Spring has sprung, and that naturally means more quality time outside. Gov. Ricketts declared last Saturday (March 20) as “Meat on the Menu” day, so we naturally grilled burgers on our back deck. Then on Sunday, we took the kids down for some quality time running around Dreamland Park, spinning around their carousel and even having a picnic lunch before it got too cloudy.
One person was selling Girl Scout Cookies, so we got some Lemonade ones for the ride home. We’ve been having some experimental treats with cookies, even concocting a mint/chocolate sandwich just for fun (when we’re not trying Aldi’s Macrons).
The following week, we took the kids down to Halleck Park for an Easter Walk. They had volunteers handing out eggs and also an Easter Bunny and Chick on hand for photos with the kids. It was a bit chilly, but still a good day for some quality time outdoors, and Hannah was even able to break out her scooter for a bit.
The next day was Palm Sunday, and Hannah got to practice walking through a gauntlet of plastic fronds with her Sunday school mates at church. Then that afternoon, we got Harold outside for a little time grazing in the yard and even a walk around the block.
It’s been a remarkably quiet week or so as the holidays fade away and a new year begins. Vivian smoked the discounted salmon I got on New Year’s Eve, which was quite tasty on a bagel. I also finally took down our Christmas tree and took it off to the dump to be with its many other tree friends.
On Saturday, Donna came over and gave everyone a much-needed haircut. I’d been in need of one for some time, as I was reaching mullet territory, and Hannah got a short pixie cut and used some of Aaron’s scraps to make some adorable wigs for her little dolls.
Then on Monday, I went to my parents’ house to watchAlabama crush Ohio State in the National Championship game. My dad made some wings with homemade hot sauce, and I brought along some celery, blue cheese, and ranch to complement.
October’s been a crazy, topsy-turvy month so far! It started with a couple weeks of quarantine as both Vivian and I tested positive for Covid 19. That meant I worked from home in a makeshift office while watching such things as Aaron doing virtual school on an iPad and Hannah building a fort in the backyard. We had some wonderful friends bringing us food during this time, and we also had some beautiful weather that tricked our lilac tree into blooming a second time. After my mandatory two weeks of isolation, I tested negative at a drive-thru testing site and was happily cleared to leave the house again.
On Friday last week, we took the kids out for some trunk-or-treating down at Beautiful Savior Luthern Church. Aaron is dressed as Mega Man this year, and Hannah’s going as a tiger. It was windy and cold, so we didn’t stay long, but we got to see a handful of decorated cars and get the kids all sugared up early in the Halloween season.
We’re continuing to enjoy the last moments of summer as the weather cranks the heat up to near 100 as the dogs days are (hopefully) on their way out. On Saturday morning, I took Hannah down to H.W. Banner Park to celebrate Emmett’s birthday. The splash pad was in full use for the kids to run around and get wet for a little while, and there were a dozen or two total kids running around, making use of the playground, swings, soccer field, and a beach umbrella as the party got started. Jolene brought along a shark piñata, and I managed to find a couple of sticks for the kids to use to whack it open. Hannah enjoyed playing a bit with the remnants of the piñata with another girl before we headed home.
A few days later, we took advantage of a 95+ degree day and took the kids down to Mahoney State Park to spend a couple hours at their aquatic center. We’d originally hoped for another trip to Fun Plex, but they closed early this season because of Covid, so this seemed like an adequate alternative. Vivian and I had come here on our anniversary back in ’13, and it was fun letting the kids experience the violent wave pool (which Aaron and I fought together) and the speedy pair of water slides that had essentially no line on a weekday. They were only open for a couple hours, but we made use of every minute before calling it a day.
An evening at the Mahoney State Park aquatic center
It feels like the pandemic is winding down in a major way, partly because toilet paper now seems to be plentiful in places like Costco (though yeast is still hard to find). As such, as did a little breaking from quarantine this weekend to celebrate Memorial Day.
We took the kids off to a good, long romp around Memorial Park once again, which seemed appropriate. There were a few newstatues in place at the World War 2 memorial, one of which seemed seemed to be watching Hannah. The kids had the chance to walk (and roll) down the hill while smelling a few of the nearly-blooming flowers on display. The sun was beating down hard enough for us to seek shelter in the shade of a few ancient trees before making our way back to up climb one (and get re-hydrated).
Then that evening we went and visited my parents for the first time in several months. My dad smoked up some ribs for a Memorial Day dinner (on Saturday), which we ate with my brothers and some potato salad I’d brought (and grilled mushrooms). We didn’t stay long, but the kids did get the chance to play a bit in the yard flinging rockets and swinging a few toy golf clubs before we headed home.
Memorial Day itself was fairly low-key as everyone expected rain and cancelled such things as our drive-in church service only to have clouds and gray drizzle wander through. Vivian made some banana bread for breakfast, and we had a bit of a scare watching a plume of acrid smoke over our neighbor’s house only to discover it was from a barbecue.
In other news, Harold the Guinea Pig’s mommy is staying with us for a few days while the Mills are at camp. He seemed genuinely happy to see her — chittering excitedly as she nipped angrily at him when we re-introduced the two. Zoey, on the other hand, doesn’t seem sure what to think — another delicious little rodent in the house that she’s not allowed to eat. Sorry, Zoey.
People talk a lot about the weather in Nebraska, often because we have bizarre weeks were it’s winter one day and springtime the next. That’s what happened on Thursday last week, when a blizzard rolled into town and delivered us a winter wonderland over the course of an afternoon. It melted right off the roads but coated everything else with a snowy frosting, much to the bewilderment of the robins and squirrels that had been expecting spring.
The rest of our weekend weather was absolutely gorgeous — 60 degrees and sunny. It was nice enough for a “walk” with the folks from the Autism Society of Nebraska, (who had a “virtual Fun Fest” today in lieu of a real one), and Hannah also got to do some art reproducing one of our tulips.
Then that evening, we headed down to Werner Park for a drive-in fireworks show hosted by the Omaha Storm Chasers. It was a community event that seemed to be held just to lift up some spirits in the midst of a pandemic. It seemed the whole metro area came to join us, lining the streets and parking in empty fields adjacent to the park. We got the perfect view of the show from our spot on the west side. Hannah got an eyeful standing atop our CR-V while Aaron hunkered down in the trunk (with the window open). The show started around 8:45 and lasted all of ten minutes, but there was something magical and fun about seeing fireworks in the open air with thousands of others sitting a top their cars and in the beds of pickup trucks.
Things stayed fairly low-key on Sunday. We tuned in to Wildewood’s service on Facebook live (a weekly tradition in many pandemic-bound households, I’m guessing) and took Harold the Guinea Pig outside to graze in our front yard for the first time. I spent the afternoon cleaning the garage as Hannah brought out her entire collection of dolls for some fresh air. Vivian made some homemadepizza for dinner that evening, and we tuned in to the Hope Rising benefit concert online, making use of my Raspberry Pi plugged into a Goodwill TV in our living room (which is usually used as a weather/calendar kiosk).
How are you faring during this world-wide lock down? I’m quite grateful we’re able to live more or less normal lives with the kids during all of this, albeit without weekly visits to grandma and grandpa’s house. My hope is that we’re on the down slope now and will soon see this period of time in the rear-view mirror of history. For the moment, though, we’re still enjoying life very much — and grateful all of us are healthy!
So, how’s COVID-19 treating you and your family these days? The sheer number of things that have been shut down in a week is just staggering. A week ago, I was taking Hannah to her Wednesday night church group without a second thought. If you read my blog, you can see every entry has some activity where we’re around ten or more people at one event of another.
Now, we can’t go anywhere with ten or more people and every church, restaurant, and public facility is shut down. We’re still making the most of this downtime, but it’s still hard to come to grips with so much of the world being turned upside down.
We’d planned on going to a St. Patrick’s Day parade on Saturday, but it was cancelled, so I went out with my folks to breakfast at First Watch instead, hoping to get in one last meal in a sit-down restaurant before everything became take-out only a few days later.
We also got a bit of a freakish, mid-March snow in the meantime, leaving us with a frosted winter wonderland for a day or two. With all group activities cancelled, we’ve been taking the kids on a few extra walks outside just to get some fresh air — one thing that hasn’t been restricted by any guidelines from the CDC.
St. Patrick’s Day was similarly low-key — we got some corned beef and cabbage with red potatoes for dinner, but shopping has become a bit of a thrill ride. Every other store seems to be completely out of something — not just the famously impossible-to-find toilet paper or hand sanitizer but now pasta, canned tuna, bread and even milk can often be completely cleaned out of one store or another. Hearing rumors about a two-week lock down that included grocery stores (which later turned out to be Fake News) spurred me to fill an extra bucket of emergency food just in case
We’ll soon have to figure out some creative ways to have fun with ten or fewer people at a time, just to avoid cabin fever as we’re busy avoiding the Corona Virus. Fortunately, we got a head start on this schooling-from-home thing long before it became mandatory for everyone.
We’ve had a fairly quiet start to the New Year so far, mostly staying warm inside and quietly preparing for an Hors D’oeurves Party among other things at the end of the month.
We celebrated the two-year adoption of our little tuxedo cat, Zoey on January 10. We had a few extra kitty treats in a bowl of premium food for her for dinner, and then we let her get her first whiff of catnip — which immediately made her go a bit crazy rolling around on the floor.
Then the next day we had a men’s breakfast bright and early with the men of Wildewood. We had a few breakfast burritos and listened to Scott talk a bit about his plans for the group this coming year. I got to sit at a table with my dad and talk a bit about evangelism as well, particularly his missionary work in Brazil.
In other news, we’ve had snow, snow, and more snow. It hasn’t been all that much in accumulation, but we’ve had bitter cold on one end and slush on the other that’s kept schools closed and us stuck inside. It’s been a good time snuggle up on the couch under a blanket and read comic books.
The fun fall traditions continued this week, as the trees around us all explode with colors before making way for winter. There was some beautiful weather on Saturday, so Vivian and I took the kids on a walk around the block as a family just to enjoy a few of the fall colors while they were with us.
Vivian also brought some lasagna and jack-o-lantern mandarin oranges to go along with the other Halloween foods, which gave us some energy as we danced the night away, doing Thriller, led by Takashi (of course). I also made up a card for the occasion, which I conveniently left at home. We had lots of fun as usual, though, and we only went home once it was apparent the kids had had enough.
The kids both got to fly on the new zip lines for the first time, and we also bumped into some old friends, Jolene with her kids as well as the Papson family. We got some chili cheese fries and succotash to keep us moving throughout the day, and then got some pumpkins for the kids before going home to crash for the night. In all, I took 575 pictures throughout the day, so you know we had a great time! Most of all, it was nice to see so many beautiful fall colors, which will only be with us for a week or two before winter. It was a fun day and part of an annual tradition I hope Hannah and Aaron will remember fondly as they grow up.
It’s been a quiet week, and it’s starting to feel a little more like fall, which I’m hoping will mean a few barbecues and fire pits before the snow starts coming. Over the weekend, I gave my parents’ lawn a good mow, and my dad gave us a rack of ribs for dinner, which he’d smoked on the patio all Saturday.
On Sunday, we took the kids to the Fontenelle Forest for dinner with a group called Our Gathering Place, which is “a mobile monthly community dinner for families with special needs” (and specifically autism). It was a fun little event with food for everybody, as well as balloons, painting, and the usual nature-related activities they have downstairs at the nature center. There were even a few prizes to take home afterward, which was very nice. I only wish we’d had time for a nice walk along the Fontenelle boardwalk, but we mostly enjoyed making some connections with other parents inside.
The event was put on by Kinesha Johnson-Roach, the wife of Jarell Roach, who visited Wildewood to do some comedy back in September, so we felt like we were among friends right from the beginning.
Then on Tuesday I attended another meet-up with my dad and the Men of God at Wildewood. We had another batch of boneless pork ribs and talked a bit about fellowship, particularly the direction the men’s group would be taking in the future. It seems bonding over food is a part of human culture that goes unrecognized, particularly when it involves cooking meat — a tradition that must date back to our ancient caveman ancestors.
Which reminds me, we’ve got to break out the fire pit one more time before winter.
