Our family started self-isolating on March 13, 2020. Schools was cancelled, non-essential businesses were closed, travel was postponed, and it felt like our whole world shrank to the size of our house. At the time there were still so many unknowns about Covid-19. Did masks help if you could find one? Did we need to sanitize mail, packages, and groceries? We have two people with severe allergies and asthma, were they more at risk? Suddenly everything we'd taken for granted just days before seems dangerous and not worth risking. Through all of the unknowns day to day life went on, and our family realized we still had to live our lives. I've always been a planner and this whole situation threw all of my plans, and my ability to plan, right out the window. I'm also happiest when I have something to look forward to, something exciting to dream about. We needed something to think about besides the doom and gloom on the news. My kids needed something to do besides video games and Netflix. My solution? Travel the world. Well, travel the world from the safety of our house that is. I planned a whole week of international travel where we never got on a plane. We went to France, Italy, Australia, Thailand, a different country for each day of the week. We ate exotic foods, saw amazing cultural sites, participated in national pastimes, and created beautiful art. Everyone learned something new, ate something new, made something new, and most importantly got away from it all.
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| The crafts we made during our travels. |
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| Elephants from Thailand. |
We had so much fun on our trip that we decided to do it again, only we added Hogwarts and Tony Stark's house to our list of places to visit. Every week or weekend we'd take a day or two and turn our lives into a fun, creative getaway from reality. And we realized something. Maybe this quarantine didn't have to be so bad. Maybe instead of empty days that we wouldn't remember could turn into wonderful memories we made as a family. And, if we could do it why not help our friends with ideas, too? So the idea for this blog and our book was born. We wrote about what we'd already done and added ideas for plans we still wanted to try. We put in activities that the kids enjoyed at different ages to help families with preschoolers all the way up through teens. Nothing we did was complicated or took a ton of preparation. We stuck to a strict budget and tried to use things we already had at home. The whole idea was to find ideas for crafts, recipes, science experiments, and activities that would be easy to do at home with what you already have, or could easily and inexpensively order for delivery. You can find our book on amazon kindle here: https://www.amazon.com/Parents-Guide-2020-Activities-Families-ebook/dp/B08944D9WR/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Rebeccah+graves&qid=1590522285&sr=8-2
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| Dressing up for Germany. |
Everyone wants to show their kids that we can still have fun at home. Summer camps may be cancelled and pools may be closed, but we can still be us and live our lives, at least a little like we did before. Our book can help you make plans for fun with your family while you are stuck at home. We wrote it to help families get through this and come out the other side with fond memories instead of empty days. We will add more ideas every week on this blog. They say this situation could last through to 2021, and with high risk family members we are pretty sure we will be spending more time inside than out this year. But inside doesn't have to be so bad. If we can't go out to the world, we will bring the world home to us!
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