May 2020

Tulip Time

Rosy Mound Natural Area in Grand Haven

Plenty of frogs at Camp David

Moving on to the Middle School

Moving on to the Middle School

Memorial Day fireworks

Last day of school- laptops not backpacks!

-Early May is traditionally Tulip Time, but it was cancelled this year. The kids were not sad about the costumes/parades being cancelled! And us parents were not too sad about no Tulip Time either, but local businesses took a hit as no tourists. But we got to enjoy beautiful tulips with no crowds! 

-For Mother's Day the kids/Nate took care of all the meals for the day- a great gift. They all made me feel loved.

-Our calendar was still full of school/work zoom meetings

- We tried to get outside as much as possible

-The boys made another trick shot video

-Holland Christian decided to move 6th grade into the middle school next year so Isaac and Julia will both be at the middle school next year. 

-The kids finished the school year! We are so proud of how they handled online school. Caleb is done with 9th, Isaac 6th, Julia 5th, Stephen 1st and Lexi kindergarten. 

April 2020

Happy Easter pic for church video montage

Catching fish at Camp David

Lexi caught the biggest fish

Lexi loves climbing trees

Family soccer 

Decorating Easter eggs

Easter breakfast

This mask talks and makes noises

More Batman shirts!

Lexi is 6 

Lots of hammock use

The back pond at Camp David

Golf trick shots

Isaac, Stephen and Nate built this castle out of cardboard

Egg hunt- older boys hid the eggs, younger found them

Caleb's dot to dots

Talmadge Woods

Hanging in our hammocks at Talmadge Woods

-Quarantine continued:

-On April 2 school officially closed for the rest of the school year
-Nate began working from home on April 6. He set up his workspace in the basement and enjoyed working from home. No long commute and he could eat lunch with us. Stacy's trainings were all moved to zoom and she worked alot more now that she could train in any county.
-We played alot of board and card games- Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese Pizza was a new card game
-Caleb did many 1,000 dot to dots and hung them all in his room
-We put up the badminton set and the boys played street hockey
-Neighbor kids were not allowed to play with each other and that was very odd and hard
-The older boys would play video games and zoom with their friends while playing
-We had "spring break" the first week of April and the kids did not have any school work. Which was kind of a bummer because now they really had nothing to do. We were supposed to be at Disney over spring break, wah-wah. As Isaac said, spring break this year was awful. And it was. Cold weather, can't see friends or go anywhere. We watched lots of TV, played computer games, and read/played on kindles.
-For Easter we made yummy food for breakfast and lunch and watched church on FB Live. I didn't have the drive to make awesome Easter baskets, just candy and the kids may have noticed. Our family went to the baseball fields and hit around and we watched Dr. Dolittle that evening.
-It was challenging to not see Grandpa and Grandma J during quarantine
-We celebrated Lexi's 6th birthday! Lexi requested Kraft mac and cheese and rice krispie treats. Lexi is still all about Batman. She got binoculars, Batman mask, a new Batman shirt, Guess Who game, Batman legos and pokemon card holder sheets. Lexi is also obsessed with pokemon cards and her and Stephen were ecstatic when the older boys gave them (or sold them) their pokemon collections. Lexi has thrived at forest school and her happy place is playing outside with friends. Lexi is ever curious and is currently fascinated with pregnant women and babies- trying to figure out her own story and what the whole process is about. She has loved asking questions about Aunt Steph's pregnancy and praying for the baby. We used a night time alarm and Lexi's body is staying dry now. Lexi is our independent and loving spitfire and we love her very much!

March 2020

Celebrating Enedina's birthday

Rend Collective concert with Julia

11 years old!

All the grand ideas when school closed, which were abandoned in about a week

Julia's work space 

Isaac's nest

Caleb's area

The littles work here and on the desktop computer

And it snowed in late March, just to make quarantine more obnoxious

Strawberry pizza that Julia made

Spending time at Camp David

Indeed

Watching our church service on Facebook live stream

Talmadge Woods- a new favorite spot

-March started so benignly...
-We celebrated Enedina's birthday with her and the kids. We let her nap while we bundled up the kids and walked trails at Wolter's Woods.
-Stephen finished seeing Miss Megan, a speech pathologist. He really enjoyed his time with her and she gave us tools/activities to use at home.
-Julia and Mom have bi-weekly sessions with Miss Timeco, which moved to video meetings during quarantine. She has been very helpful and gives us assignments and tools to use at home.
-Isaac had his baseball draft and Stephen was excited to play baseball this year too- until the season was cancelled.
-Caleb was gearing up for his first high school season of lacrosse, until that was cancelled.
-Julia was looking forward to participating in Holland Rec volleyball with her friend, until that was cancelled.
-We celebrated Julia turning 11 years old! Part of her gift was tickets for her and Mom to attend a Rend Collective concert and it was great! Julia requested ribs for her supper and a chocolate frosted cake with strawberries. Julia received some coloring books, clothes, and the High School musical CD (she loves all things High School Musical). Julia is smart and is having a great 5th grade year. She has some good friends and enjoys baking with them and talking on the phone. Julia takes piano lessons, even though it's not her favorite. Julia loves listening to music or audio books while coloring- she has a great eye for color schemes! And she LOVES to read. We are so thankful for Julia and we love her very much!
-On March 11 I woke up feeling like something important was associated with the date. I couldn't figure out what as there are no anniversaries, birthdays, etc on the date. As the day wore on and I listened to news about COVID, I had a heavy feeling that life was about to change. And it did. March 13 was the kids last day at school. The teachers scrambled over the weekend and we began remote learning on March 16.
-The older 3 kids work on school work from 9-12 pm. The younger 2 kids only have about an hour of school work. Caleb and Isaac are enjoying "homeschooling." They love that school is done by noon. Isaac asked, why do we stay at school til 3 pm everyday? Don't get any ideas kids, I'm not homeschooling you in the future. I really don't have to help the older 3 kids with school. Their teachers lay out the daily assignments and the kids independently work thru them. The younger 2 do need my attention and help with school work, but they do not have much to do. Stephen misses school very much and Lexi misses playing with friends. Her happy place is playing outside all day with neighbor kids. It is very sad and hard that the kids can't play with friends. We take turns with the neighbors, sending our kids outside at varying times. So bizarre.
-Zoom video chatting quickly took over our lives. The calendar went from kid activities to kid zoom calls. My trainings also moved to zoom, so there is a lot of zooming going on here. Some mornings our wi-fi is struggling. With Nate working from home and 5 kids using zoom and watching teacher videos, we all get frustrated at times.
-I got sick with a fever/body aches near the end of March. The doctor told me to isolate in my bedroom until I was fever free for 24 hours. I was in isolation for 4 days. The kids were fearful that Mom was sick with COVID. We are thankful the fever ended and no one else got sick.
-Isaac and Julia's piano lessons were moved to video lessons- they weren't super excited about the benefits of technology in this situation

February 2020

High school friends reunion

Baby Fonte 20 weeks

Fish #3- Bubbles

Harley- the constipated lizard

Caleb, Jacob and Ashton at Bittersweet

Skiing at Cannonsburg

Just another day at Forest School 

-Nate and I saw Hamilton and it was fantastic. I went home, bought the album and began listening non-stop.
-Isaac went on a middle school retreat- little sleep, lots of sugar, challenged in his faith, and lots of fun with friends.
-I went to Baltimore for a couple days. Robin, Heather and I stayed at Deb's house. Deb has two young kids so we spent most of our time at her house, but we had no problem finding stuff to talk about for 2 days! We hadn't seen each other in probably 3-5 years so this was a fun reunion. 
-Nate, Caleb and Isaac went to a Calvin v Hope basketball game at Hope stadium. Caleb said 75% of the crowd was over the age of 65- ha!
-I made a quick trip to Dayton to go with Steph to her 20 week ultrasound. Ben was on assignment out of state and couldn't be there, so I got to go along! They don't want to know the sex of the baby, that will be a fun surprise! Baby is growing well and due July 4- they call the baby Freedom Fonte.
-Our family went skiing at Cannonsburg for a day. Julia does not enjoy skiing and was happy to spend the day with Grandma Jongsma.  Lexi and Stephen were especially excited to ski- Lexi has been talking about it since we took her last year. At night she would pray, "Thank you God for skiing, please let us go skiing again."  It was a cold day to ski, thankfully we had hand and feet warmers. The older boys went off on their own. Stephen and Lexi moved off the bunny hill fairly quickly. Stephen's strategy is to point his skis down the hill and go fast. Lexi did best skiing with Nate as she needed help getting on/off the chairlift.  Overall a fun day!
-We bought Stephen another betta fish as the first two died. Everyone says betta are so hardy, I don't know why ours died. We are hoping 3rd times a charm- so far Bubbles seems like a winner.
-Harley the lizard didn't poop for weeks so we brought her to the vet and found out she is a he. Thankfully Isaac had chosen a gender neutral name- ha! And I am annoyed that I was worrying about a lizard's bodily functions.
-Caleb went on a high school retreat- little sleep, lots of sugar, challenged in his faith and lots of fun with friends.
-We have an Chinese high school age adoptee, Aliah, spending with with Lexi once a week at our house. Lexi enjoys hanging out with someone that looks similar to her and has similar experiences. 

January 2020

Career Day at school- who is he?

Isaac did Stephen's hair for crazy hair day

Playing at Outdoor Discovery Center

Nolbi loved walking the trails

Nate installed a washer/dryer for Enedina- alot of work

41 years old

Celebrating Grandma's birthday

-We all filled out a year in review, will be fun to look back on someday
-Enedina's fiance, Santos, was picked up and detained by ICE for months. We hired a lawyer, but unfortunately Santos was deported to Guatemala. The whole situation is heart-breaking. Enedina's family was split up- she lost her fiance and the kids lost their Dad. We continue to be so proud of Enedina. She is raising 3 kids, working, and trying to become a Certified Nursing Assistant.  We are praying a way can be found to bring Santos back to the US.
-Nate and Isaac continue to enjoy coaching and playing basketball. We have some good videos of Isaac playing, too bad we can't share them on the blog.
-I took Lexi to the allergist because of her ongoing hives.  She had testing done and she has some mild environmental like dust, pollen, etc. The Dr said her body reacted to a virus and her system is still on high alert and breaks out in hives at any form of stress (cold, exercise, tight clothing, etc.) The Dr. put her on zyrtec twice/day and singulair once/day for 2 months and then continue the zyrtec for another month. The idea is to flood her system with antihistamines, suppress reactions and hopefully once she is weaned off her body will no longer overreact. 
-Caleb and two other trumpet players participated in solo and ensemble and they received a score of 2! The scores range from 1 (highest) to 5 (lowest).
-Nate and the kids made me feel loved for my 41st birthday and Nate and I were able to go out for an evening.
-We took care of Jovanni for a weekend. He is 4 years old and Tim/Jenny's foster son. He is a cute kid, but we were tired by the end!
-The Lunar New Year was Jan 24. As a family we decided to celebrate the holiday at school. We made Chinese long life noodles, had dried seaweed, and Chinese almond cookies for Stephen, Lexi and Isaac's classes (also potstickers for his class).  For Julia's class we made Korean rice cake soup, potstickers, had seaweed and almond cookies.  It was a lot of food prep, but all of the students enjoyed the food.
-Nate took the girls to Grand Rapids for a Chinese New Year celebration. The event turn out was massive, so they couldn't really see/participate in the activities. 
-I was assigned my first Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) case. I have a sibling group of 3 kids. The kids are in foster care and I will advocate for them and make recommendations to the court about what is in their best interest. 
-We had Grandma and Grandpa over to celebrate her birthday!