22 months later

Today the kids had their first ice skating lesson since the beginning of March 2020. They would have had one last week if they hadn't gone skating. Even though they didn't ice skate much at all over the last 22 months, they did go roller blading a lot more, and this has resulted in significant progress for Ian and Oliver on the ice. Ian was promoted to the more advanced class. Oliver was in the lower class today, but he asked the teacher if he could move up next week, and she said he could if he wanted to. One of the reasons he wanted to join his siblings in the other group was they were on the ice for a total of 75 minutes, which was 30 minutes longer than he was. Mostly things seemed to be "back to normal" in the way that the classes were run with the exception that some people were wearing masks, which of course wasn't the case at any other time in the past that the kids had ice skating lessons. 

Nadia thought she'd be doing more ice skating this weekend at Camp Susque. She has wanted to attend winter camp there for years. The first several years that she asked to go, I said "no" because it would have interfered with an Upward basketball game. I told her that she could start going to winter camp once she was in 7th grade because she would be too old for Upward at that time. I signed her up for winter camp last year, but they ended up switching to a virtual event (which didn't interest her at all). I signed her up again this year. The middle school winter camp IS being held in person this weekend, but she won't be going because Paul has symptoms of a bug that could be COVID. I called stores and asked friends and neighbors if they had a spare test, but I couldn't get my hands on a single OTC COVID test. Since we can't prove he doesn't have COVID, she can't go to camp. Thankfully, so far, the kids and I have zero symptoms. We're praying it will stay that way. Time will tell. The winter camp for high schoolers is held a few days after Christmas (end of December). Maybe just maybe the third time will be the charm and Nadia will actually make it to winter camp as a ninth grader in December. 

This was the first time I ever attempted to purchase a COVID test. We realize that they are prone to false positives, but we wouldn't have time to get the results back from a test at a hospital since she was supposed to be dropped off at 6pm tomorrow. Paul was in Baltimore last week at a trade show. Everyone wore masks at the trade show, and Paul, his brother, and Dave are all vaccinated. Dave hasn't been at work this week due to illness, and he is waiting for the results of his COVID test. I honestly didn't realize how hard it is to buy a COVID test right now. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised because the shelves are still bare at times for random items. Last week when I was at a Walmart supercenter, I was amazed at the bare shelves in the pasta section and also with the apples. The rest of my life the only time I would see bare shelves would be in conjunction with a snowstorm, and then it would be things like bread and milk that would be hard to find. For the past two years it's been a much wider variety of things that have been hard to get along the way. 

The bare shelves aren't the only shocking thing about grocery shopping in 2022. The prices are also disturbing. I know they say that inflation is up 7%. Frankly, 7% would sound heavenly to me compared to the actual price increases I am seeing in many aspects of life. Our car insurance just went up 23% (for the premium that begins in a few weeks), our home insurance went up 29% over the last year (and it also went up a lot the previous year!), our garbage bill went up 36% over the last two years, etc. I told Paul it might be a very long time until we have beef stew again. There are food items that I typically buy on a regular basis that I've stopped buying because of price increases. I realize I might have to change the price I'm willing to pay for things. I buy a few things no matter what they cost such as bananas (which thankfully are always pretty cheap when it comes to the cost of fruit), eggs, and milk (which is typically a little under $4/gallon). I've raised the price I'm willing to pay for ground beef by 50% because otherwise we wouldn't have had any for quite a while, and it's still a challenge to find it at that price, but I'm just not sure what to do about the other price increases. Many things have gone up at least 20% and sometimes far more than that. 

We just plan to stay at home the next few days. Last weekend Nadia and Ian were in a Bible quizzing competition at our church that included teams from Indiana and Ohio. They spent the night at our church last Friday night because the quizzing ended late on Friday night and began early on Saturday morning. Our church's boys' team won (not because of Ian although he was on the winning team). Nadia did better than she had the last two years. This quiz was on Romans 1-14. The one in June will be on all of Romans and James. So far Nadia has memorized the first 7 chapters of Romans and the first 2 chapters of James. 

A couple of things are not currently part of our lives that were prior to COVID. First, the kids had been in AWANA from August 2011 until March 2020. AWANA did resume in person this fall, but Oliver hasn't attended. Last night he attended the midweek kids' program at our church while Nadia and Ian were in youth group, and I was in a ladies Bible study on Hagar. Singing in a choir was also the norm for me (for decades) and for the kids since 2012. None of us are in a choir. Oliver *could* be in the kids' choir at church as it did resume this fall, but he said he didn't want to, and I decided not to make it mandatory. Hopefully Nadia and Ian will be in the Susquehanna Valley Youth Chorale again starting in the fall. I have no idea when I will be in a choir again. Knowing that some things are still on hold or easily cancelled at the last minute, the kids are very appreciative that they can take ice skating lessons. They say it's their favorite type of "gym class. " :)