Mid City Love has always been about what it’s like to live, work and raise a family in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And despite the changing scene here in our city and around the globe we’re still committed to keeping it real here on MCL and look forward to continuing to share our first hand look into what it’s like to be a family living in Grand Rapids.
Monday began my first week of part-time work. If you missed that bit of news you can read more on our last post. My new hours are Monday through Friday from 8a to Noon which means I’m now available to spend time with the kids in the afternoons which is something I’ve never been able to do before. As long as the weather stays warm we’ll be spending most of our time outdoors playing and enjoying the sunshine.
Jeff is still working full-time and has been busier than ever. His personal and literal ray of sunshine has been the few rounds of golf he’s squeezed in here and there. He’s taken up using the row machine at home and with the added sunshine and free time in the evenings he has been doing a lot more grilling for dinner, which is nice for me because… there’s been so so so much cooking these days!
I’ve been walking with the kids daily which has been pretty awesome. I’m doing a few online fitness classes a week through The Dailey Method but have discovered that I actually really dislike home workouts. I get super bored and for some ridiculous reason it feels like I’m not really working out if I’m not physically at the gym. That said, I feel strong as ever which is probably in part because we’ve been getting 8+ hours of sleep each night and I now have the time to cook healthy meals every day.
Natalie is counting down the days both until Easter and her 5th birthday which is on April 16th. We had planned her first ‘real’ birthday party for Saturday the 18th and she was given the choice to keep the party on the original date and shift how we celebrate or to move to a later date; she chose the latter. Her reason": “I think my friends would be sad if they could not come to our house for the party so I think we should do it later.” I thought her choice was a very mature and sweet response and it made me proud. Also, and perhaps this was strategic on her part… but now she gets two parties: one with just us at home and a second one later with her friends. More cake for all!
One of the more adorable memories we have gained from this shelter in place order is that Natalie and Thomas have been getting along and playing really well together. For nearly the last month Natalie has slept on the top bunk in Thomas’ room; ‘Slumber party’ they’ve been calling it. They did this a few times right after we built the bunk beds in Thomas’ room but it has become much more of a regular occurrence and we kind of figure, why not?! Making memories.
Thomas seems to be gravitating more and more to sports these days and lately he has been really into golfing in the yard. We have a golf game called Birdie Ball that Jeff’s been playing so I think that’s helped sway his preference by seeing Dad do it. On Friday, March 27th we celebrated his 3rd birthday with a ‘golf’ themed party and he had a blast. For the first time ever I made the cake and we picked up his favorite dinner: a chicken nugget Happy Meal. The garage bar was set up and decorated for the event and despite the social distancing limitations I think he had a blast!
Hiking is ‘social distanced approved’ and we’ve taken full advantage. A few weeks ago we checked out the Calvin Nature Preserve with the kids after dinner. It was short and sweet which made for a perfect activity leading up to bedtime that also got us out of the house. It’s a small enough loop that Thomas could walk the entire route. There are ponds and lots of animals - especially frogs! And earlier this week I took the kids to Provin Trails on one of the sunny afternoons and that was also pretty great. The sun was out and we played on the dune for most of the time. It was the first time this year I regretted not putting sunscreen on the kids faces.
Another ‘approved’ family activity we took part in last weekend was golf. Watermark is closed for usual business but because it’s a private course they’re allowing walkers. On Sunday Jeff golfed nine holes while the kids and I followed along with their clubs and the jogging stroller. I got a serious work out pushing the kids instead of my usual golf pull cart and they had a blast hitting balls here and there in between checking out the woods nearby.
Meanwhile, indoors I’ve been getting crafty with my added mom time and have leveraged Pinterest for new ideas. Last week we built our own pizzas and it was a success in that the kids enjoyed the making part, but not so much the eating part. Natalie colored a few Easter egg print outs for our front door for the Ottawa Hills Neighborhood egg hunt this weekend. I also told her that if she didn’t do it the Easter Bunny wouldn’t stop at our house. Nailed it. And a fun/easy one we did recently is grow lettuce from romaine stubs in jars of water. The kids (and me too actually) are finding it kinda cool. Once we have enough we’ll all make some salads from the stalks we grew together.
For date nights in Jeff and I have taken to sitting on the porch with cocktails and people watching. Our sidewalks are teaming with strollers, dog walkers, roller bladers, bikers… you name it… it’s there. Some funnier ones have included the girl around the block who passes multiple times a day on her hover board pushing her little sister on a scooter. There’s also a family who takes nightly walks while their kids ride a battery powered hummer that’s got some real zip to it.
Last weekend we opened a bottle of wine and rented the movie Knives Out. It was fantastic and we highly recommend it. We’re getting real use out of our hot tub these days and once the nights are a bit warmer I know we’ll start using the fire pit more and more.
Right now I’m incredibly hooked on The Dream podcast. Season 1 dives into the crazy back office of MLMs. I’m already jazzed up about Season 2 which focuses on uncovering the mystery behind the Wellness Industry. I also just finished reading Little Fires Everywhere and found it to be sort of a let down near the end. The author wrapped the story up nicely but it just seemed to remain a bit open ended. Next I’ve got Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming. Jeff is all up to date on The Expanse book series so we started watching the show available on Amazon Prime. We are also all up to date on HBOs Westworld now in Season 3. So so good.
This Sunday we’ll celebrate Easter and while it’s going to look a lot different than we’re used to, we’re still looking forward to worshiping with Mars Hill online in the morning followed by family brunch and hunting eggs with the kids in the yard in the afternoon. The Easter Bunny has already prepped the baskets for hiding and so far I've restrained myself from opening the bag of jelly beans that are suppose to be for the egg hunt.
One last thought for the day: for the sake of documentation and because 10 years from now it’ll be interesting to read/see how ‘normal’ life was affected during this time… for the first time in nearly two months I visited Costco to stock up the kitchen. I waited in line outside for exactly 25 mins (I timed it because I was curious) as they allowed groups of 25 people at a time into the store in waves. They created partitions with wooden pallets in the entry way which sort of made me feel like cattle being herded into the store. Lots of items like canned chicken and soups were limited per customer to prevent over purchasing. They were completely out of some items like frozen chicken and lettuce. I left the store having paid the largest total in my Costco history to try and avoid another visit anytime soon. Later, Jeff volunteered to manage future Costco runs. In the meantime, I’m left to figure out new dinner recipes for pork instead of our usual choice: chicken.
