Living Online

Madison had her last day of camp today, a small gathering at the studio, all doing socially distant, and then spending time doing school work.  School work has been a pain for Madison, who continues to say she'd rather be doing Milestones testing.  If you know something about the Milestones tests, then you know that's saying a lot.  Fortunately, those Milestone tests are postponed this year, maybe cancelled.  In the meantime, Madison was taking advantage of today, which is a make-up day for everyone who has been overwhelmed with classwork.  Which has been nearly all her fellow students.  Blame technical problems on that - the huge burden on the websites has caused a host of problems and delays, and of course frustration.

One thing that they were doing at camp this week was filming for the future online classes of taekwondo, some things that will show up in teh family member section, in case the studio has to be closed for a time. Which seems inevitable.  You can see Madison above, demonstrating some kicks from teh ground, part of the self-defense training she was learning this weekend.  When they were done, no high-fives.  Just elbows!

Other online videos:  We've been working on our online service for KidPak, and it is coming together.  Josh has been spending a long time editing.  By day's end, I believe he put in a fourteen hour day.  We obviously don't want that, so we'll be making adjustments.  Daddy finished the pdfs, so that part of the series is done.  Now to figure out next week and beyond... but that's what all churches are facing right now.  Some are live-streaming their services, while others are doing prerecorded bits.  I've seen a lot of malfunctions with live-streaming, and that sort of thing can't be helped.  The whole world is live-streaming lately, with musical artists playing guitars from their homes and entertainers sharing messages from home, and of course those in ministry sharing words of encouragement from homes.  Those in busier cities are opening their windows and singing songs out their window.  It's a moment of unique world unity, except of course in politics, which is always divisive.  But there's so much to see online, and it's stuff you can usually see, but all of this is live and it's like you're invited over to someone's house to hear about killer whales with scientists, or hear a story from the Space Station, or listen to music from a children's musician in New York, watch a live puppet show, or listen to a spoon lady from a library.  KidPak will be putting something on live this weekend, and there are a lot of grateful parents.  We've gotten a lot of positive feedback already.

Madison had a great day, of course.  We'll see how next week goes, but we're leaning against camp for a few big reasons.  School is one, and the other is the increased presence of this spreading virus.  It is already in North Georgia, of course.  We need to be careful.  

Mommy made a delicious dinner tonight, fish for she and Daddy.  Madison had tacos, which are always a bit hit with about three gallons of hot sauce poured over each taco.  She sits there and slurps the tacos, and then afterwards needs emergency relief from a liquid drink of her choice to cool off the inside of her mouth.  We have no idea what the appeal of this is, but she is crazy about hot sauce.  It's the new ketchup.  She loves spicy stuff!

Daddy was pretty excited when we all sat and watched "Clone Wars" tonight, because the entire Sears Creature Cantina was there on the big screen for the first time!  This is literally a picture Daddy took with the camera of the television screen, and you can see the four characters there, all four wearing exactly what the Sears Cantina Playset had them wearing, which didn't match anything in the Star Wars universe at that time or since.  I mean, none of these action figures matched the clothing actually worn in the movies.  And on top of that, Snaggletooth there - the one furthest right - wasn't even that tall.  he was small, and wearing red in the movie.  That's the reason this action figure is so valuable.  Anyway, this is the first time the Sears Creature Cantina characters were ever in anything related to Star Wars together, and it was a fun cameo.  We were all watching tonight, and Mommy and Madison were looking at Daddy trying to figure out why he was so giddy!

We read tonight, and we said our prayers for everyone's good health.  We've been talking to the grandparents, and they are doing okay.  Nana and Ba-Ba even walked along the beach today, which is closed to visitors as of this week.  Spring Breakers were foolishly down in Florida's more famous beaches, partying together and spreading the virus even further.  Already, there are reports of those returning from Florida's beaches with a special viral souvenir:  "I Went to Spring Break in Florida, and All I got Was This Lousy Virus."

Fortunately, the grandparents are well.  Still, we need to be ready at a moment's notice.  We're moving forward, despite the approach of the storm.  We may need to be under lockdown soon, but we're ready either way.  We'll adapt and move forward.  We're just praying until then.  A lot of praying.