especially children and the elderly – who live in apartments or areas where it’s still cold and rainy. How this is affecting our elderly and those in nursing homes is truly heart wrenching. There’s so many things to be concerned about. But I pray a revival will be the result of all of this —- a deepening of faith and new strength in hearts and homes.

For memory’s sake – here’s a bit of what we’ve been up to…

1) Virtual Tea Party

E turned 10 on April 1st. She had been looking forward to a tea party with her friends sooo much (especially because we missed a friend party last year while we were on the road). So I told her we would still do a tea party just us. We got all dressed up

and even had some of our favorite characters from around the house dress up:

Her party guests all were secretly waiting via video call on Messenger – I handed her the iPad and they yelled surprise! I was disappointed because messenger said you could video up to 50 people but it ended up being only 8 at a time. For those out there wanting to do virtual parties – do zoom or something other than messenger.

It really was a happy day and memorable!

Look at the blue jay that came to visit:

The kiddos played lots of the games and really made it a great day!

You know it’s a great day when the birthday girl falls asleep on Daddy!

2) Virtual Connections

We’ve also been using zoom for our church time, homeschool group, and “classes” with MomMom and Pa!

I have been doing BSF online the last 2 years so I’ve just continued with that as well. It’s really a crazy experience that every person in my group is going through similiar things even though we’re all around the world – Kenya, Uganda, America, India. So crazy. And to think this all started with one person. Woah.

RR picked up on on his excel sheets he started on the trip and enjoyed showing his cousin what he’d been working on. He’s examining state’s (and countries) population and land mass:

3) Nature Awareness:

We have really enjoyed all the birds and squirrels around the house. Our awareness is definitely heightened to them and it’s been fun to stop the day whenever we want – just to watch the animals for however long we want! This meme made me LOL because it’s so true!

Goodness we even have new appreciation for ugly vultures and have spent some time watching them:

There’s a squirrels nest (we found out in MomMom class these are called dreys!) outside the kids’ windows. One day this week right before a bad storm we saw the mommy squirrel move her “babies” to a new nest! They were pretty big kiddos and we couldn’t figure out what was going on at first but we watched her carry one away somewhere and come back and put a second in her mouth. What a super mom!!! We watched her take the 2nd “baby” to the neighbor’s yard to a much thicker tree and better nest! We were so happy for her to get out of the low rent area to a higher quality nest.

See the cute little face poking out from the fluff ? So cute! The fluff was our neighbor’s chair cushions haha

We also saw our first fox squirrel on the island! It was so big and looked like a lemur. Their tails are so long:

We saw this on a walk. Anybody know whose jaw this is?

For E’s birthday a friend gave her ladybugs – that was such a fun gift! They all flew away but we liked watching them climb and investigate:

We hear that Lowe’s stays packed all day, every day so we haven’t bothered to go. It would be nice to do some house projects or build a garden… but we’ve just done our best with what we had. Gramma gave us seeds from Granny so we planted them:

RR takes care of the weeding cutting and blowing:

And we have enjoyed seeing what flowers are actually in the yard from the previous owners

4) Art & Music

I love that homeschooling has gotten even more relaxed this month and we’re doing all the extras that seem to get shoved aside… but really shouldn’t! A friend sent us the name of a cute book series and all 3 kiddos tried to copy the art work:

I learned to play the ukulele! And I even got out the 50-year old clarinet and taught AB and B how to play ! I was so proud of us!

5) Reading reading reading

6) Lots of outside exercise!

Bike rides:

We’ve tackled double Dutch!

Drill Sergeant RR has set up some intense chalk obstacle courses that may have made multiple people cry it was so hard 😀

We’ve also enjoyed running bases as a new game to play together !

And lots of walking and jogging. We are truly fortunate to be able to see water and have beautiful places to walk to:

The island is sooo quiet right now. It is getting busier each week but I’ve never seen it like this even on cold winter days. What a memorable first year of living at the beach! I had to take pictures of all the streets with no cars on them:

We may have snuck on the beach once or twice just to make sure the ocean is still there!

On the waterway – we only see a boat or 2 when we walk…but I think they are opening up the boat ramps soon so that will change quickly:

7) Easter / Resurrection Sunday

Driveway art:

The week of Easter we got egged by some friends and that was a very fun break in the day!

We then made sure to pass along that gift to our good friends down the road:

The kiddos also made egg scavenger hunts for each other which was so adorbs!

And we had our own Easter Egg Hunt as a family as well :

I loved opening my door on Resurrection Sunday and seeing this:

We even got dressed and had a nice meal 🙂

Our special friends even brought worship and church time to us!!! Omgoodness it was so so special ! Easter carolers !!! We loved it!!

And another special family gave E this amazing egg decorator for her birthday. It was so cool!!! We love being back around friends even if we can only talk to them from the porch:

8) Saying yes as often as we can !!!

B and I are really enjoying saying yes to as many requests as we can!

Mommy can we set up the tent, sleep in there, and pretend we’re at a national park? Sure!

Mommy can we make a fort that uses our mattresses and chairs and takes up the whole room!? Yeap!

Can we play play doh, calicos, legos, figurines for hours!? Of course! Its like time went backwards 5 years – I love it.

Can we watch ridiculous amounts of shows? Sure ha

Can we play – floor is lava? Yes! If you sweep and mop first!

We have said yes to lots of family games:

And you know we’re running out of things to do when Mommy even lets you try root beer pong:

Can we get take out oysters and stink up the whole house!? Yes!!

Well now that I’ve given so many highlights… I realize we actually have done a lot! We are thankful every day for Gods timing to allow us to be here in a special home before all this happened. Though there are hard days… we have so much to be thankful for!