On a Thursday night in mid-March 2020, the Vazquez family were eating dinner at Spanky’s Pizza on Telephone Road, at a fundraiser for Ortiz Middle School’s theater department. They were celebrating 13-year-old Isabella’s performance at the school talent show that night where she had sung When Will My Life Begin? from Disney’s
Tangled.
All of a sudden, 15-year-old Daniel announced that he’d just seen on social media that Houston Independent School District had cancelled classes for the next day, Friday, March 13, and that the district had extended its spring break scheduled for March 16-20 an additional week due to the recently-arrived coronavirus.