This particular blog post was supposed to be the first day of our trip to New Orleans. COVID19 changed that and everything else in our lives. When all of this started I wasn't planning on documenting it. It looked like Canada was going to avoid the worst of it but that quickly changed.
Our trip to New Orleans and Orlando was scheduled to start on March 16th and things looked promising in February and even into the first week of March. The counts were low in Orlando and New Orleans, there were no travel warnings and there was no specific reason not to go. It was early March that things started looking bad in Italy and when we started learning about the models. The models of where different countries sat on the Italy curve and things in the US didn't look good. Major centers had hundreds of cases despite low testing. It was at this time that I decided it would be prudent to buy toilet paper. Not in a hoarding kind of way but more in a making sure we had certain staples on hand in case supply chains started breaking down. On a trip to Costco on a Thursday it was apparent we weren't the only people thinking this way. Toilet paper, flour and cleaning supplies were all running low. Soon after this the number of cases in BC started to raise and a warning went out recommending against travel outside the province. This was the last straw for us because it was apparent that even if we went we would be asked to self-quarantine upon our return, likely without pay for Kerry. Within days Disneyland closed, cases started rising in New Orleans and then Disney World closed. We weren't happy but we knew we had made the right decision.
The first week of vacation was not what we had planned. Barb and Reg came down anyways because they were planning on looking after Oliver while we were away. After a quick visit they went home to Oliver and Kerry and the kids joined them. The kids really wanted to get some sort of vacation in. I stayed behind and took the week off work so that I could get some things done around the house. I managed to order dirt and mulch for the garden just before our local nursery closed up. The garden was ready a month earlier then it usually is.
The second week of vacation the kids were home and I went back to work. By this time, stay at home orders were in place and the recommendation was that BC Hydro staff work from home. I went in one night and grabbed my keyboard, mouse, monitor and plants. I set up a temporary office in the guest room and tried to get a home routine in place. This involved starting around 7:30 am and making sure I got a bike ride in. Work was slow as people got used to working from home. The kids finished off their spring break and Kerry started preparing to help teachers work from home.
After Spring Break ended on the first two days of what was supposed to be back to school we still had no direction from the kids schools. Kerry went into her school for two days and the kids started to realize what life was going to be like stuck at home. We got together on the Tuesday night and agreed to having a family meeting at 8:00 am each morning where we would work out the plan for the day. It was going to important that we had a routine and that we all knew what everyone was expecting each day. 2000 square feet for four people is not a lot of space. Starting tomorrow I'll be trying to blog our experience daily. These are unprecedented times and deserve to be recorded.
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