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Three Day Weekend

I am fortunate enough that although I'm still very busy at work, my employer has been encouraging everyone to take some time off when possible. As such, I took yesterday off of work so that I could have a three-day weekend with my family, and I'm so glad that I did.

Saturday was just about perfect. My partner and I awoke from a good night's sleep feeling well-rested and ready to enjoy the day, which promised a high of 57F and sunny weather. We made homemade biscuits and gravy with cheesy scrambled eggs for breakfast.
We played with our daughter for a bit, did some house chores during her impressively long hour and a half nap, had ham sandwiches using some of my parents' delicious leftover Easter ham, went to the city drop-off site to dispose of our yard waste, and then I played with my daughter outside while my partner dug out a corner of our yard to turn into a rock garden.

Also, earlier that day we had talked to my parents about the health precautions they were taking recently, what kind of exposures they might have had, and how they were feeling. After coming to an understanding, we all decided that we were comfortable with them coming over to finally spend some time with their granddaughter for the afternoon. It took her some time to warm up to them, but she had a lot of fun and so did they.
Sunday didn't go quite as smoothly, but at least the pressure was off knowing that I had yet another day to spend with my family rather than going right back to work on Monday. Even so, we had a really fun and productive day in which we had some delicious pancakes, made a bit more progress on the rock garden, had more ham sandwiches, and picked up burgers for dinner from one of our favorite local burger and custard restaurants. I then finished the day by playing some Team Fortress 2 with a friend online.

As for Monday, my partner remembered hearing about a drive-through zoo that was still open in a limited capacity during the pandemic. Given how much we'd both missed going to the Milwaukee County Zoo during the warm weather days with our daughter, we knew we had to check it out. While normally the Shalom Wildlife Zoo allows you to walk around and even feed the animals, which we'd love to do someday, it was still a great experience to get out of the house and actually do something that everyone could enjoy, even if we had to stay confined to our car.
Other than that, there was more playtime, more chores done, more good food (notably a homemade buffalo chili), more relaxation, and I even got a bit more time to play games online with friends. Overall there's not much that could have made the extended weekend any better!

Stay healthy and sane!
-Ryan
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