Quarantine Mother's Day

I had planned a lovely post for today to show you the pretty flowers we bought last week. We were going to plant them Saturday when Ryan got home from work, but alas, winter returned to Indiana. We had to leave the flowers in the flats so we could hide them in the garage until the sub-zero temperatures passed.

So I'll hit pause on my regularly scheduled programming and instead tell you about our very strange Mother's Day!

For the last six years, we've hosted Mother's Day for both sides of our families. If you've been reading here very long, you are familiar with the event we came to call Mommapalooza. We loved hosting it and always looked forward to the chance to serve the moms in our family literally and figuratively by making a special lunch for them.

We knew after last year's Mommapalooza that the event we loved so much had come to an end. It's a long story that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of life, but we knew that when Mother's Day rolled around this year, we wouldn't be hosting the big party we've always had. As it turned out, we wouldn't have been able to host it even if we wanted to do so. Our state has lifted gathering restrictions enough that we would have been able to invite the full crew and not exceed the maximum group numbers. But since the majority of our guests would have been in the age-risk category and Ryan works with COVID patients, it just wouldn't have been a good idea.

I wanted to do something, though, so I spent a big chunk of Saturday making no-bake cookies, monster cookie bars, butterscotch blondies, and triple chocolate cookies to make little gift boxes for all the moms in our families (and a couple of friends).

It was so much fun to put all those together!

A couple of weeks ago, we received an invitation to attend our nephew's baby dedication at the church all of Ryan's family members attend. Their church meets in the parking lot each Sunday. The cars pull in facing the church building, and the pastor and worship team stand under an awning and conduct the service. Everyone stays in vehicles, with windows down, listening to the music and preaching. It was our first time to attend a drive in service, since our church does live streaming instead.

I was a bit worried we wouldn't be able to hear, because the weather forecast was TERRIBLE. It was supposed to be super cold, rainy, and windy, and I wasn't sure how we would hear if we had to leave our windows all the way up. It did rain a little at the beginning, and it was most definitely windy and cold the entire time, but the sun ended up making an appearance! We were able to leave our window down far enough to hear, even though we couldn't see very well.

After church, we dropped off the gifts to the family members scattered around the parking lot and then drove out to my parents' house to drop off Mom's gift. We got her some phone accessories to make her staying-connected life a little bit easier.

We did get a quick masked photo - and then we sanitized.

It felt strange to walk out without having a Mother's Day meal together. I think that's a first in 42 years! But I did take her some of the goodies. I think she enjoyed the ones Dad didn't get to first!

By the way, several of you have sent messages asking me how my parents are doing during this quarantine time, and I'm happy to report they are doing well! We've seen them through car windows a handful of times throughout the last couple of months, and they've stayed healthy - as far as we know, anyway. They haven't shown any symptoms, anyway. They have been pretty good about staying home (except for store runs) and wearing their masks when they're around other people. Their neighbors have been good to check on them and help out with things that need done quickly and easily. They seem to have a good handle on being smart about reentry to society, even though I know they really miss being able to be on the go all the time!

After we left my parents' house, Ryan and I came home, fell asleep and woke up at dinner time! Whew! That getting up and getting ready for church really wore us out, I guess! (Our church won't be meeting in person yet for a couple more weeks, so this was good training, I think.)

It was definitely different, but it was still a good day in its own way. And maybe one of these days, Indiana will warm up, we can plant flowers, and you can see all the pretty blossoms!