Our Covid story....
It’s definitely been a strange start to 2020. Who would have thought that we would live through a pandemic in our lifetime. I wanted to tell my Covid story and what it has meant for my family.
The start of the Covid scare presented so many challenges to me as a mum. How do I talk about this to my kids about it? How do I continue to keep my kids feeling safe and protected? Should I pull my daughter out of school?
And then the bigger questions arrived. When should we close the business? How do we have to pay the bills once the business closes?
Our families’s Covid story
My family, image by Heartstory Photography
We made the decision to close the business towards the end of March as the number of cases seemed to be growing rapidly every day. We photograph so many little ones, that they were not clear whether children could get it or not, so we felt that it was safer to close our doors. It was a tough decision for us, as both Chris and I work full time in our business and we have staff. We had some savings but we knew they would last that long…
We spent a crazy week cancelling all our sessions, & letting everyone know that we would be closed..It’s a strange feeling closing the door on a business that you have run for 17yrs. We have put everything into our business and felt blessed to have a job that we love so much. To have something beyond our control make us close our doors. It felt very strange.
Within 2 weeks the government had announced that businesses would receive the JobKeeper allowance and that our commercial landlord would have to negotiate the rent with us. We will be forever grateful to have a government who supported us in this way.
We spend 8 weeks at home as a family, enjoying the down time with our kids. My oldest son Felix who is at university was learning online. Millie who is in Year 10 went to online learning, and only Max continued as normal in his carpentry apprenticeship.It was nice to have relaxing mornings, with many sleepins. I potted around the garden and expanded my veggie patch. I started baking more, I even had a go at baking scones and hot cross buns which I have never baked before. I got in trouble from my kids for watching too many youtube videos on how to grow different vegetables. Lol
Chris discovered baking bread, and went back to his German background, making pretzels, and bread rolls and many yummy loaves of bread. Youtube was also a favourite for him watching the German/Austrian tutorials on how to make his bread better.
It was a unique time in our life. I missed the social connections but we quickly worked out some facetime happy hours with some close friends, and had lots of long chats on the phone. Grocery shopping became a treat. I really enjoyed the downtime of not having to race out the door each day, time to just breathe and relax and enjoy nature.
Finally the restrictions started to ease, and it felt safe to open our doors again. We are so grateful to be back in the studio meeting and photographing so many families again.
We have put some Covid policies in place as we want you to know that we are doing everything we can to keep people safe.
We ask that only those to be photographed attend the session
If we are photographing just your children, we ask that no more than 2 adults attend with the child
Upon arrival at the studio everyone will be asked to use hand sanitizer.
We will also be temperature checking anyone coming into the studio
We will be abiding by Social distancing requirements of 1.5m
We will allow a buffer (up to 15 minutes) between each client visit so you’ll be the only one here. (In the unlikely case of overlap, we can make you comfortable in a separate room while you wait)
All surfaces are being disinfected between each session
Kate is happy to wear a facemask during your visit if you request it
Contact less payment will be preferred, either via Paypass or Bank Transfer at your ordering appointment. Of course all of our payment plans are still available.
As always, we ask you to postpone appointments if anyone in your family is feeling unwell. Naturally, the more notice you are able to give us the better.
All staff members have completed Covid safety training
We hope to meet your family soon.