Plans….? HA!

Have you ever had to slam on your vehicle’s breaks? I mean really lay into the breaks of your car forcing a thousand pounds of steal to stop as quickly as possible, moments after effortlessly driving 45 miles an hour? How about then picking the perfect line in milliseconds to avoid a collision (man, the human mind is incredible when called upon instinctually)? No? Ah, c’mon we were all reckless teenagers at one time, and at least some of you were worse drivers than I! And if you are reading this, you came out OK.

Well….life’s breaks have been applied, haven’t they? I mean, It has been a whole three weeks since I last posted an article “Great, Grand, Magical Part II”. And even in that entry I commented on how drastically things have changed. It has been so incredible to feel this force and complete change without doing! Not unlike the above analogy. We are all in the “waiting” stage of this current pandemic and world-altering event, yet it most certainly feels like a personal confinement. Picture this: an ex-college linebacker, turned doctor of physical therapy, turned raft guide/outdoorsman, turned caring father and traveler becoming excited about sharing insta-pot recipes with his mother after teaching his almost 4-year-old that Catina Cat says “cuh” “cuh” (insert image of me scraping the air with my kitty claws). C’mon, man!

Please do not get me wrong. I will forever cherish these moments with the kids. And this is what we signed up for: opportunities to personally teach and impact our kids. I’d be doing this currently in a normal state of affairs even without a pandemic. However, Leah would be working, and we would be taking advantage of weekends to enjoy God’s grand creation. This is what we had planned….

As you know, Kennewick was not our first option, however we were led here for work, and accepted it is a good spot to explore from. Within two to three hours drive we have access to Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, Wallowa, the Snake River, Mt. Hood, Lake Wentatchee…. and it was an awesome spot from which to launch our next epic journey in June: Glacier NP (which has been on the absolute top of Leah and my list since we got married), the Dakotas, and the Great Lakes for returning to Indiana to visit family and friends. Again, that was “our” plan.

The first tremor to our plan came the morning of Leah’s first day of work for this assignment: March 23. She was told not to come in as a shared employee between two buildings had just tested positive for COVID-19. She was instructed to complete her training online from home, and expect to report for work the following day, which she dutifully did. It was apparent those who had come in contact were contained and no more sharing of personnel would continue. We would proceed as normal. This was good. We were still employed, and the kids and I were already establishing a healthy routine of school, play and chores. However, we felt the next tremor on that Wednesday as the kids and I were wresting in an open field of the RV park (as the playground and basketball court had been rightfully closed down) and were quickly notified by an employee that we were to stay confined to our site. Uh. I have a 6 and 3 year old all day without an open library, park, gym to visit, much less a vehicle in a 400 square foot 5th wheel parked on a lot with 150 square feet of grass. Things shrunk quickly.

Burning some energy with ninja and kid-weighted workouts.

The foundation of our plan really started to tremble on Friday as Leah was sent home having been notified both buildings of the company she worked for were shutting down the rehab department for two weeks. We were assured she would continue to get the majority of her pay through those two weeks. OK, we can handle this and just proceed as normal. This meant Leah would be granted her free time as I wanted to keep the kids focused with a routine. But… Leah received a text on Saturday (March 28th) that a therapist she had been sharing space with the last week was ill and had just tested positive. Ok…. now Leah starts to feel sick on Sunday and by Monday, she is certain she is sick and that she has contracted the “Rona” as we now so endearingly refer to it. I quickly voiced my thoughts on either she has the virus and we deal with it, or it is part of a manifestation of the mind and stress causing her body to break down (I really do appreciate how powerful the human mind is). Now we start shaking, and quite honestly each have our own private panic episode. There is no quarantining ourselves from family members in our living situation!

Well… we are all going to get sick… or not. That is all we could do at that time. It was my job to take care of things for now, and that I did. The kids had minimal awareness of what stress we were facing, just that Mommy is not feeling well. We did tell Faith we thought Mom might have the virus that caused everything to be shut down around us, but she handled it fine. Probably because we did too. Leah’s symptoms never became serious with a temperature never breaking 100, and maintained her appetite. So as the next few days progressed with her not worsening and the kids and I staying healthy, we truthfully started to become a little pleased. This was the perfect timing for Leah to get sick, recover and get on with it with work off for two weeks, and we knew the kids and I would be asymptomatic carriers. So we continued on in our little quarantined world. By the end of the week, Leah was feeling much better, and was able to get tested for the virus as a health professional. It was the responsible thing to do as she would be going back to work in a little more than a week…. plus we just had to know.

Leah and Faith learning the Ukulele – I do believe this served as a healthy coping strategy for Leah to process possibly having the COVID-19 virus in our situation.

We had a good weekend with Mom back to normal, celebrating her birthday on the 4th with a scavenger hunt. And then Monday came, completely breaking the pillars of our plans. It was to be the start of the second paid week off work, however Leah received notification that her contract had be “let go”. As an “act of God”, nullifying her 30 day contractual notice. She was also able to look up the results of her COVID-19 test… and it came back negative. Ok….now what?

A well thought out (thanks for the help, Faith!) scavenger hunt to help Leah feel special on her birthday.

Well…other than the realization I was married to a crazy lady (just kidding we can both laugh at this – we are so grateful to all be healthy as many cannot say the same) we would just take the next best step forward. So, as of this past Monday (April 13th) both Leah and I, doctors of physical therapy, have filled for unemployment! Yeah. I just wrote that – never in a million years would I have thought I would be writing that right now. We are staying through the month of rent we have paid for, and will be pulling up stakes this Monday, April 20th, to begin our trek back to Indiana where we have options to stay with family and further minimize our cost of living. And along the way, most of the cool spots we had planned on exploring are closed (as are many of the RV parks along our route)! And what do we do when we get back to Indiana? Give our loved ones air high-fives and shooter fingers when we reunite? How am I supposed to dote on my new nephew whom I’ve not met yet from 6 feet? I pray things change so I can feel good about the cousins wrestling again and we can use our time in Indiana as intended.

Despite this drastic halt to our plans, and the world, we have enjoyed some good times as a family. We were really able to focus on Jesus’s resurrection and interactively teach the kids about the importance of the most important day in history. And, yes, just like Santa Clause, the Easter bunny visits RVs too, even in the midst of a pandemic! We also enjoyed some quality outdoor time by going on hikes, paddling a little on the Columbia River, and introducing the kids to baseball. And crafts. Lots and lots of crafts.

A fun, happy Easter celebrating the resurrection of or Lord, Jesus!

Passing the time with games, crafts and silliness.

So grateful to still be enjoying the outdoors!

My family and I will be OK, I am certain of that. And you know what? We are going to go crazy, get frustrated with each other, learn a lot, and have a lot of fun together as we continue on our journey, just in a little different way for a while. I really do believe in the good intentions found on social media right now with peers imploring us to embrace this time of togetherness with our families, and to allow us as individuals to sit in the quietness to know ourselves better. These sentiments are kind of a no brainer for Leah and I as we saw this importance well before this pandemic and decided to make a radical change. However, what the world isn’t seeing is the next step. Once you have intentionally renewed the connection with your family and yourself, please don’t stop while looking just within. LOOK UP! Look to Him! God is the one who holds us and our futures. Should we choose to trust in His plan without knowing it (we named a kid based on this word), we can take the next best step with what we have in front of us. I guarantee things will turn out the way they should!

So, “our plans?” Ha! We just get to use what God gives us, wherever He chooses us to be.