quarantine chronicles, week 7

7 weeks into this thing, and the weeks are starting to take shape:

• weekends are for movies, bike rides, adventures, family zoom meetings, and no one is working unless it's in the yard. it makes it actually feel like a weekend. it gives our time shape.
• mondays are for morning hikes and exploration of new smaller parks. monday afternoons are for piano lessons.
• weekday workouts are daily, no matter what. friend zooms happen on weeknights. family book reading happens on weeknights at bedtime. school follows a daily checklist for the mornings, but is play based in the afternoon.
• friday evenings after work are for ordering takeout food. it's such a treat.

sooooo, with a little shape to our time and expectations our days together, we headed into our seventh saturday of this stay home situation. we played despite the chilly weather, and that included building stilts! ramona is a natural. i've been good at stilts since learning on my grandma's stilts in fargo long ago. just sayin'.



we even sported our fancy new masks from nana (thanks nana!)


on a sunny sunday morning, we made a yummy little dutch baby,


and then launched our canoe and our friend's canoe into the river, and paddled to lake monona. we ate a little lunch floating on the river before the surprisingly strenuous paddle back up river.




 after the paddle, it was family zoom time!


look at this backyard sunday dinner scene. it was a perfect day.


followed by a driveway fire on the yard sofa. our neighbors must hate us by now.


monday arrived and we packed up and drove north to ableman's gorge state natural area, which is home to the geologically significant van hise rock, which we saw, and is a thing.


we went up the bluff and peered down from the top


and then we hiked down and looked back up


and then we had sandwiches in the backhatch, as you do.


back home, this picture of homeschool made my day. this is how i found ramona making a butterfly feeder, and smartly using her little foot.


the end of the week brought new roller skis (!! lookout norway we are TOTALLY coming next spring!!)


and the kids made may day baskets on friday,


and then took the ding-dong-ditch-nature of delivery of the baskets very seriously and wore disguises.


and then we had delivery food and ate it on the driveway because it was friday (see above re: fridays)