pandemic diaries: spring break

After three plus weeks of sheltering in place, today marks a return to "distance learning" for the remainder of the school year. That's eight (8) weeks. Welp! It sounds overwhelming - and it is - but I'm trying to remind myself that I survived an entire summer break (that's 10 weeks) with both kids home every day. The downside right now, of course, is that there's nowhere to go, but that's also kind of the upside. In other words, I don't have to dream up some exciting plan or outing for each day. They have their schoolwork, plus, y'know, screen-time; I have work. If we get bored, there are always National Days to celebrate (happy caramel popcorn day!). Assuming we can squeeze in enough exercise and fresh air every day, we've got this!

Before we dive into the rest of the school year, however, let's update the pandemic diaries, spring break edition. What does one do for spring break while sheltering in place, parents still working from home? Not much, but we managed to squeeze in a few things:

I know some people are taking this extremely seriously and literally staying home, all the time, never leaving their homes (or back yards, if they have them). So far, we've been able to walk the neighborhood without feeling like really any area within walking distance is even remotely crowded (unlike our hike attempt early on). So we've gone on A LOT of neighborhood walks and "urban hikes," even making it all the way to the Mormon Temple and back, which is a roughly 4-mile round trip.

That said, one day, bored with all our local walking options, we decided to walk around the Temescal neighborhood instead. We picked up vegan ice cream sandwiches we ordered online from Curbside Creamery and even "ran into" (more accurately, we said hello from 6+ feet away) a teacher from the kids' elementary school.

Thursday was our 15th wedding anniversary. We celebrated with a special, mid-week donut run and later, this past weekend, attempted to make a cake that tasted something like the Erica torte we had at our wedding from the now-closed Katrina Rozelle's.

This wasn't my first, or even second, attempt at recreating our wedding cake.

While I wanted to protest Easter when this all started (everything else is canceled, why shouldn't Easter be??), I've since come around to the idea and, less than a week away now, we're mostly ready for a minimal holiday celebration.

In the meantime, back to #wfhwithkids. Wish me luck and stay well, y'all!