March Happenings...Before the Coronavirus

Maggie C., Petra, Anna & Maggie P at Honors Choir
The world has changed drastically in the past week.  As we prepare to enter "social distancing," it may be a good time  to look back at what we were doing the week before everything shut down.

Anna is officially registered for high school!  She is very excited to be attending the local public high school, James Madison.  She met with the guidance counselor on March 5 to select her classes (the options are extensive).  In order to free up time to do both band and choir, she plans to take on-line PE for the summer.  Theresa was particularly excited about this option and can only imagine how her own high school experience would have been so much better without actual PE class.  Stay tuned for reviews of that.

Anna was one of 10  students selected to represent St. Mark in the diocese honors choir. She has really been working on her singing and the results show.  In addition to private concerts in the shower, you can also find her cantering at church or singing at other school events.  She had fun with her friends at the honors choir festival performing a concert at the end.

The big event in the neighborhood was the fire at our neighbor's, the Latimers.  Their house is directly across the street. The fire started in one of the cars in the garage.  They were fortunate that the fire department (with at least 8 trucks responding) was able to contain the fire to the garage. Mrs. Latimer and her son stayed at the Fagella B&B for the first week until they could secure other housing.  At first they thought they could get back into the house right away, but there was a lot of smoke damage among other things that will require 4-6 months to fix.  On the plus side, the house will basically be completely renovated when complete.  The neighbors rallied to help them out, with one of the neighbors lending them a car and others offering assistance.  We had a view from our kitchen window of the steady stream of "disaster tourist" walking by to see the damage.  We met a lot of new people.

All of this seems like a long time ago now.  Anna is out of school for at least 3 weeks and will be required to do "distance" learning.  Theresa is unsure of her status yet, but spent the weekend dealing with a variety of virus-related issues surrounding work.  Thanks to the CDC changing guidance, Joe may have found himself in a "high risk" group.  All activities are canceled and we noticed a lot more neighbors taking walks today. What does the new normal look like?  To be continued......

Fire damage at the Latimer's

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