Coronavirus Cohabitation

It's been a pretty eventful two months. Ryan's mom and step-dad were visiting us in HK over Chinese New Year break, eating dumplings and being generally merry, when the Education Bureau announced they were closing all schools in Hong Kong for a month due to the coronavirus. Ryan and I immediately booked flights to California thinking we'd spend just a month with Barb and Joe in the Central Coast and maybe visit some other relatives while we were in the USA. Ten weeks later, we are still here. Who knew we'd be moving back in with our parents in our forties? It's like we're millennials minus the Instagram accounts and entitlement.

General merriment in Hong Kong. We had no idea
what was about to happen to us. 

Our school called us back after our initial month here in California. They were like, "Hey, there's a super contagious virus going around. We think y'all should come back and work together in one building with students who have been travelling all around the world!" I got a medical note for Maddy's asthma, so I stayed back in California with the kids and continued to teach remotely while Ryan flew back to HK to teach live. Turns out opening up the school was a terrible idea. Shocker, I know. A month later one of the secretaries at the school contracted the virus and they shut the whole operation down.

So Ryan flew back to California. There were no direct flights to SFO anymore, so he had to fly through Narita with a 20-hour layover. Five minutes before he boarded the plane from HK he was called to the airline desk where he was told he might have to serve a two-week quarantine in Japan.

"What? I'm in transit. That doesn't make sense," Ryan said to the airline representative.

"I know, but Japan literally just issued these quarantine orders for all foreigners entering the country so we're not sure if they apply to people in transit," the rep replied.

"Can I just stay in the airport all night?"

"The airport closes at night."

"I have a reservation with an airport hotel."

"Yeah, that might work. We have no idea, but good luck!"

It was hard for him to relax and enjoy the fact that there were only 3 people in economy on that flight. You read that right, 3 (three, iii, tres) people. Fortunately, immigration let him through and a short 40 hours after leaving HK he made it back to San Luis Obispo.

We are happy to be back together as a family. Grandma Barbara and Grandpa Joe continue to be the most gracious and helpful hosts. After 10 weeks, they tell us they still want us here. Grandma Barbara eats up time with the kids, and they eat up all her food.

The kids have hit a couple of milestones here. Maddy lost a tooth and learned how to ride a bike! The boys are speaking in full sentences and are almost out of diapers!

Tyler has discovered his love for climbing trees.

Haircut!

Owen takes many precautions against the sun.

Maddy likes to find heart stones wherever she goes.

My cuties.

Before social distancing went into place we had visits from several grandparents.

We've been in flux for ten weeks now, but I've learned to just go with it because we can't predict where this is all going. And in the meantime we are enjoying our time on the Central Coast, where social distancing is easy because we have no friends here!

Tyler is so over this virus.