Puzzlemania

My kids periodically get on a puzzle kick. The last couple of weeks I'm certain we've set a new record as to the number of jigsaw they've completed in a short time span. Ian has done as many as four puzzles in one day. Typically the kids do puzzles that range from 100-300 pieces each. We have some that have 500 pieces, but they haven't attempted any of those recently. When all three kids are each doing a jigsaw puzzle at the same time, we listen to an audiobook together. We listen to audiobooks year round typically three times a day, but the number of hours we listen per day as increased the past couple of weeks. This week we're listening to a biography about Eric Liddell and a novel about a middle schooler. We've also been playing at least one game each day. Some recent choices included: Senet, memory, pick up sticks, Ancient History Go Fish, and Compatibility. Ian has been practicing the piano more than usual. He's working on Level 5 of Alfred plus enjoying a Star Wars solo book Amazon delivered this week. The solo book is challenging enough that I can't even sight read the music very well!

Being under a stay-at-home order is easier to handle emotionally when the weather is nice. On Sunday it rained ALL day, and it was only in the 40's. In contrast the past two days it has been in the 60's. Our three guinea pigs also love it when the weather is nicer because the kids take them outside, and they love being able to eat grass! Thankfully it's supposed to stay in the 60's for the next several days. The kids and I go for a walk whenever the weather permits. I'm actually the only one who walks. Yesterday and today one child was riding a bicycle, one was on a scooter, and one was on roller blades. Oliver has spent many hours rollerblading the last two days. I bought those at a yard sale last September for Nadia. I thought that for one thing it would save us money at the monthly skate night at the roller skating rink, but she thought they were a little tight. I had thought of buying two more pairs of rollerblades for the kids last Christmas, but I didn't. All three of them have been wanting to rollerblade this week. Considering we'll probably be spending more time at home this spring and summer than usual, I decided to buy two more pairs. I was a bit overwhelmed by the prices on eBay and Amazon, but I found two pairs through Facebook. One is adjustable for sizes 5-8 (for Nadia), and the other is adjustable for sizes 3-6 (for one of the boys). I had made arrangements to meet the people today to purchase the rollerblades, but then when Paul got home around 8pm last night from work he told me that the lock had fallen out of the driver's door of my van. He never drives my van to work, but he did so yesterday because he thought he would be using it to transport a chest freezer from a store back to our house. We learned that it's impossible to buy a freezer anywhere right now. We will have to wait until July or August to attempt to buy one from Sears, Lowes, Home Depot, or Best Buy. We don't know why the lock fell out. Neither of us have ever had that happen with any of our vehicles before, but thankfully he noticed it while getting in to come home from work otherwise it would have been lost on the road somewhere. All this meant I couldn't drive today. It was rather ironic as I've only driven one time this month, and the rare time I made plans to drive I couldn't. He's hoping to put the lock back in this evening, in which case hopefully I can do the rollerblade meet-ups tomorrow. Then all three kids will be able to rollerblade at the same time instead of needing to take turns since they're currently all sharing the same pair. Oliver had never had success with roller skating in the past, but what he learned in ice skating this year translated to him being able to rollerblade.

Ian has also been working on geography. Over the last week he has learned the name and location of all of the countries of North America, South America, and Europe. He also learned the names of the capitals of the countries in South America and can identify all of the provinces of Canada on a blank map. The AWANA commander said if anyone was wanting to say their verses by Facetime or Skype they could do that. Ian and Nadia had already finished their books, but Oliver had two sections left. We've been working on relearning them the last few days. He knew them well about 6 weeks ago. I sent this video to the AWANA commander. We shall see if he passed or if we need to keep working on them. Memorizing does NOT come easily for Oliver. I've been spending more time helping Nadia on the piano, doing lesson planning for our next school year, and doing projects around the house. Today's was to clean the front porch, which included scrubbing off bird droppings and such. The past two weeks Paul went grocery shopping once a week - at Aldi 11 days ago and at our local grocery store 3 days ago. This week I've been working on an order that Walmart will deposit in  his trunk this coming Sunday afternoon. In two days our Governor is going to announce which counties are going into the "yellow" phase on May 8 (2nd of three phases). I believe our county WILL meet the criteria to move to yellow. We have had zero deaths and less than 100 positives. The criteria is to have an average of fewer than 50 cases per 100,000 over the past 14 days, and we've had an average of 30 something new cases per 100,000 over the past 14 days. Several of our neighboring counties also should be moving to yellow next week. I do know for sure this means that the libraries will be reopening. YAHOO! Beyond that I'm not really certain. We still will be limited to gatherings under 25 people, which definitely excludes church. Movie theatres, gyms, eating inside a restaurant are some things he has explicitly said will not be permitted in the yellow phase. I'm wondering about things like amusement parks, museums, Reptiland (a small zoo near our house), and summer camps. I figure it will likely be awhile before he moves any county to "green," so I am hoping there is a way to do social distancing in such a way that at least some of those places can open in the yellow phase. I'm hoping we receive more details on Friday about what will/won't be allowed to reopen during our time in the yellow phase. I think we'll mostly still be at home, but hopefully some types of outings will be permitted aside from picking up books/DVDs at the library once a week. The concert we planned to attend in late March that was moved to late June has now been moved to "Fall 2020" without a specific date. Since the concert is to be held at a very large venue, my guess is that it won't actually happen in 2020. So far we haven't shed any tears in our house over COVID-19 or the government's restrictions, but I'm pretty sure tears will be shed if camps and some other things planned in July and August are cancelled. I'm waiting a few weeks to decide if I should pause our membership with Six Flags. They are offering incentives to those who don't put their membership on pause, but those will be meaningless if the parks don't really open this summer. So I'm waiting a bit longer before I ask for a pause just in case the parks can open in June or July. 2020 is such a strange year!!