COVID-19 Day 1: Pi Day

Thursday, everything in our normal life was canceled. School was shut down for at least 2 weeks. Church was canceled until further notice. We spent the day watching one thing after another announce cancellation or closure. It caused a little disappointment, as the things you've been working and preparing for (county science fair, interfaith concert, trip to Paris...) are all shut down, but of course, we know that it's what needs to be done. And, I went to the library on Wednesday and stocked up, so we're ready to batten down. :)

When all church and scout meetings were cancelled, I'd already bought the things for Lige's Eagle Court of Honor that was scheduled for Friday. So instead of making pie on Friday, I went to the school and helped with the book fair. Saturday, we needed to use up all those pie crusts I'd bought :)

Since we couldn't get together with our friends and eat pie, we decided to take the pie to them. All 5 of the older kids made a pie themselves. Lige made walnut, Ellis made strawberry rhubarb, Lillian tried a pina colada pie that turned out quite nicely despite some scramble for ingredients. (You all know what the grocery stores look like right now...) Sam made banana cream, and Martha made a chocolate cream pie. I felt a little swelling of pride that 5 of my kids can cook enough to make a pie (as long as we have pre-made pie crusts...) Good thing I taught the little kids to make pudding! :)

After we made and chilled the pies, we set out to bring pie to the downtrodden people of the world (everyone qualified.) After making a long list of who we wanted to take pie to, and realizing that we couldn't do that, we let each kid pick a person to bring pie. Lige picked a house of single people on his ministering list. Ellis picked a widow on her ministering list. Lillian picked a friend from school, who unfortunately wasn't home. Martha picked a friend from church. Marriner snuck in someone he ministers to. And Sam picked a friend from school. We drove around, carried 5 pies up to the door and let them choose which one they wanted a slice of. Then we donned gloves, served the pie, chatted a few minutes, and took off. It was very fun, but alas, at dinner time we were somewhere in the middle of Northern Virginia, and so we had to buy pizza (pie) for dinner. Alas. The first pie to disappear was....what do you guess?...Martha's chocolate cream pie! That one was popular with the little kids and picky eaters :) But as for which pie was the best....well, that's a 5-way tie. So pie day was a fabulously fun time around here, and we're glad that even though we can't get together in groups, we can still visit people and have fun.

Sunday we extended the festivities with leftover pie. After we finished home church, Sam declared, "And now it's time for PIE-mary!" I mean, who can argue with that?? And we ate the quiche that we planned to have for dinner Saturday, but ran out of time for :)

While all the kids and moms were making pie, Marriner was busy trying to put together plans for a virtual church service. He got to grapple with all sorts of technology he'd never worked with before, but finally decided they would  have all the speakers come to our house and broadcast YouTube live. It's amazing how figuring out stuff like that can take the whole day.