Going Virtual

Well...I was holding out hope.  I mean really holding out hope.  But I guess this office is my new classroom FOR THE REST OF THE SCHOOL YEAR.  Schools are closed.  But we are open for learning online.  I am struggling to carve out a schedule and figure out how to manage my own expectations for teaching, my need to teach my own kids, my house (since while I am here I am constantly distracted by a desire to clean, etc.), and stay upbeat when so many things we love and live for are gone. 
I have cried a lot over the last few days.  I may have also eaten a fair amount of chocolate.  I have stopped baking as much, as there is no flour to be had and I don't want to run out.  And I am also super busy now.  We are having staff meetings, class meetings, office hours, lesson planning...really.  Life is going on.  But time is crawling.  And racing.
There are times when being a super planner means life is smooth sailing.  And time when being a super planner means that you are not super adaptable.  And everything feels hard and frustrating.
Today I started using our whiteboard to write out the schedule of what I have to do and when I will do homeschool stuff with kids.  (We took an improptu walk to Baskin Robbins and the chiro and post office too.)
Ben cried when he saw how many meetings I had today.  It's an adjustment.  We will make it.
But I don't like this new normal.  Not really.
And the words I say the most to my kids?  "Just stop talking (to him/her)."  I am refereeing so much.  I need to try to follow it up with "and I love you both."
I am super thankful to the person who is sending Ben puzzle pieces so he can put together a puzzle over a few days.  He's loving it.
Also thankful to the Easter egg bomber.  All the kids loved that. 
Gifts from Uncle Davey have been a big hit. 
Thankful for my village.

April Fools! YES!

The best part of our very long week was our April Fools Joke.  Maren suggested that we support a local business on Wednesday evening for dinner.  When I reminded her that Wed. was April fools, we started scheming and came up with a plan.  We told Geneva and Brion that we would bring them pizza on Wed.  Then we (Ben and I) proceeded to bring them
1.  An empty box with HAHA!  April Fools!  Written inside with a few rocks. 
Then Libby and Maren and Sarah appeared with the "real pizza" which turned out to be...
2.  A huge cookie pizza! 
Finally, we gave them the real deal.
3.  Some kind of weird pizza that contains sunflower seeds.  But it was what they actually wanted.
I have never heard Brion laugh like that.  It was so rewarding to do something fun in such a sad/stressful/slow moving time.

They were both delighted, and so were we!  Got them!

Libby got into helping me make the pizza.  It was fun and looked pretty delicious. 

Ben also had me make crepes for breakfast.  He insisted that crepes are our traditional April Fools breakfast.  I do not think this is true.  But I guess it is now.   He did a crazy table set.  He wasn't very happy when I suggested he needed to do the wacky dishes because I had a staff meeting.  

I also colored the milk pink.  Ben enjoyed that a lot.  Libby refused to eat it. 

All in all, April Fools provided some much needed comic relief.  Then Ben & Maren and I watched Onward, it was his gift for Christmas (supposed to be in the theaters, of course) while the girls had a YW zoom activity. 

"Carona" Cafe

Last week I challenged my students on Friday to create a restaurant at home.  I gave them a menu template and encouraged them to create a logo, set menu items, and even put the restaurant into action if they could.
Not sure how many of them got very far (I did see some fun menus), but Libby went all the way.  I took her to the store so she could pick out the food.  That got us a lot of looks.  (I had all 3 with me in the store--and let me tell you, it isn't much different from having all 3 when they were 1, 3, and 5 years old. Begging, not staying close, touching things, etc.)
We invited our Corona Quarantine family member Maren to dine with us.
I'm going to have each person write their own review to add to this post (tomorrow's writing assignment).
Here are some pics of the awesome "Carona" Cafe.

Libby realized it was hard to be chef, waiter, bus girl, and hostess.  So I got called to the kitchen to "consult with the chef" or "complain about my meal" several times.

The menu included spaghetti (sauce made by Libby), garlic bread, these crunchy breadsticks ("house made") and gelato for dessert.  There was also a kids meal that included dino nuggets.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ I give the Carona Cafe 4 stars.  The food was delicious. While the service was sometimes slow, the waitress was quick to offer garlic bread for compensation for any issue, large or small.  The garlic bread was heavenly--I think maybe it was made with Irish Butter? --Satisfied Diner, Trish Norton

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  The cafe had nice serving.  The food was the best-- the kids menu had nice stuff to do while we were waiting, like coloring and tic tac toe.  The food was amazing, especially the garlic bread. I would go there again. --Ben Norton

⭐⭐⭐⭐Excellent service, although the waitress was a little too eager for a good review.  She kept bringing us garlic bread.  The food was good.  I don't like spaghetti, so I probably wouldn't go there again.  --Sarah Norton

Sarah's Corona Break Update

What I’ve Been Doing During 

CORONA BREAK

(Oh no! Not Corona Break!)

By: Sarah Norton

The first week of Corona Break, my family and I went to Canada.

Victoria, to be specific. We stayed in a classy hotel with a gigantic pool and a hot tub.

We also did a ton of walking around. On the first day, we walked around,

went to a few stores, and then went swimming in the hotel pool.

On the second day, we walked to the Natural History museum,

walked inside the Natural History Museum, walked around some more,

and then went swimming again.

On the third day, we packed up and headed home on the ferry. It was super fun.

The second week of Corona Break, my family and I stayed home.

We still walked around sometimes, but that was to get somewhere specific,

not just walking around. We also watched TV (a lot of TV).

Some of the things we watched are Sherlock, Star Trek, Oceans 11,

and Fighting With My Family.

I totally recommend all of them.

Another thing we did was get mad at each other and drive each other insane.

All in all, it was a great week.

During week three, all we are doing is home school and being bored.

Sometimes, we do family video chats. I am reading a lot, too.

Some of the books that I’ve been reading are Spirit Animals

(and Spirit Animals Fall of the Beasts and the special editions),

Percy Jackson and the Olympians,

Myth-O-Mania, and Call of the Wild (young readers edition).

We are watching season three of Sherlock. We have to do a chore a day, too.

I miss all of my friends and family. 

The end

Libby's Covid 19 Update: Canada Trip

The first week of the break we went on a spontaneous Canada trip.
We heard about school being closed on Wednesday and left for Canada Thursday morning.
The first day we decided to “Window Shop”. This was my least favorite part of the trip.
It was cold and really windy. The second day had similar weather but this time I wore a jacket.
Both nights we went swimming. We also went to the Natural History Museum.
Coming from someone who gets bored easily and likes to interact,
it wasn’t much fun. My Dad and Sarah had fun though.

The hot tub at our hotel 

Carousel at Butchart Gardens

Marshmallow fun

Good Day in 8 different languages.

Carona reading Challenge

     The second week was ok. I realized I couldn’t see my besties or hang out with them so I was
SUPER BORED! A bit more tension grew as we all realized our fate.
We were going to be stuck in the same house for 6 WEEKS.
Mom is having us do schoolwork to keep our minds alive

It is week three and we are all bored out of our minds.
We are moving out of I love you sis and moving into hunger games.
Only one will come out of this alive. Sometimes I think that everything is fine and sometimes
I feel like I am going insane. I love my family but I also like my sanity.

Ben's Corona Virus Update: So Far on Covid19 Break

I have learned how to play Fallout Shelter from Dad.
I play prodigy (math game).
I draw.
I color.
I do chores around the house (my favorite was helping to paint).
I went to Victoria which is in Canada.
I also went to Grandville (this is in Vancouver CA).
I've done poetry and I have done homeschool.
I have been playing the guitalele every day.
I can play "Yellow Submarine" and "Jet Plane" and "Blowing in the Wind."

Ben's actual text.  We added a few things and I edited a few spelling errors as we typed.

And that is what I have done over covid19 break.

Fallout Shelter, he insisted that we take this picture.  

The Stay Home Break

Amazingly I have been very busy.  Actually, this is not amazing.  It is totally normal.  I am very good at finding things to fill my time.  School has ramped up, as we are now supposed to be making contact with all our students and making sure they have access to the resources.  And of course I am doing a bit more than that.  I helped with one assignment for the next packet coming out from the district.  I've been learning to use zoom.
I had several meetings for school and camp stuff.  It feels really good to see people.
I also had a telephone doctors appointment--still trying to chase down the cause of my fatigue.  So I met with Sarah's metabolic doctor.  Libby also had an appointment.  Then we had to do the blood work.  This doctor requires extensive blood testing (starting fasting).  Usually she does this in house, but we had to go to a walk-in lab.  The poor lab tech was new.  We were there for 4 hours for the 2 hours of testing.  And, later that day they called me and let me know that there was one un-labeled vial of blood, meaning I had to do the whole process over again.  Thankfully it wasn't Libby--who hates having her blood drawn and struggled with it.  (Although she did better than she has in the past thanks to full blast youtube videos in her headphones.)
We participated in a virtual talent show that helped us feel less isolated.
I finished scraping wallpaper, patched, sanded, patched, sanded, primed, texturized, sanded, and finally painted Sarah's room.  I'm almost done.  One more coat.  Then I'm hopefully going to put the baseboards back on. This can be tricky, so we will see how it goes.  They put them up with some pretty intense nails, not the little nail gun nails that I can usually just snip off with wire cutters.
We participated in the world wide fast--it felt wonderful to be doing something.  And I'm not usually a fasting fan, but it truly felt good.
Every day I've been playing guitar with Ben.  He's improving rapidly.  It is really fun.
All in all, we are healthy.  We are surviving each other.  We are implementing stronger screen time limits and had to reset the iTunes passwords after an expensive breech leading to one of our kids purchasing many in-app purchases before we caught it.  What is the saying? Idle hands are the devil's workshop?
I'm committing to no more projects.  My focus needs to be on school for my students and my kids.
Today for school they are each writing a post.  Hopefully I'll get them all uploaded today.
Yesterday for writing we created book covers for the Westing Game, which we listened to and finished while we were creating them. 

We also played a fun math game.  

On Sunday we did Singing Time with Soren

Libby took lots of pics of herself. Photography Class? 

Ben sent a note to his teacher.

We did a fun game where we tried to explain our creations to each other (there was a barrier in the middle).

In some ways, this is a dream come true.  So much time to spend together.  Just staying focused on the good.