Easter Week

Easter week has become one of our favorites of the year.  We have been celebrating this week of Christ's life each year for a few years now and we have all gotten to where we look forward to each of the days and what they teach us!  I love to see the kids teach us during Teaching Tuesday, love their thoughfulness on Good Friday and we loved Spirit World Saturday this year as we talked about all our loved ones that have passed on.  It has been a sweet and wonderful week to remember our Savior and friend and remember the most important things.  Happy Easter!

 

One last long run

With the marathon being postponed until later this year,  I think I may defer until next May instead.  I'm almost all trained and ready for the race and don't really want to keep training all summer, especially because who knows what will happen with the virus in the next few months.  So I went on one last long run just because I wanted to do it and end with a bang.  It's been a fun training season and I'm so hopeful that next year I'm able to do it again.

 

Date Night

Josh has saved us from pandemic boredom and started something amazing!  Friday night he dubbed "date night" and while restaurants, theaters, all sorts of entertainment are closed he still has managed to make Friday nights something worth looking forward to.  Most date nights go like this:

1-Hook up the Nintendo to keep the kids entertained for hours on end (their one night a week that they are allowed to play)

2- Stop at the Holiday for fountain drinks

3 - Order take out from some place delicious

4- Stop at Crumbl for dessert

5 - Take all our food and treats back to mom and dad's house and set up in the basement for the night

We eat and eat and eat, then watch movies and eat some more.  It is like a little piece of heaven on earth for a few hours.  While we are all shut inside our houses, it's as easy as a change of scenery to make it seem like we're far away from our crazy world.  Josh always seems to make thing more fun and less stressful than they might be.  And I love him for it.  

This night ended in a bit of a disaster for one of mom's dogs.  We left some Reese's on the counter and didn't find them until later that night.  Whoops! Charlie may or may not have had diarrhea and the throw ups all night after we left for home...

Thanks for the escape from reality at least one night a week.  It's literally the best.

 

Spring Break Corona Cruise

This year we have had to do spring break a little different since we’re officially on “Stay home stay safe” orders. One thing for sure is that we are happy for the break from home school and ready to do something new. So we decided to take a cruise around the world! 

First stop? Chicago!! 

We were so excited to learn all about this great city and do some typical Chicago things together. We played a game about the “Windy City”, drove downtown and sketched the Salt Lake City skyline and compared it to Chicago’s skyline, ate Chicago style pizza, watched Angels in the Outfield and learned all about baseball and had Chicago dogs for dinner. It was so fun! We learned some new things and had a great time just getting ourselves out of the house. Can’t wait to see where we stop tomorrow!

Next stop was Mexico City!  We loved learning about the ancient pyramids, seeing all the bright colors around the city and enjoyed delicious mexican food (quasadillas and fresh fruit).  We built our own pyramid to play in and watched The Book of Life together.  Such a fun city to learn about and now we all want to go visit someday for real!

Paris was next in line and this was a definite favorite!  We learned all about the big, beautiful city that Paris is and all the cool architecture that is super famous.  We studied about the food, the people, the language and the geography - then took a little stroll along the Seine ourselves (we walked along the Jordan River Parkway and pretended to be in the romantic city of Paris!) The best thing we did was stopped along the river and painted just like all the painters in Paris do.  It. Was. So. Fun!  We had a blast just sitting there enjoying the gorgeous day and painting whatever we wanted.  Here's a sample of some of our favorites.  After our walk along the Seine, we watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame together to finish off our fun day in Paris!

Our next stop was Hawaii and a definite fan favorite!  What's not to love about a tropical paradise?  We made fruit smoothies, hiked to a waterfall, watched Moana, and ate kalua pork and rice for dinner.  Finishing the night off with a trip to the hot tub was a must.  We LOVED being in Hawaii for a day!

It's hard to imagine that some other place might be better than any of the other places we visited this week.  But the final stop on our cruise was amazing - Fantasy Island.  All things good happen on this island and we partook of all of the goodness!  We had candy for breakfast, played games all morning, took a trip to the gas station for soda and dessert and played Nintendo for the rest of the night.  What could be better?! This night was fortunately a night off for the parents, so the kids got to play at Fantasy Island while Josh and I took a much needed night out!  Win win for everyone!

We had THE BEST week on our Corona Cruise and learned so much about all the different cities we were able to visit.  Can't wait to see what next year brings!å

Photo scavenger hunt

People have started to get creative with their "quarantine activities" during this shutdown.  We got this invite to join a friend of ours for a photo scavenger hunt for her birthday.  It was a fun break from school and being stuck in the house doing the same old thing.

 

April happenings

As April began, school continued to be at home and restlessness started to set in.  Honestly, one of the only ways to get through it was to laugh at all the funny memes going around - and trying not to take life too seriously! Oh yah, and in the middle of the craziness, Desh flushed a rubber toy down the toilet and we had to bring a plumber out to fix it.  Why not?

 

General Conference tower

As is the tradition, we pulled out the Lincoln Logs today while we watched General Conference.  The kids made an epic tower today using mostly all of the logs that we have.

 

Coronavirus

So here I am looking back at this past month and thinking how much has changed.  The coronavirus has changed the way of life for all of us in a matter of a few weeks and it's hard to make sense of or know what is happening.  Day to day things change as new closures and travel restrictions were put in place and kids are brought home from school to start "home learning."  It has all been so sudden and crazy around here!  Josh and I had a trip to Costa Rica planned and missed the chance to do that as borders have closed in countries around the world.  Two days before our trip I was sure we would still be able to go.  And then, just like that, the border closed, we got emails from the houses we had rented to cancel our stay and we were issued refunds from Delta Airlines and VRBO.  We realized that we were getting into something that we had not anticipated and that life was going to slow down significantly for a while.  It seemed that in a matter of a few days everything that we had planned was cancelled or closed.  We settled in to a "new normal" as we were all home together doing school and Josh was home working.  It has been wild and crazy, but really simple all at the same time.  Who knows how long this will last or what life will be like in the months to come.  But here's a peek into the month that has been March...

Now that we had the time, we found some fun things to do together.  We made bread, played hide and seek at the school, admired the beautiful sunrises, laughed like crazy at all the memes going around about the pandemic and got a new wifi router to support all the computers and chromebooks that were trying to stay connected at the same time!

My suitcase from our trip stayed packed (because I was in a bit of mourning over our lost trip), we bought a truck and made room for it in the garage, realized that there was not toilet paper or bread to be found, visited Papa and Grammie who were camping at Deer Creek in their trailer and found out my marathon was postponed.

Costco trips became an event as we were limited to how many could be in the store at the same time and lists of items were out of stock, we made group crafts and got our favorite treat before the restaurants closed.

We took time for some group exercise and the kids worked hard at their online learning.  

We made an epic fort and the kids started requesting what has become our "Corona Sunday Meal" of roast, mashed potatoes, delicious corn, rolls and cinnamon rolls.  We have had this meal for weeks in a row now and no one seems to want anything different.

We took hikes and enjoyed the outdoors as this is one of the things that are "legal" around here now.  Josh bought me a mountain bike and we're looking forward to doing the outdoor things that might be all that we're able to do for a while!  And I will admit we have had to sneak around a little bit as gyms, restaurants, theaters and all gatherings over 10 have been banned for now - we do what we can with those that we feel we can still gather with.  The Tarbets have graciously let us use their home gym in the garage, the "basketball babes" became the "secret ball babes" to include only those that won't be offended that we're still playing during the pandemic, Josh and I and Mark and Shelley Chalk have taken up playing pickleball twice a week at our church (with the doors closed and locked so no one kicks us out), and we invite mom and dad Losee over almost weekly for home church with us and have loved every minute of being with them!  Grammie has become quite the "Secret Hitler" player and we play almost weekly with them.  So, it hasn't been all bad.  Though it seems like we've been so limited on what we can do, we have taken full advantage of family time and will not forget what we've been able to do together with nothing else on our calendars for the foreseeable future.  We are blessed and we know it.  But hopefully this pandemic doesn't last forever and we can start buying toilet paper again!

This is an interesting timeline of events and surely shows how quickly and widespread the virus has gone...

 January:

An outbreak of a virus in China starts to make headlines as the first death is recorded on January 11.

Jan 26th- The US has 5 cases

Jan 31st - American, Delta and United airlines suspend flights to and from China

February:

Feb 4th - Four Utahns among those quarantined on a cruise ship after passengers were infected

Feb 29th - China orders lockdown of 60 million people.  First US citizen dies from virus

March:

March 6th - First case in Utah is confirmed

March 11th - Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert tests positive for virus.  Jazz game against Oklahoma City is stopped before tip-off and the NBA suspends its season

March 12th - Utah schools dismiss classes and begin a 2 week "soft closure"

NCAA cancels March Madness

Disneyland announces closure

Gatherings limited to 100 people

April General Conference announced as virtual event

Hale Center Theatre announces postponed shows

Megaplex theaters announce closure

March 15th - Utah reports 28 confirmed cases

March 16th - Governor Herbert announces closure of all Utah restaurants to dine-in customers

March 17th - Utah concerned about toilet paper shortage as stores cannot keep it in stock

March 18th - 5.7 magnitude earthquake shakes Salt Lake County

LDS church announces temple closures

March 19th - Salt Lake County bans gatherings of more than 10 people

LDS church transitions to at-home church

March 22nd - Thousands of LDS missionaries return to home from their assignments

March 24th - Olympic Games scheduled for Tokyo are postponed

March 27th - Governor Herbert issues "Stay Safe, Stay Home" directive for Utah

$2.2 trillion relief package signed by President Trump

Running mis-hap

So...this happened.  I may or may not have run too close to the guard rail up Provo Canyon and ripped my pants.  Luckily I have a good husband who works close and was able to run to Target and buy me some new pants to I could finish my run.  But I did run for 5 miles this way before Josh caught up with me.  It was mildly embarrassing when I passed the few people that were on the trail, but...oh well?

 

Principal's Pride

Keen got the Principal's Pride award today!  He is such a good student and loves school and his teacher this year.  So proud of him!

 

Rhen turns 11!

Rhen turned 11 today! And she shared a birthday celebration with Aunt Hayley, whose birthday is the day after hers.  She requested an Oreo ice cream cake and since that's one of my favorites too, I was happy to oblige :)  This girl is one of the very best around and we loved treating her like the golden girl on this special day!

Stats from Dr. Erickson:

Height: 5'4" - 99%

Weight: 102 lbs. - 80%

 

My favorite things about 11 year old Rhen:

1) Rhen has always, and I hope will continue to be, brutally honest in all she says and does.  She is not afraid to tell you the truth when asked, even if it may not be what you want to hear.  

Mom: What do you think of this shirt?  

Rhen: Actually it doesn't look that good on you mom.

Or..

Mom: Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing everything right.

Rhen:  Well, sometimes you do yell and get mad about really dumb things.  

Or...

Mom: I can't right now Rhen but I promise I will do that with you as soon as I get back.

Rhen: You say that a lot and most of the time you don't actually do what you say you'll do.

Ouch...

But truthfully, this is one of my favorite qualities that Rhen has.  It keeps me on my toes and makes me remember who I need to be and what I should be doing.  Love the honestly and I hope she never loses that.  

2) Rhen is super artsy.  She loves to draw and doodle, but also has started doing clay, making jewelry, boondoggle, tying bracelets and taking pictures with her camera.  She loves to watch "Grand Designs" with Josh and says she's going to do one of her own someday.  I hope she does!

3) Rhen is a great big sister to her brothers.  Sometimes she likes to do her own thing, but mostly she is the first one that wants to play a game, do levels, play on the hammocks, ride bikes or color with the boys.  She is a great friend and example to them and I appreciate that so much about her.

I love this girl to pieces and mostly love her uniqueness and eclectic way of living.  She's the best! Happy birthday girl!

Cabin clean up

Papa and Grammie decided that it's time to do some major work getting the cabin updated and remodeled.  They have been working with a builder going through plans and ideas and are going to start the process next week.  So we decided that a clean up day was in order before the building starts.  We hauled out furniture, removed wall paper, took out old carpet and sanded the old wood floor in the bedroom.  It was a lot of work and a long day but we got it all done and ready for the real work to be done!  We're so excited for the new update and know we'll continue to love the cabin as much as we have already!

 

Sleepy

Sometimes when you gotta sleep you just fall asleep wherever you can...

 

Beck Term 2

Beck has done some of the cutest art and writing projects this year.  I love seeing what he brings home every day!  Mrs. Hernandez always has the best things to say about this boy and I'm not surprised by that!

 

Keen Term 2

Keen has done an awesome job in 2nd grade this year and has loved having Mrs. Butterfield as a teacher!  He works hard and she says he is very helpful in class.  So proud of this young man!

 

Rhen Term 2

Rhen loves 5th grade and continues to do really well in school! She has some really good friends in her class that have made it a really fun year.

 

Liev Term 2

Liev has been doing lots and lots of writing in 3rd grade and I love reading through his stories and journal entries.  He has done so well this year and has developed some really incredible handwriting!

 

Rease term 2

Rease has loved middle school so far and is doing great in her classes!  Her math class continues to be her hardest one but she is managing just fine and we're so proud of her!

 

Dr. Seuss Day

Beck has the cutest kindergarten teacher this year, Mrs. Hernandez, and they celebrated Dr. Seuss Day in a big way today.  Wearing pajamas and reading Dr. Seuss books was super fun for the whole class.

 

February Running

I'm smack in the middle of my marathon training and starting to get up there in my miles.  I have been feeling really good about my speed and consistency.  And also have a love/hate for the ice baths that I take after my long runs.  I love how I feel after and how I don't get as sore from the long miles.  But I do hate and dread doing it...

I'm really hoping for another Boston qualifying time this year.  If I can keep it up I think I'll make it!