Friday: battle

 Isaac's been working on the battle between red and blue for about two weeks now.  There are a bunch of rules...the cores give extra power, they're harder to take over, etc. etc.  I've been impressed with how long he's stuck with it.  (Tonight he finally said he was bored of it, so we'll see if it's just a one night thing or if it's done for good.)

Thursday: funny

Isaac: Do you want to hear something funny?

Amanda: Sure

Isaac: Isaac.

**************

Amanda: Well, at least you don't have to work tomorrow.

Ben: What?  It's not one of my days off.  ...I don't think, at least.

Amanda: Hmm, I had sort of made plans expecting you'd be here.  Let me check my email.

Amanda: yeah.  It says you took tomorrow off.

Ben: *looks it up on his work calendar*

Ben: *looks it up on his time off calendar*

Ben: Oh yeah, I do have it off.  How exciting.

Wednesday: time

 Isaac is writing a report on electricity.  He wanted a picture of a magnet coil, and I remembered that a long time ago I had brought one home.  I looked on the blog for a picture, but could only find a video:

Isaac knew exactly what I was referring to when I made the second video:

We also got their school pictures...finally.  I skipped having family pictures this fall for a few reasons, but then school pictures got pushed out until March!  I had been hoping to do some spring family pictures, but maybe we'll end up with summer ones.  It's time for some more, but I've also learned not to do them too close to school ones.

Tuesday: vaccine!

Ben got his first vaccine shot today (Moderna)!  It was a rather unexpected call yesterday, but I'm very, very excited that he has the first one.

Sunday: pulling back, again

Well, we've made the decision to pull back activities again.  Michigan COVID numbers are spiking Ottawa is averaging over well 50 cases per 7days (roughly equal to 25 per 100,000) and that was the number we arbitrarily set several weeks ago that let us resume some activities.

To be fair, the only thing that changes this time is that we'll be doing karate on-line again.  I hadn't started going back to the grocery store, the kids are still in virtual school (not that we could change that), we're still watching church from home, and we're only doing take-out from restaurants.  I'll still be going to work, Ben will still be going to work, and we'll need babysitters.  (Side note: I realized that I didn't write about going back to karate...I had been curious to know how long the dip lasted.  Based on Ottawa county numbers it looks like five to seven weeks, but the data I'm looking at doesn't show the 7day average.  This is a depressingly short period of time.)

I'm optimistic that this spike won't be as bad, but I've also read that it is mainly hitting the 10-19 age bracket.  They didn't have many cases in prior spikes and most can't get the vaccine yet, so I also feel like it could be worse than I think.  Luckily it's also starting to warm up, so some activities may move outside and I feel much more comfortable with that.

Saturday: Happy Birthday!

 Today it was Joshua's loveys' birthdays.  It was Grey Bear's 50th and everyone elses' 1st.

We had mug cakes to celebrate.  It was the highlight of both boys' days.

We also packed some bags for Kids' Food Basket.

After we got home Joshua was a bit sad, but willing to snuggle on my lap as a rock.  Normally he just hides in his room, so I'm hoping this is a new thing we can do.

Friday: games

 We had games with our grad school friends!

This was my favorite T-shirt competition.

We also booked a vacation with them for this summer!!  Woo-hoo!!