COVID Lockdown - April 2020

April was approximately 40,818 days long this year. We were in lockdown the ENTIRE month of April.  Basically, we went for walks and Todd went to the grocery store once a week but that was pretty much it.



And of course, mother nature had to remind us that even though it was spring, she was still in charge of the weather and sent us a little snow.

The kids had to adapt to the ever changing online schooling.  Grant's was pretty straight forward after about the third week, but Natalie's kept changing.  Every week, they would add more Zoom's!

Meanwhile, I was bored, so I bought a puzzle.  Seriously. THAT bored.

Of course, it HAD to be a U.S. Army puzzle!  It was honestly the only puzzle I could find on Amazon as everyone was also bored and buying puzzles.

Naturally, we went on walks.  I thought this was SO cool!  On this spot was the former Darling Woolen Mill which would probably be fairly insignificant, but the sign reads, "Lost to a fire in 1933.  Owner Ellen (Thayer) Darling's son Ernest Thayer was the author of the classic American poem, Casey at the Bat." 

All that remains is a dam backing up Factory Pond as it releases into Bogastow Brook.

We look so happy to be out of the house and taking a walk around the neighborhood!

We were staying in a fairly small AirBnB.  Actually, it was twice as large as most things we stayed in during our European travels, but too small for four people to live in for several months.  Everyone had to find a spot to "get away" from everyone else.  Grant's happened to find his spot halfway under his bed.



April 4th Covid-19 statistics in America.

This online learning was tough, especially for us.  Most people are in their own homes, with all of their stuff.  So when the school suggested an art project that required Popsicle sticks and hot glue guns... well, I don't have those things!  On this day, they suggested a game of outdoor bowling for P.E.  Yup.  Those are beer cans my kids are playing with.

All I have to say, is that if we didn't have the FABULOUS Erica, we might have lost our minds.  She dropped off SO many games and a CROCKPOT!  A crockpot is one of the kitchen utensils I use the most, so I couldn't have been more excited to have this.  And the games!  We got the game Apples to Apples in this batch, and it became our instant favorite.



Walking the Holliston rail trail became a thing we did  multiple times a week.

Grant liked to go outside when Seamus was out and throw the ball around.  Seamus was all bark!

When we took our walks, we would walk by this tree on Washington Street that was blooming so beautifully!  Signs of spring really made us happy.

Oh my gosh!  Someone left this on the side of the road and I just couldn't believe it. I'm certain my mother had this in her kitchen where I grew up!



When we walked down Locust Street, we would always pass this house that had turkeys in the backyard.

There was a super moon early in the month that was also known as a pink moon!

I just DON'T KNOW about this kid. He is SO funny.  He would crawl under the coffee table and say, "I'm at Club Nut!"  Which is apparently a club that the squirrels go to.  Such a funny kid!

For STEM one day, we managed to scrape together some things to make a boat float in the sink.  That's an egg carton, a pencil and the sail was made out of a cereal box.  He's like a mini MacGuyver! We just had to work with what we had!

We Zoomed a lot with family, too.  We even got to see Madison, who is in South Korea!

We also celebrated Easter in April.  Mmmm.  Peeps.

And of course, I always love to make a big Easter dinner but this year, we didn't have an electric mixer to make mashed potatoes... so Todd had to use an old school manual hand mixer!  Using that thing was an upper body workout!

Pardon the mess ... we are living out of 11 suitcases in the middle of a pandemic.

One night, we lost power because of a big wind storm that took down a tree on Washington Street.  Forced family fun!

Todd also celebrated a birthday. I swear one day I will learn how to frost a cake!  It always starts out a hot mess (and I don't mean literally hot. I know to let it fully cool!)

But then it always turns out okay.

Our new house (that we weren't able to move into until mid May) has a flagpole so I got Todd a new flag for his birthday.

We finally got some decent weather around the end of the month, so we decided to pack a picnic lunch and eat it in our car before we hiked around the Ashland Reservoir.

If everyone else is cold, Natalie will be hot.  It was a nice day but you still definitely needed a hoodie.  Not for Nat though!

It wasn't super hard to social distance at the reservoir as you can see Grant is doing here.

Ashland Reservoir in bright sunshine.

I'm such a nerd - this is Cold Spring Brook that is released out of the Ashland Dam.

Someone couldn't even get Kesha's lyrics right.  It's supposed to be, "I am nothing more than recycled star dust and borrowed energy."  Maybe that was on purpose.

A quiet day on a cold lake.

This was when we were only about 75% of the way around the lake.  I had over 12,000 steps- whew!

This was really a sad picture that Natalie took from the backseat.  On April 20, Natalie had an orthodontist appointment in Hopkinton, and as we were driving there, I told her this was the road on which the Boston Marathon should have been run on that day. So sad.

On a lighter note, if you haven't dialed the "Callin' Oates" line, do yourself a favor and call!  It doesn't disappoint!  John Oliver is so funny!

More school at home with Mom.  He's a surprisingly good speller, but they weren't working on spelling, so I bought him this book to keep up with it.

In about 2 weeks, we went from a little over 8,000 deaths to over 42,000 deaths. Incredible.

By the end of the month, we were taking walks pretty frequently.  Holliston is pretty!

This was one of my best hands EVER in Apples to Apples.  Mostly because one time, Todd got the card, "Puffy."  Not even kidding.  So then you have to find the word that most aligns with that word.  And wouldn't you know it, I had Puff Daddy!  Which was hilarious because as soon as he pulled the card, he actually said, "Puff Daddy!"  Imagine his surprise when he saw my card!

More belly rubs for his buddy Seamus.  Most days Grant was half in pajamas, half in real clothes. Literally.  Like, pajama bottoms with a real shirt. Silly kid.

We wandered around the East Holliston Cemetery a few times and the lady that lives next door came out one time to tell us that it was the cemetery for the poor house, which had been across the street, mostly in the 1800s.

Grant was almost always a willing participant in our walks!

By the end of the month, it was time to move AGAIN - this time, to Acton.  The AirBnB we had rented in Holliston had been rented from the end of April all the way through the end of the year by someone else.  We did not love this place nearly as much.

Mostly it was because of the frequent smell of weed, people being hauled out by ambulances (Covid?) and people having swearing shouting matches on Mother's Day morning when I was trying to sleep in!  And then I read there had been a shooting there the year before. UGH.

Meanwhile, the kids just stayed in Holliston Public Schools through the end of the school year.  His teacher, the sweet Mrs. Spino is retiring at the end of the year.  During teacher appreciation week, one of the moms got the idea to make a little video for her with the kids saying thank you.  Naturally, we had to do ours in German!

Acton DOES have a nice rail trail.  It's wide enough so you were never really close to anyone else (even on the warm days) and it was scenic in either direction we chose.  

Ah, a mere 0.6 mile to Concord!  But over 12 miles down to Framingham!

Here, the kids are reluctantly going back to our weird apartment.

Sometimes I wouldn't walk along the rail trail.  Instead, I would walk around the neighborhoods behind the apartment complex.  You can find signs for the Line of March from April 19, 1775 as the Acton Minutemen started their march to Concord where they would fight at the Battle of Lexington and Concord.  They started at Issac Davis's house in Acton and marched about 6 miles to the Old North Bridge.  Issac Davis died in battle and was the first commissioned officer (in what would eventually become the United States) to do so.  There are markers set up all along the route.

Anyway, those were our April adventures.  Now it's on to May!