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Stay-at-Home (Week 6) / Learn-at-Home (Week 4)

As I write this, Kansas now has over 3,000 cases of Covid-19, with 5 of those in Marion County.  Unfortunately, one of those in our county died yesterday morning.  However, experts seem to think that we will hit our peak soon, and in nearby Sedgwick County, they think they might have seen their peak already.  Stay-at-home orders are set to expire for KS on May 3rd, but time will tell!  Hopefully, businesses can begin reopening slowly in the coming weeks, but I imagine things will look different for quite a while - even after things open back up.

The week around here was pretty normal.  We kind of have the same routine - wake up at 5 different times, eat breakfast at 5 different times, start school at 4 different times while Chelan is at work (either at work or at home), and then the rest of the day is for working, playing, eating. . . and eating. . . and eating, it seems!

Chelan celebrated his birthday this week, so that was a nice change of pace on Wed.  Even though he doesn't like to make a big deal out of his birthday, Delaney did bake a cake, and I tried to make a decent steak dinner.  I had recently bought a new item from a Tupperware party, so I let him open it to see if he could figure out what it was (a pickle strainer).  It stumped him and we finally  had to tell him.  My grandma had one of these when I was growing up, and it was pretty handy for picking out a pickle without sticking your whole hand in the jar!  We also played a game of Scrabble in the evening, one of his favorites, and very fitting after receiving such a creative card from my mom!



We are almost finished scraping the basement floor, so Chelan and I got to work on taking down wallpaper last night.  It's not easy, but we are almost finished with that part. I recalled posting a picture of our flooded basement about a year ago and commenting that it would be our first summer project.  Here we are a year later . . .


And, some other pics from the week:
Chocolate cookie prep took a rather
dusty turn for the worse!

Biscuit is getting in on the Google Meeting with Quinli and Delaney


Creating with hot glue!

Much-needed rain and a beautiful rainbow
afterwards!

Late nights watching the NFL draft
Chelan finished the K-State puzzle - with a little bit of help from Caiden
and a microscopic amount of help from the rest of us!

Tried something new - pretzel dogs (thanks to Trissa for the recipe).  They
were a hit!
There are 3 more weeks of school left, and we are beginning to look forward to the fall and whether we will be back at the school building or continuing school this way.  I hope and pray that we can return to normal soon.  I think I might cry rivers if we have to begin next school year this way.  It does have its perks - sleeping in and lots of planning/grading time from the comforts of home.  However, I have a constant worry in the back of my head about my students. Some are fully engaged and learning continues, but for a few, I can tell the motivation isn't there, that they don't really care about the lessons I have assigned, and they are just counting down the days until this is all over.  I get it - I have those days too. So, in terms of the well-being of my students, I cannot wait to be back in the building sometime soon!

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