Normal Chaos

We got a call from Joseph this morning. They have been inside their apartment for 10 days straight. Guatemala is in a lockdown until April 1st. So he might be coming home after that is over, or who knows. The mission president sent us an email saying that all missionaries will be returning to their home countries, but it could be weeks or months until they figure out all the flights. Priority will be missionaries with health concerns, next Senior couples, and then the rest of the missionaries. He is sad that it will be ending so soon, and who knows, maybe he'll end up being able to stay a while longer. He completes 21 months tomorrow, so he's lucky he's been able to serve so long, cause his friends who didn't leave until September and October are probably coming home and being released too. So he'll count his blessings. Coronavirus is really shaking things up.

Here at home, things feel pretty normal. Or as Corey said today "Seems like the same chaos as always..." Actually, I think it's a lot calmer, and I love not having carpool or driving kids to band or lessons or anything! No ones going anywhere! I'm not even taking you guys to the store, cause there's corona out there! We're hunkering down and it's great. And I love that no one is able to sneak away to play with friends - they are all here and have no excuses to avoid my requests to practice or clean. We are so lucky to have so many kids, cause everyone has plenty of playmates to choose from. Natalie and Sophi on Friday were playing Strawberry shortcake so nicely all day.

Natalie's class is all on a group text and sending photos to each other of what they are doing. I can't send a text to groups larger than 10, so we sent this pic to her friend's mom and she posted it for us.

And here Natalie is in a zoom call with her class on Monday, pretty cute.

Lily, Sophi, and Natalie have all had zoom calls with their teacher and class mates. Today Sophi's friend Kelsy sent a picture of her playing with her doll with a "Hope we get to play together soon!" Sophi sent this one back -

I thought it might help the time pass if Kelsy were busy making clothes for her dolls like Sophi and Lily do, so I also sent this picture and commented how my girls are making clothes from their dolls out of unmatched socks -

...and some perfectly good matched socks, like the twin shirts of the dolls on the left there. Oh well, what ya gonna do. Seriously though, these shirts and the orange girls' whole outfit were made out of socks and tiny hair elastics. The girl with pants was a sock and staples.

We had a video photo scavenger hunt with Corey's family over zoom tonight. One of the picture the girls took - someone on their head. We've got 3 monkeys on their heads.

We are doing a little better at school this week than we did last week. The kids are reading more and checking online for homework and assignments that their teachers are sending. And they are doing really great practicing piano and their other instruments! I'm really excited about that, I'm happy that everyone is doing piano. I'm glad that we decided on that piano policy before all this quarantine stuff started! I put a sticker with the initial of each kid on their hymn book.

Peter chewing on my chair...

Spreading covid-19 in his slobber

Pretty boy.