For the first time in years, we celebrated spring break with a staycation. We were quite disappointed to miss our planned trip to Dublin and Riga, but have tried to make the most of it by enjoying the extra time to relax and enjoy activities that we are often too busy to enjoy. After a weeklong crash course in juggling homeschool and online teaching, a week of sleeping in and lounging was a welcome break.

How have we entertained ourselves? Here is a partial list:

1-Nightly Zoom/Skype sessions with the grandparents and friends back home. We have even managed to figure out some games that we can play virtually- Code Names and Decrypto. If you’d like to partake and you are an early bird or a night owl (to coordinate with the time change), let us know and we’d love to play with you!

2- Cooking- Alden has learned to make crepes, quesadillas and vegetarian sandwiches (Alden has been fully vegetarian since the beginning of March when he had his last sushi dinner). Today he made Mila a cucumber, tomato, and feta sandwich on dark bread with mayo. Yesterday Mila requested a salami and mayo sandwich on dark bread with strawberry jam. Simon managed to find me yeast so I have gotten back into making bread. And we have been enjoying Simon’s home cooked meals now that school is not constantly feeding us.

3- Watching our new foster pet turtle swim and climb. Our school library has a resident turtle. When I went to school to grab supplies, I noticed him sitting alone in the dark library. I emailed my principal with the offer to turtle-sit and then we surprised the kids with our new roommate. He was not yet named, so we have been debating some choices- Simon and I like Quentin Quarantino, Alden prefers Tommy the Talking Turtle, and Mila is pushing for Speedy Turtle 32. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to comment below!

4-Daily outside ventures- Two days ago our republic announced a self-isolation regime that is pretty strict. You can only leave your residence to go to the nearest grocery/pharmacy, walk the dog within 100 meters, and for doctor appointments. And they aren’t messing around- there are steep fines for violating and if your violation leads to infection, prison time. Fortunately, our place of residence is the school campus, so we can get out and do loops on the track and the kids can ride bikes and scooters around.

5- Technological play- Alden has been nerding out with coding to program Lego robots, creating in Minecraft, and making iMovies and stop motion animation shorts. Mila mostly enjoys digital color-by-numbers and watching Masha and Bear. They both had fun playing around with google 9 to 5 to make virtual animals appear in our apartment.

6. Shopping for delivery groceries while rationing our wine- We have found two different delivery options to help limit our trips to the store. We also supported our favorite bagel cafe by orchestrating a mass delivery of bagels to all our colleagues in the staff apartments. Wine and alcohol is the main “necessity” that we can’t get delivered, so we’ve been carefully rationing. We fortunately stocked up a few weeks ago, so still have 17 (make that 16) bottles left. Here we are enjoying our wine with our neighbor Jorge who is part of our nuclear quarantine family.

7- Tabletop games- As you might expect, we have been playing lots of games. Simon had a peak game nerd moment last night when he and his PDX game buddy Tyler simultaneously set up boards for Carpe Diem and played via Zoom, each altering the board as they took their turns. Here is Mila who has become quite the shark at the Spanish knock-off of Mastermind that was gifted to her from the Three Kings.

8- Enjoying our pajamas and loungewear

I know most lists make it to ten, but I acknowledge this may not be the most exciting of our blog posts, so I’ll leave it at 8. Though we made the most of it, the look on Alden’s face pretty much sums up our feelings about our staycation and returning to online schooling. We are grateful that we feel relatively safe here, but we very much miss all our family and friends. It’s hard to be away from all of you during these challenging times. I hope everyone is staying safe and finding many moments of joy amidst the heaviness of the days. Fingers-crossed we will make it back to see you all this summer.