Shelter in Place

Our county is officially under a "shelter in place" directive.  All non-essential businesses are closed and people are supposed to maintain 6' distance from others and only go out for essential reasons.  Thankfully exercise counts, and the weather has been great, so we have been going on walks almost every day.  

On Monday, Dan smoked a turkey.  The meat shelves in the store have been bare, but they had turkey, so Dan decided to do a whole Thanksgiving meal, we did a turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce (thankfully we had some frozen in the deep freezer) and homemade rolls.  The kids had fun with it, the food was yummy and we enjoyed sharing some of our meat.  

The kids did great with their first week of school at home.  The school has done a really great job of it - they have sent home packets for the elementary school kids and online work for the middle school kids.  Evie and James have been great about getting their school work done and have had a lot of fun doing the activities for their "specials" classes.  James made a LEGO sculpture and Evie painted a "happy tree" after watching a Bob Ross video. 

Evelyn challenged the whole family to a Plank contest - I was doing great until David climbed on my back....  Anna won of course - but David got the prize for cutest plank!  

David loves being read to and looking at books.  I found him quietly sitting one afternoon while I was working on dinner - he was sitting looking at the lego search book for 15 minutes - it was so cute!  

 The kids have been having a fun time with food, and haven't even complained too much when we eat a lot of leftovers.  We've tried to get creative about how we eat them, but I'm just not willing to let food go to waste for no reason - right now especially. 

In addition to lots of walks, the kids have been having fun on the ring fit. So we've been keeping busy between school work and enjoying each other with walks and games and family time.  This is a rather scary time for so much of the world, but we are feeling so blessed right now.  I hope when my kids grow up and remember this, that they will remember the blessings and the time together - not fear.  We had a wonderful home church today, we had a little fast and testimony meeting and we talked about how this experience can be like a refiners fire - we can let is remove the bad and make us better - but then what do we do about it once it's done - do we go back to what it was before?  

The kids got to have fun doing a youth game night online.  Eileen didn't participate, but Anna and Aaron seemed to have a fun time.  We have such great youth leaders!  

This is just a fun little video of David being adorable.  Dan also took a video of Evelyn and James singing "I Will Walk with Jesus" but it's too big to fit here.  They sang so beautifully and then we sent it to Grandparents!  

Dan and I are feeling so blessed that we made this job change a couple years ago - He may not have a job now if we hadn't.  Instead his company is thriving and being useful in this crazy time. 

Isolation....kinda....

Well the world is still crazy.  The kids are still off school and we are still here partying together and waiting on news of what will happen next.   We made chili for dinner one night and planned to have chili cheese dogs, but couldn't find hot dogs or buns, until Dan stopped by 7-11 so we had hot dogs from 7-11 with homemade chili.  He told me he had found some hot dogs with buns - so when he came home with a stack of all the hot dogs they had left I cracked up! 

But the food was still good! 

We tried a Costco trip this week - we were a little lower than we usually like to get on canned goods and frozen chicken and diapers.  We were able to get some stuff, (thankfully this included the diapers) but not everything.  And even though I got there early, this was the line to get into the store!  It was insane!!   Thankfully I wasn't in any need of toilet paper! 

The weather has been mostly pretty overcast and chilly, so we didn't spend as much time outside as I would have liked, but we did go on some walks in the neighborhood - Evie even found a little frog while we were out one day!  

Dan is still working at home, I love having him around, but I think he's having a hard time - not because the kids are causing problems - they are pretty good at letting him work - but I think he's having a hard time leaving work at work when it's all at home - I'm not sure that makes sense, but I think he feels like he is working too much and not being able to shut down when he's supposed to be off.  Eileen has vowed to make sure he comes down to eat lunch every day.  :) 

The schools are sending home work packets and getting classes that they kids can do online.  So next week we are back to classwork for all the kids.  We told Evie that once she got her packet done for the week, then she could have her hour up - so if she got it all done on Monday, she could have her hour up all week.  We will see how it goes - but it's a strong motivator for her!   I'm hoping to get us back on a bit of a schedule next week - we will see how it goes.  Anna has everything all planned out already including making sure she practices her trumpet before David's nap time! 

Saturday, we had a small baby shower for a friend in our ward.  We only had a few people, but we had a fun time eating, chatting, decorating onesies and playing silly games.  Dan and the girls were so helpful in getting everything ready and we were able to send a bunch of the leftover food home with her so hopefully that is a meal or two less that she has to cook. 

Saturday evening, we went to go vacuum the church - they divided up the cleaning work and had families do a section of the cleaning each.  We had a fun time serving together and then headed home for dinner!  Dan got a turkey at the store and is planning a Thanksgiving feast since it was really the only meat we could get!  lol  He's gonna smoke it, so it should be YUMMY! 

Church today was wonderful - we had a great little meeting together and Evie spent a little time trying to teach "I Will Walk With Jesus" to David - it was so cute!  We played some games in the evening, now we are ready to head to bed and get ready for the coming week!

Spring Break & COVID-19

Well this week started off as a normal wonderful spring break and has gotten a little crazy.  Our week started out with walks in the beautiful spring weather, working out with friends, playing at parks and hanging out with friends.  The kids have had tons of fun playing games together and enjoying the beautiful outdoors.  Wednesday was a gorgeous day.  The youth went on a temple trip up to the Oklahoma City temple.  They were got for the whole day, but had a great time. 

While the older kids were gone, I took the younger three and we went to a HUGE park - James is certain that it was the best park ever.  We all had lots of fun there!  We took sack lunches and had a nice lunch at the park before resuming the fun.  Then finally taking David home for a nap!   I tried to talk him out of a long sleeve shirt - but he wouldn't hear of changing his mind - so he was a bit hot and sweaty, but he still had a blast!

Wednesday afternoon, we had a primary activity - we taught fire safety and how to build fires, then we made s'mores and had fun playing around!  

Thursday morning, we went to the zoo with some friends.  The kids had a blast riding the merry-go-round, climbing on the elephant statues, feeding the giraffes, riding the "train" and seeing the animals.  When we got to the giraffes, I told the kids that we could feed the giraffes, if I had cash - I didn't think I did... but I had some, so the kids got to feed the giraffes.  They loved it.  The zoo is always more fun with friends and we had a great time together! 

This week the WHO declared Corona Virus or COVID-19 a pandemic.  It's hitting some areas of the world very hard and some areas of the US also.  As a result people are being told to socially distance themselves from others - basically self isolate to help prevent the rapid spread and to make sure health resources are saved for those who really need it.   This has resulted in a lot of changes in the world.  Things are shutting down.  Travel is shutting down, grocery stores are emptying out, the church has suspended all meetings and activities and even most of the temple work - only living ordinances are still available.  Schools all over the country are shutting down - so far our kids spring break has just been extended for a week - we will see if that changes in the next week.  Eileen's school will start up again as normal next week though. 

This is mostly affecting the older part of the population, so I'm very grateful that my mom is already confined to her home as she recovers from her surgery and that my dad was already off work for the week to help my mom with her recovery.  Sandi and Jon are still out of town, Sandi may have come down with it while in CA - she has been tested, but not yet received the results, but for now they are needing to quarantine themselves.   Thankfully her symptoms have been fairly mild - she is already feeling better.  My dad was actually determined to go back to travelling on a plane to heavily infected ares even though he's in the hardest hit demographic - thankfully Sandi coming down with this seems to have scared him enough to change his mind.  They are now taking this more seriously - for which I am very grateful! 

Friday evening, I headed to walmart to do our grocery shopping for the week, only to find that the shelves were picked clean.  Despite the stores doing all they could to keep stuff of the shelves - they looked like this - and other areas were even worse.  Thankfully we found most of what we needed for our weekly planned meals.  Also thankfully - we are already stocked up on toilet paper - because apparently people are going a bit crazy and stocking up before quarantine.... 

We had a fun Come Follow Me lesson where we talked about being unshaken in our faith.  Evie demonstrated how a tree is much harder to shake at it's trunk than it's branches and used that as an object lesson.  Since we didn't want to go out side in the wet, she pretended to be a tree.  David thought it was hilarious and tried to be a tree also. 

Saturday, most things were cancelled, so we slept in and had a lazy day playing games together and straightening up around the house.  In the evening, I took some meals and headed down to my parents house.  We chatted and I made a quick grocery store run for them, before heading home.  I also stopped at a couple stores down there to see if they had things ours was missing, and I was able to find the stuff so we can make our frozen burritos and refill our deep freezer a bit.  I got home and started our refried beans in the crock pot before working out, then heading to bed.  

Today was wonderful!  We had a nice quiet (or as quiet as you can get with 6 kids home all day!) Sabbath.  We held church together at the same time we usually have church, then we spent our afternoon playing games together, talking to family and cooking food.  I'm kinda looking forward to this coming week.  Dan has been working from home most of the week and will continue to do so (most likely) so we are all here together!  <3 nbsp="" p="">

It's beginning to feel like Spring!!

Well we are barely into March, but it's already beginning to feel like Spring!  Monday morning, the weather was warm, so David and I went for a walk.  It was a bit overcast and threatening rain, so we stayed in the neighborhood in case it started raining, but we had a great walk and David loved finding all the animal statues in the neighbors flowerbeds!  After picking the kids up from school, we all hopped in the van and headed down to meet Dan at Main Event.  They had a deal going on for Monday, so we met up with a bunch of friends from church and had a great time playing laser tag for a couple hours.  The kids had a blast and came home exhausted but happy.  We just ate dinner there and Dan and I switched off watching David since he wasn't tall enough to go in.  We got home and did a quick scripture time before sending kids to bed and then getting down to folding laundry.

Tuesday, David and I headed to the church to work out and play.  As usual he had a great time.  He's getting a bit more social as he gets used to the other kids and the craziness!  The afternoon included Anna having a track meet where she competed in pole vault for the first time and achieved her goal of breaking 7 minutes on her mile!  She got a new PR of 6:53 on her mile!!  Aaron and Evie had piano lessons.

Wednesday was a typical Wednesday with school and youth activities.  I stayed during activities and practiced organ.

Thursday was a beautiful day and David and I went for a long walk in the morning.  He loves going on walks and loves telling me where to go so we spent most of the morning out and walking around town.  In the evening, we had choir practice and then we collapsed at the end of the day!

Friday was a crazy morning for us.  My mom was going in to surgery in the morning, and me Dad was supposed to be back in time to take her to the hospital and sit with her, but his flight was set down half way home for medical reasons and then had technical problems, so he spent the whole night in the airport or on a plane stressed out about getting home to mom.  I headed down early to take her in for her surgery and sit with her until she went in.  My dad finally managed to make it home not too long after she was taken back for surgery prep, so he was able to see her before her surgery.  He was exhausted though, since he wasn't really able to get any sleep.  After she was taken in to surgery, David and I headed home for lunch and a nap  After getting David down for a nap, I tried to get some rest so I would be ready for the temple that evening.  Dan and I went to the temple that night and then got some dinner after and headed home. 

Saturday was fun and busy.  Anna and I went to go work out in the morning.  My mom obviously wasn't there today and Sandi and her family had headed to Cali for the week, so it was just Anna and I.  While we were gone, Dan took the kids to the Library and then to a park to play for a bit.  weather has been so beautiful!!  We had a great evening together and played some games before heading to bed. 

Sunday was great!  Dan gave a talk today and as usual was wonderful to listen to and learn from!  Primary was a bit crazy, but mostly went well!  After church was a linger longer.  Everyone had a great time with old friends and making new friends.  After, the kids were great at helping clean up.  The kids are officially on spring break, so they were excited to stay up and play some games with us - we had a great time working our way through games with the kids!  

Friends and Fun

We had a fun and busy week this week!  David and Eileen and I went to the zoo with some friends from church and their kids.  We had a great time!  The kids had a blast together and even Eileen had fun.  Eileen was a great helper with the little kids all trying to run everywhere.  We carpooled with some friends - it's great to have a big van and get to do stuff like that - the kids loved riding in the car together.  

This girl has been getting measured at the zoo since she was just a toddler!  She's not so little anymore.  

We used our zoo pass to get monorail tickets for everyone and then carousel tickets for everyone.  Then our friends were nice enough to share the lettuce for feeding the giraffes - David loved it!  I think Eileen's favorite part was learning about the elephants and their mating habits - she found them highly amusing....

Monday evening, we had some friends over for dinner and games.  We had a fun time chatting and playing Dominion with them!  

Tuesday was a crazy busy day, David and I went to the group fitness class in the morning and had fun playing with friends and getting a workout.  Then in the afternoon, Anna had a track meet - she was running the first even and the last event, so Dan went and watched her first event while I took kids to piano lessons, then Dan and I went to watch her final event after getting the younger kids to bed.  She did a great job!  It was windy and rather chilly though!  

Wednesday evening we had primary and youth activities.  For our boys primary activity, we taught the boys to throw Frisbee and then attempted to play Ultimate Frisbee.  I think they mostly had fun - but it took them awhile to get the idea.  Anna had an ortho appointment in the afternoon - she is eager to get her teeth straightened.

Thursday was the usual busy evening with DMCO.  Great rehearsal and lots of fun!

Friday morning, David had a play date with some friends - he had a blast and really didn't want to leave.  It's really cute because he can't quite say the little girl's name  - he calls her "bleh-bleh" -that is as close to Elizabeth as he gets...   In the evening, Aaron had a birthday party to go to, and Dan and Eileen and Anna and I watched Les Miserable.

David hit his Terrible Twos hard this week - it seems like everything is a battle with him now.  He wants to do everything himself - which isn't new - but now he gets mad and yells at us when ever we try to help - then again when he can't help and wants our help...  I hope he passes through this soon - I want my sweet little boy back!

Saturday morning, we picked up Sandi and went to work out with my mom.  We had a great work out - it's mom's last before she gets the other knee replaced next week.   Dan took the kids to the Library and to Costco and to get Evie a new fish at Petco.  She got a beautiful red male betta fish - she has named him Shannon.  He seems to be eagerly exploring his new home.   We played some games together, then got the kids to bed.  Then Dan and I took Eileen out to ice cream and to talk about her schooling and her future plans.  We are trying to figure out a new path to take with her - this one isn't working.   She isn't enjoying her learning and we are stressed by the format and with how everything is going.  I think it all went well and we have a plan to move forward with.   Then I went to practice the organ while Dan made Anna watch the Fast and the Furious (1)  insisting that she would appreciate it as much as he does.  I think he was a bit overly optimistic.  :)

Today was wonderful - the kids were great.  The organ playing went pretty well and the testimonies were wonderful.  In the evening, we had some friends over for dinner.  David loves this family and gets very excited when the "punkins" are coming over!  The kids all had a blast together and Anna even coaxed their youngest to go play upstairs with her for awhile.  Then we had some more fun playing games together before bed.