Days with the Dorans

 I decided to ask the kids about how they're feeling about the Coronavirus so they can look back one day (hopefully soon) at what this was like! Ali, Joe, and Sean let me interview them... The Goose was sleeping and I forgot to do it for him later... (bad mom). HERE is Sean's take. HERE is Joey's take. HERE is Ali's take.

  Teaching online has been... interesting. HERE are some of my favorite bloopers. I'm sooooooo Tired!

So I'm a bit addicted to the Charge Running App- where you run with coaches in your ears and with other runners. With Covid, all in-person races have been canceled but virtual runs are still on. Well, Charge hosted a half marathon. The cool thing about the app is you can do you and you don't have to do the whole thing. I had a friend running it too and I thought, I could maybe do a 10K on the treadmill and that I'd just play it by ear... Well, I felt good by that point and thought I was going to keep going. At ten miles, I knew that I was going to finish. I had water with me and was doing a run/walk and I had a fan. I can't believe it!! This was a PR for me! My watch actually had me faster so I took the treadmill and Charge time which were pretty much the same! So proud of ME! Suck it, Covid! CHARGE ON!

It kind of blows my mind that our kids are still learning and doing school from home. Especially band! I'm so proud of Z! Here is a video of him.  

  Sean was feeling kind of sad. Lately he has been coming clean with all sorts of confessions of things he's not happy about. Things he has done that he's not proud of. It's been hard for me because he's struggled with forgiving himself. I told him that I love him know matter what and God loves him no matter what! I got him a bible so that he could reflect and learn and know just how much he is loved. It's weird because we left before the second grade bible stuff at church for him but just because we left the church does not mean we will leave our God. I'm so proud of my son. He has such a sweet heart and I hope he always knows how very loved he is.

Well, Papa had a Covid birthday too. So I surprised him with THIS video and was able to get it on their TV and watch through the doorwall as he enjoyed it. We even shared a drink... kind of!  

  So I am in a bit of denial that my baby is a TEENAGER!! Thankfully I already had decorations and let's face it... I get everything from Amazon anyway! The one thing that IS tough is not being able to see other people. There are a lot of people who are doing "Drive By" type birthdays where the birthday person stands outside and people drive by which sounds nice but since I'm a video person, I put out a call (kind of last minute) for people to wish our Goose a happy birthday and send it to me. We went over to Nana and Papa's in the sunroom again and showed it to him. HERE is the video with his reaction.

 A video of how it was...

  Well, we thought we would be back to school by now but learned that we're out! We were given a little bit of time to grab some things but it was pretty quick. I grabbed my doc cam and we'll be figuring out how to teach from home which will be pretty interesting... To make matters more tough- my internet was not working!! We had a meeting (via zoom). Zoom is pretty amazing. It's like facetime but with all of us. With internet down though, I went over to Nana and Papa's. Since we don't want to mix germs, they turned on the heater for me in the sunroom and I went over there. It wasn't too bad. Sean and Zach had some work so they came over later too. We got to wave at Nana through the window. This is just all so strange, I don't even know how to explain it.

  Happy Easter!!! It was a bit different (obviously). We did church on the computer and got to see Mike! The kids opened their Easter Baskets (and had a hunt- see video below). Marty got to see his cousin on facetime! AND WE SAW THE DRAPALS IN PERSON!!!  (outside in their garage)

Well, I didn't have egg dye so we got creative and used food coloring to color our eggs this year!

  Even a pandemic can't keep Grandma from getting gifts to her grandkids! This seriously is such a special thing she does! I can't wait to do this for my grandkids one day! HERE is a video.

So I had not yet been out in a store- but Nana and Papa needed milk and I REALLY didn't want them going anywhere. They have special senior hours so they can shop that way or do Kroger Clicklist which is what we're mostly doing (though Jeff has gone out a few times). Since we were bringing them milk, we thought we'd bring them a puppy too!! It was SOOO good to see my parents in person (albeit far away). I think Fender likes Nana! This is how far away we really were! We even had a Papa sighting!  

  Happy Anniversary to us! We celebrated at home with dinner from Matter of Taste (which to be honest, mine wasn't the best but maybe that's because it's take-out) and walked down memory lane through pictures and our wedding video! So lucky to be married to my best friend! You know you love someone when you're stuck together (thanks Covid) and it's still pretty awesome!