The New Normal with COVID-19
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

I concluded March's newsletter with the comment "Hopefully by April, we will have some of our freedoms back." Well, we're not quite there, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Some states are opening beaches, parks and stores, this coming week. Iowa is actually at about its highest peak right now, but northwest Iowa is still doing pretty well. Sioux Falls has been hit pretty hard, but most of that was in a packing plant. As of April 19, Sioux County still had only 7 confirmed cases and no deaths, however, Iowa as a whole has had 3748 cases and 90 deaths, 48% of the deaths have been in long term care facilities. Ten long term care facilities have had outbreaks and we have had some packing plants impacted, as well. We still have plenty of room in our hospitals, both in regular rooms and in ICU units. We also have plenty of ventilators. So, if we do get sick, we should be able to get good care. However, at my husband's and my age, we have been very careful to not get too exposed. We have our meat delivered by Woudstra's Meat Market and we pick up our groceries at the door of our local grocery store after they have filled the order for us. Hopefully, by May's newsletter, things will be getting a little better.

No Tulip Festival this Year
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

The Tulip Festival Committee really struggled with a decision about whether to have a festival this year. It is still several weeks away and maybe a miracle will happen and much of this will have passed by then, however, they finally decided to cancel this year's festival. So, we will celebrate our 80th year of Tulip Festivals next year instead of this. This was also Orange City's 150th year since its founding, I'm not sure what plans are for celebrating that. A decision about the Night Show which was to be Rogers & Hammerstein's CINDERELLA has been postponed until June 1.

Puzzles
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

Jubon Juweelen has been selling puzzles for several years. My husband and I have completed several since Christmas (most with all of their pieces, although our kitties love to run off with them if we give them a chance.) Anyway, several weeks ago I ordered some new puzzles thinking that people might enjoy doing them. I posted them on facebook and said that we would deliver so people wouldn't have to leave home. We only advertised within a few miles of our store and they have really sold well. I had quite a few used ones and put them on facebook and they were all gone within 24 hours. Lee and I enjoy delivering them because it gives us a reason to get out of the house. We haven't seen anyone we have delivered to. They just leave a check or call in a credit card and we leave the puzzle at their front door. Several people have ordered more than once.

I ordered more puzzles on April 10 but haven't received them yet. I checked my order today to see what the hold up was (I usually get my orders within about 3 days) and most are out of stock. Not only are they out of stock, the vendors who sell to my marketing group are not working at this time. So, I'm not sure when I will get more. I only have two left in the store and I just advertised on Facebook yesterday, so I'm not sure how long those will last. We also have some good books for sale, but those are a little harder to sell online than puzzles.

Disc Golf & Freestyle
By Owner: Bonnie Meier & her daugher: Juliana Korver

The US Open Overall Flying Disc Championships was to be hosted by my daughter and her friend this year in San Diego. That event has been cancelled, but it looks like they will instead run the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) World Overall Championships in 2021.

Similarly, the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA)has cancelled sanctioning for all events through the end of May and has postponed all PDGA Majors and National Tour events originally scheduled through July 31st.

Every freestyle event that my daughter planned to attend this year including the Freestyle Players Association (FPA) World Championships in Tel Aviv, Israel has been canceled. But a new form of competition has arisen in the creative freestyle community. On April 25th and 26th, the freestyle community will converge online for the first ever Tiny Room Battle Challenge. This will be a live sporting event! The players and judges will be together on a zoom call. The call will then be live streamed for friends and family to watch. There are 2 divisions: women and open. Juliana will be competing in both divisions and I believe is the only woman who is also going up against the men. This is a bracketed competition. Each player will battle one other player. Each player has 10 seconds to do 1 combo. A combo or combination is set of moves or tricks that a player strings together typically ending with a catch. The best combo wins the point. Because there are 56 players in the open division, their will only be 1 point needed to move on to the next round. When there are 16 players left, each battle will be best of 3 points. Quarterfinals will be best of 5 points and finals will be best of 7 points. In the women's division, there are only 8 players so they will start with their quarterfinal at best of 3 points. Women's semifinals will also be best of 3 points and the women's finals will be best of 5 points.

This will truely be an international competition as players come from 4 continents (Africa, Europe, North America, South America) and at least 13 countries. The competition will start with the open division at 11am Central Time April 25th. Play will resume Sunday, April 26th also at 11 am Central Time. Sunday the women will play first until they crown their winner then the men will start back up with their semifinals and finals. If you would like to watch some of this unique competition, you can do so here: http://www.frisbeeguru.com/live-streaming/tiny-room-battle-challenge-2020/

Stay Safe
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

We are grateful that so far everyone in our family has stayed healthy. Our oldest granddaughter just spent 23 days sailing across the Atlantic Ocean and so has missed much of our "new way of living". Juliana has made face masks for the whole family and sent them to us so that we can feel safe if we do go out and help protect others, too. I think some of these precautions may continue for a long time to come.

Web Page
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

One of the positive things that has happened recently is that we have been updating our web page jubonjuweelen.biz. Check it out. There is an archive of all the Jubon Journals since we started sending them out - 12 years ago. We aren't quite finished updating everything yet, but it has come a long way. Juliana is our computer guru and does a wonderful job of designing and updating. I'm still of an older generation and although I use the computer all the time, I'm still not that comfortable with all phases of technology. We will continue to work on the web page and if you have any suggestions, please let us know. Thank you.