what's up weekly.

Well.  I thought last week's news was sparse, but apparently my noteworthy life updates are following the trend of the viewers of the NBA finals: just when they hit the fewest ever seen, they somehow managed to go lower yet.  What a feat! 

To wit: I took nary a photo this week.  NOT A ONE.  And that is reflective of the overall state of the union over here.  Nothing to see here, folks.  So I'm just going to post unrelated, but adorable photos of the kids taken previously.

On Saturday, we were supposed to go up to Iowa to meet my brand-new, precious, perfect niece (!!), but then Penelope woke up with the barfs.  Not exactly the 'Welcome Home, New Baby!' gift we were looking to give, so we sadly stayed at home.  More than one Van Voorst cried over it.

By the end of the afternoon, everyone was back to normal, but I hadn't planned any food for the day since we were supposed to be gone, but I didn't want to put a recently-barfing kid in the car for a half-hour drive to an out-of-town park for a picnic, just to potentially spread our germs and risk car-puking far from home.  No to the thanks.  So we were a little stuck.

But then Todd came to the rescue and ordered food for pickup from a nearby town's wing place.  Sick kids opted not to eat, the rest of us ate like kings, and I didn't have to cook.  It all worked out.

We had nothing else of note until Tuesday night, when a sweet friend came and watched the kids so Todd and I could go on a date to a local Mexican restaurant.

On Wednesday night, I made chili, even though it was 87 degrees outside.  (That's literal.  Hello, October?)  This was a big mistake, not just because it was way too hot to be eating chili, but because I had no idea Atticus was getting ready for gastrotechnics.  Another one down with the barfs for a few hours.

Then yesterday, everyone woke up with headaches and sore throats, including myself.  No fevers or anything, just a rundown, ragged, slow-going kind of day.  We got our read alouds done for school, but we skipped out on our table work.

It honestly hasn't been that bad, and I can't even remember the last time any of us was sick, which is saying something because in a household this size, it seems like we can spend months just recycling each others' germs.  But we have stayed crazy healthy (for large family standards) for almost a year now, maybe longer.  I spent a lot of time yesterday reflecting on the fact that this week's sickness really just served to highlight how blessed we've been this year.  And now that we did get something, it seems to be pretty mild.

And that was literally the entirety of our week: sickness, interspersed with some hot wings and some margaritas.  Actually, when I put it that way, it was actually pretty noteworthy after all.


(Oh, P.S., just for posterity's sake: Let the record show that the city's mask ordinance was extended this week.  Hey, Future Paige, remember when you emailed your city councilman to voice your thoughts, and he LIED DIRECTLY TO YOU and said it was no longer an issue that the city council had anything to do with, and then he voted on that exact issue the next day at the city council meeting he failed to mention?  Those were good times.  2020, unflaggingly working hard to endear us all to our representatives.)