Since our drive home from Colorado on March 16th, the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic has escalated at an extremely rapid pace.  An order released from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, recommended a quarantine for people that visited certain counties in CO.  That was us.  So we immediately started a 14 day quarantine.  WELCOME BAAAACK!

Out of “an abundance of caution” has been taken to a whole new level.  A level we’ve never seen in our lifetime.  I went from doing pretty good and proceeding on with our normal St. Patty’s day tradition of green pancakes and Reece creating an adorable “shamrock photo booth”…

to a puddle of sadness when I heard school was cancelled for the rest of the school year!!  This means I will never see Jake walk out of Prairie Trail Middle School ever again.  And I quite possibly watched Morgan’s last high school soccer game and didn’t even realize it.  That is very very sad to me.  I feel especially heart-broken for anyone that has a senior.  Their senior prom, their graduation, their sports.  Oh my gosh, NO SPRING SPORTS!  For some of them, it would be their last time ever playing.  For someone who shuttles a lot of kids to sports every single day, that hit hard for me.

It has definitely taken numerous days for all of this to sink in and each day I discover more and more things that are impacted.  We have made it to day 14 of our family quarantine and it’s been interesting!!  We have gone from the most over-scheduled family ever to having nothing on the calendar at all.  This is a HUGE adjustment for us!  We are used to running around crazy from game to game to practice to youth group to meetings, etc.

We always beg for TIME and now we have it!  I just wish it was under more pleasant  circumstances. We have used this time to get some things done that always fall to the bottom of the list.  It started with a complete clean out and sanitation of my van.  That was quite an eye-opening experience for the kids.  They were in shock at how many times we had to clean out the bucket of dirty water!  On a daily basis, we just get the trash out and the sports bags.  The cleaning…welllll, it just doesn’t happen!

We washed and sanitized every single thing that went to Colorado with us and also washed every piece of bedding in our house.  This 5 month summer break is not very glamorous so far!

Just before we left, we had a water heater leak in the basement that flooded my craft room.

Getting that room put back and organized was a good 7 hour project.  Look at it!  It hasn’t looked this tidy and organized in years!

We’ve cleaned out the game cabinet and proceeded to play pretty much every game in there.  Generally, there are few family game nights because we’re always gone!Generally, there are few family game nights because we’re always gone!  A good game night is always a blast.

We’ve already had several virtual birthday parties via Zoom conferencing.  It’s hard to be in a celebratory mood sometimes but having something to look forward to that’s not a soccer practice or online school, is now our new form of fun!

I even got to attend a birthday party myself!  We were supposed to be on a girls trip in Mexico celebrating, but the next best thing in these times, is hopping on Zoom with a beach virtual background and a bottle of wine.  New normal.

We are now watching church online and Jake is doing his confirmation classes via Zoom.  Our pastor was broadcasting from the sanctuary but now she in her home doing it.  We won’t be in church on Easter Sunday?  Will we even dress up?  I guess not.  All of this is uncharted territory.

We’ve cleaned out our storage closets in the basement and Morgan has learned to patch walls and paint.She’s preparing our playroom to be her bedroom when she leaves for college.  A place she can come back to to store her things and have a nice place to call her own.  A little premature to be doing this since she’s only a junior, but we have the time so I guess we should start!  The boys are about at the end of their patience sharing a room, so that will free up a room for them to separate when she goes.  So proud of you MoMo!!

About 1 day into the quarantine and Reece was already starting craft projects and using up all the tape.  This girl loves tape!  Look how incredible this project is!!

I adore this creativity!

Jake has been hard at work perfecting his golf game.  No shock there.  Hoping for a Division 1 scholarship after all this…

I’ve been doing my grocery shopping via facetime with a friend.  So thankful for my friends right now!!

And cleaned out kids drawers and closets – including my own.  It was bad – my drawers were to the point of barely opening.  Why do my boys have almost 70 hats?  This is clearly a problem.

We’ve turned my bedroom into the workout room and I HATE working out at home.  But I cannot go without exercise or I will lose my mind! Thankfully I have some cute workout buddies from time to time!

And we are doing family wall sits and a lot of walks every day as well.

Thank goodness because we are eating and drinking like crazy.  It’s not the “freshman 15” it’s the “Quarantine 19”  We have had a bunch of family meals and sharing in the cooking duties.  Kids are researching recipes and learning life skills!  Brian is amazed that we are running the dishwasher pretty much every day now.  It’s the little things we are amazed with now I guess!

Sports practices are now all online and I can assure you that these kids would rather be on the field or in the gym.  This will continue for weeks and it’s just not the same!!

#quaranastics

This week would’ve been Morgan’s 1st two JV soccer games and we put on our Ravens spirit wear in honor of the occasion.  I’m beyond sad that this season finished before it even started.  I had even volunteered to be the JV team mom 😦

a little garage basketball practice (video)

Online learning starts tomorrow but it’s optional and doesn’t impact your grades so we will be doing our best but not stressing over any of it.  Luckily, the high school students have the opportunity to improve their grades while the younger students will end the year with their 3rd quarter grades as they were.   Kids are using Zoom to communicate with teachers and I have sent a few emails out to teachers, as have my kids, just to let them know they are missed and appreciated.

I’m really scraping to the bottom now with my house projects.  I replaced all the felt pads on the kitchen furniture and cleaned out my makeup bag and brushes.  I mean we aren’t wearing makeup right now, are we!?  But this is getting ridiculous…someone save me!!  Or let me be your inspiration to change out your furniture felt pads 😉

I finally changed out my pictures in my bedroom to include our youngest child, Reece.  She’s about to be 10, if anyone was wondering!  I am the WORST at changing out pictures.

So, overall, I’m feeling sad but also feeling productive!  Brian has done an excellent job of cleaning out the garage.  Our garage is enough to stress anyone out!  This family of 6 is rarely in this house at the same time and Brian is rarely in town this long!  So it’s been an adjustment and something we will be talking about for years to come.  Not to mention, we’ve had 3 trips impacted, including our 20th anniversary Alaskan cruise.   Our time has been filled with some laughs and also a lot of frustration and fighting but a realization of how much our friends and family mean to us!

Take good care everybody!  We’ve got this!!  More updates to come…

 

This Tuesday morning my kids were supposed to be strapping those giant, super-heavy school backpacks on and heading back to school after a fun-filled Spring Break.

With the threat of Coronavirus looming just before spring break, most families that I knew were carrying on as normal and still planning to travel to their spring break destinations.  Our plans were still on track to head to Breckenridge for a short ski trip and getting back in time for spring sports practices (mostly gymnastics…it’s crunch time for the state meet).  The culmination of the season and countless hours of practice.  However, each hour things were changing so I purposely didn’t pack anything.  We were in contact with my brother, Greg, constantly.  Should we go?  Should we risk it?  What if we get there and they close the ski resorts?  Kids were begging to still go, they’ve been looking forward to this for what seems like an eternity.  I tuned into president Trump’s address to the nation concerning Covid-19 (and I am NOT a news watcher), started pulling out the snow gear tubs and an assembly line of sandwiches.  We don’t buy lunch food on the mountain, people, it’s too expensive for a family of 6.With 16 sandwiches in hand, clothes literally thrown in suitcases, and a constant pulse on the corona virus situation in Colorado, we hit the road to Manhattan to meet Brian’s brother and family for dinner, catch up on life, and get two hours of our drive marked off the list.  We had a wonderful time catching up with them and the kids, who are not so little anymore, played games and goofed around.We got up super early and started the rest of our journey to meet up with Greg at our meeting spot in Russell, KS.  McDonalds.  It’s our spot.  With spray hand sanitizer in hand, we started our constant sanitation process that occurred the remainder of our trip.  Greg said, “it’s a really good thing you made those sandwiches because the mountain is not serving hot food in an attempt to avoid crowds.”  We were refreshing our feeds on the ski resorts every second to make sure we were still ok to make the trip.  The drive was like a walk in the park compared to the last time we did this when we white knuckled the steering wheel and the highway shut down due to bad weather.  Hmmm…starting to see a pattern of bad luck on these trips!!

We made our way to Frisco, CO for a late lunch at Greco’s Pastaria.  The owner is a friend of Brian’s and it’s quite possibly becoming a tradition for us to stop there en route to Breck.  Although it seemed unusually vacant in town, we had a great meal and ski resorts were still open. Sidenote: The Italian Wontons and Red Sangria are absolutely amazing if you’re in Frisco.  Still dreaming of when I might get to have that plate of amazing again.  They are hand-made from scratch every morning and I’m wondering if he would ship them to Lenexa, KS!?  I’m certain it’s a secret family recipe that could never be shared.

We arrived in Breck, checked into our respective hotels, and loaded our gear into the rooms.

Just after this photo was taken and one refresh of the Breckenridge ski resort website later, our worst fear had come true.  The Ski Resort was closing as of the next morning for 1 week out of an “abundance of caution.”  How many times have we read and heard that phrase  over the last week?  It’s part of our normal vocabulary now.

Frantically we are all scouring our phones for other ski resorts.  Maybe others are still open?  Maybe we can go night skiing?  We jumped in the car and went to Keystone to try to get on the slopes for the night skiing session.  While they were still allowing people to ski that were already on the mountain, they would not rent equipment to those who were not already there suited up.  So, that plan failed.  It was a great idea though!  We went back to Breck and I was determined to make the best of this situation.  Right outside our window, we spotted a sledding hill so we jumped on that opportunity.  We had the best time and I laughed and laughed and laughed.  For some reason, watching your kids fly down an icy hill and repeatedly slam into a fence while rounding the corner was actually funny.  Maybe we were delirious.

Morgan worked so hard on this wall barrier to try to help with the slamming into the fence!!

Colorado is really the most beautiful place!

We enjoyed dinner out with a constant sanitation process! and we came back to the room still holding out hope that maybe we could ski Copper Mountain.  It was still open, but by 10pm all the surrounding resorts were closed so we did a group brainstorming of things we could still do in this beautiful place we drove 10 hours to see.  Collin and Jake led the discussion with brochures from the lobby.And ate a ton of snacks of course!!  We come prepared….I have teenage boys on this trip!

We all agreed on a snow mobiling excursion and Greg got us all booked for the next afternoon.  Go Team!

You could see a little bit of sadness in peoples eyes or perhaps a bit of “I’m lost” as we walked around the town the next morning.  The slopes were closed and that is the primary reason most people come here!  We did a little bit of shopping and then ventured about an hour away to our snow mobiling destination.

Our guide was Steve.  He was a talker!  I discovered his best friend lived in Olathe and worked at Hallmark all his life (he was moved to tears talking about him!!) His son was an insurance agent in Lawrence, he lives in Silverthorne, he’s divorced, and he had toured a big group of high school boys that morning from Olathe, KS and on and on!  We had a great time and although, it’s not skiing or snowboarding, it’s something we can check off our bucket list!We stopped at a tubing spot and despite my fear of careening down an icy mountain on a tube, I managed to overcome it and it was quite fun!  Between the tubing and the race track portion, those were the favorites for the group.  I also really loved the Aspen trees.  Gorgeous!!

By the time we made the hour drive back to Breck, we were so hungry!We ventured out to find some food (burgers and shakes of course!) and it was at that point that we realized that it was not the same.  Everything was pretty vacant.  Shops and restaurants were closing and it was not a happy feeling.  When you feel like you’re now the only one in the hotel and the ski racks look like this….It’s time to head home!  On the way home we stopped at the New Jerusalem Badlands State Park in Oakley, KS for one last bit of spring break fun.  I had heard about it from a few people and Collin loves an adventure like this.  I’m so glad we made this stop.  This is a gem right in the middle of western Kansas!

Sometimes life doesn’t always go as planned but we certainly made lemonade out of lemons on this adventure!!  Don’t worry….we’ll be back to the mountains!  And as my funny twin brother would say…we’ll be “shredding the slopes duuuude” when the time is right.

Much love to my adventure crew…love you guys!!

It feels great to be back out here writing!  I’ve been down for the count with bronchitis.  The kids were convinced I had the coronavirus, the current world-wide scare.  It’s definitely the hottest topic in the media at the moment.  I honestly never get sick – lucky I guess.  But every once in awhile in February I come down with something.  This was my February!  Even sweet Jake was worried about me (and 14 year old boys are not always conscientious about much!)

Jake, it warmed my heart so much when you told me you prayed for me to get better and I received this email from your youth leader…  He’s working his way through 8th Grade Confirmation this Spring and I’m so proud of him!

As Brian and I set off for Cancun for his annual work trip, I started coughing like crazy.  We stayed at the JW Marriott resort and it’s always beautiful, the most turquoise water you’ve ever seen, fantastic restaurants, and it’s the only time I actually get to read a book cover to cover.  I might of missed the welcome beach party because I was so tired that I slept through it, but let’s try to keep that on the down-low.  Oh well, there’s always next year, we hope!  We ended up coming home a day early and didn’t even get one picture together while we were there.  Who actually leaves a free trip early!?   We should really step up our game!

In the meantime, Morgan was a rock star as usual and we weren’t out of the house but a few hours, and she already had everything running better than I do!

Momo, you are AMAZING!  I want to be like you when I grown up!! 😉

Nanny and Papa graciously agreed to take Reece to St. Louis for a gymnastics meet.  We have the best family ever!  She didn’t do as well as she had hoped, it’s been a rough start to Level 4 gymnastics this season, but her team took first and Nanny got to learn all about Tik Tok!

You have to watch these videos and turn your sound on!  GO NANNY GO!

All the while, we have had a very fun and super busy basketball season for Jake, Drew, and Reece.  Morgan decided not to play high school basketball this year and we were sad that we didn’t get to see her play.  Actually, Papa was the most sad as he’s the basketball super fan!  It freed up some time for her to just be a high school junior for a little bit!

Jake’s 8th grade Prairie Trail Middle School B team is undefeated!  They’ve been a blast to watch this year!

At one of Jake’s games, we had one eye on the game, and one eye on trying to get this little cutie ready for the daddy/daughter dance!  She refused to wear a dress this time so we settled on a super stylish sequined shorts romper.  I’d say that qualifies this little athlete for best dressed!

Morgan worked the makeup station at the dance.  YIKES…maybe a different volunteer station would’ve been a better fit!?

Drew has played on two teams this year.  The Ravens are his school buddies and they have so much fun together!  He also tried out for a competitive team this winter and has learned and grown in the game so much.  You’ve never seen such a kid hustle!  We are so proud of you, DREW!

He played in two 3v3 tournaments this session and absolutely killed it in the last one.  6 games in one night, losing by 1 in the final seconds but I think he could’ve kept playing!  Thank  goodness it ended though, because my bleacher butt couldn’t take it one more minute!

Reece’s 4th grade Pink Thunder team has had a rough season but they have fun together and it’s the CUTEST!

All kids play indoor soccer/futsal in the winter too.  Listen, we don’t like to have spare time.  Might as well fill it up with some games!

In the meantime, we managed to squeeze in several games of Monopoly and Yahtzee, golf, practice soccer flip throws in the basement,  repair the microwave (Brian tried to electrocute himself and break the microwave all at once) and snowboard in the back yard….WITHOUT SNOW.  I can’t make this stuff up!  I bought this snowboard for Reece and she’s been patiently waiting for it to snow so she can try it out.  I hate to say it…but I think Spring has officially sprung.  Sorry Reecie!

YES…that is a soccer ball sailing straight into our bar full of glassware!

Watch this!!

Ok so these are not some of our finer moments!!  It’s probably best that Spring is here.  We need to get outside and get some fresh air.

One last thing…our Grammy moved into a new assisted living apartment!  She’s the best!

More updates on the Conley Crew to come…