Covid-19 - Swig Run 😱

Morgan drove us to the post office to mail Cousin Kelsey’s birthday card.  A big, exciting adventure for the kids who haven’t been anywhere for almost 2 weeks (except for walking around the neighborhood on our many family walks).  They have been really good sports about everything!  Somehow I let the kids talk me into stopping at Swig (let’s be honest, it didn’t take much to convince me! 😂). We had antibacterial wipes in the car so we figured it would be okay to stop by just this once during our corona-stay-away-from-everyone-and-everything-shut-in.   We ordered our drinks from the drive-thru (the only way you can order anything food related in Utah is by drive-thru or call in and they bring it out to you - no dine-in at all), the worker had us swipe our own card so they didn’t have to touch it, then when they handed us our drinks with gloved hands, I wiped the cups with my anti-bacterial wipes. The straws were individually wrapped so we were good to go! And the kids thought it was the best thing ever.  😂.  Life feels so surreal right now, but at least we get to go through life with an occasional WiKiKi to sip on. 😉

(PS- Morgan’s driving skills are coming along nicely!) 

Covid-19 - Neighborhood Unity

Our primary presidency had the cutest idea!  They announced on our neighborhood GroupMe that we are having a neighborhood zoo.  Anyone that wanted to could put a stuffed animal in their window and then when the kids are out for walks, they could look at all the animals.   Such a fun way to connect as neighbors while we are all feeling isolated with social distancing.   We went for a walk and saw so many cute animals.  I took a few pictures at the start of our walk and then felt a little creepy and stopped.  Here’s a few of the cute animals we saw.  (The whole neighborhood is in on it!  💜 We love our people!!  

Our kids had a good time decorating our front window!  The snake is my favorite.  🐍 It’s fun to see friends walk by even though we can’t play. 

We’ve had 4 of our 7 missionaries in the ward come home so far (2 are quarantined and trying to arrange getting home ASAP! The other one is in Denver and is able to keep serving even though they are quarantined for now).  With no church going on right now, they won’t have a proper welcome home from the ward.... so our ward held a parade for them.  We all went out on our driveways at 6 pm and waved to the missionaries as they drove by in their family cars.   It was so supportive and great!   Our kids rang cow bells and we all cheered as they drove by.  It was so fun to see everyone out - esp since we haven’t seen some of our neighbors for almost 2 weeks.   I feel like most people in our neighborhood are being really good about social distancing and are trying to do their part to flatten the curve.  Unfortunately it seems like that isn’t the case everywhere, but we are doing what we can in our neck of the woods!  Stay healthy out there folks! 

Covid-19 - Home School

We’ve completed 2 weeks of home-school now and it wasn’t so bad!  Each child has their own workspace and they were really good about following our schedule.   Everyone meets in the front room/kitchen area at 9 am (very generous start time by their home-school teacher if I say so myself!) for breakfast and family prayer, and then we jump right in to schoolwork.    

Meg likes to get right to work and finish as soon as possible.   She has great focus!  

Will’s teacher is easy-going and that has helped my stress level with all this.  Will is a dedicated student and wants things to be just perfect before moving on to the next thing.  I admire his work ethic and his desire to succeed.  He’s been a rock-star!!

I love My Miles!  What can I say.  The boy HATES everything school related.   We go at each other for a good part of the morning and eventually he realizes Mom is going to win, so he accepts defeat and does his work (as quickly as he possibly can). By the 2nd week we made big strides and he was putting out some good work.  Miles is capable of anything he sets his mind to, but he has to have the desire.  I know someday when he finds his passion, he will be exception at whatever that is!   I am excited to see what lights his fire!  For now, I have to get things lit.  I bet that’s pretty typical for most middle school boys. 

Morgan has had a lot of work and it takes her most of the day to get through her assignments.  The high school teachers aren’t cutting them much slack.   Good think Morgan is so on the ball and gets everything done without any help from me.   I’m so grateful for her self discipline! 

Ivy has a little bit of preschool work from Mrs Char, but when she’s done, she finds an electronic device and makes herself scarce.   I’m glad she’s low maintenance while I work with the older kids.   She’s a little angel. 

All of this is going on while Mike is tucked back in his office.  It’s so great having him home 😍.  

Covid-19 Food Supply!

We keep hearing that they expect things will get much worse over the next 2-8 weeks, so we went again to the store for supplies.   You can’t help but get anxious with everything we are being told to expect, and you naturally want to do something.  The only thing available to us is to grocery shop.   We only leave when we go to the store (except neighborhood walks).  The line at Costco wraps around the building, long before it opens, with everyone standing 6 feet apart.  Then they only let so many people in the store at once, and they ration how much you can buy of items.   It’s wild.  I’m glad I’ve been building our reserve over the last few weeks because store shelves are pretty empty. 

We decided to keep both the fridge/freezer that my brother Mike gave us and the deep freezer we originally had.  It’s been so great to have them both- and with the timing of us getting it, it was one of those tender mercies from a loving Heavenly Father to settle this mama’s fears of having to feed and keep 5 children happy.  Now we can store all the food we need for our family of 7 and not have to keep going out and exposing ourselves.  We really don’t know how long we are going to be cooped-up inside so we are trying to stock up on plenty of food. We don’t need to leave this house for at least a month for food- we could probably go 2 months if we absolutely had to.  Here’s some pictures of our stash:I love our pantry! 
Close up pictures of the pantry - things are stacked - there are at least a dozen boxes of cereal on the floor, big old bucket of flour, 6 large jars of peanut butter, and tons of cookies and m&m’s hidden on the top shelf where the kids will never find them 😜 

Inside fridge 
Inside freezer- don’t worry I got plenty of ice cream even though you can’t see it all.  😉
Deep feeezer in the garage has frozen milk, 10 packs of frozen butter (that’s 40 sticks!) and frozen eggs (did you know you can beat eggs, put them in baggies and then freeze them?!) I’m learning all kinds of new tricks. 
Outside garage fridge.- I have plenty of almond milk and salsa for Mike!  I didn’t forget about him. 😘
Last stash- - I made Miles happy with a huge box of popcorn.  I can get him to do anything for popcorn!   And don’t look too closely at how much soda I bought.  I may have gone a tad bit overboard...   The last few weeks have been so stressful.  I am not responsible for anything I’ve bought during that time!   We all blame China and the moron that ate the nasty bat and started this whole mess!

Covid-19 Week 2 of Social-Distancing

We are in week 2 of home-school and working-from-home for Mike... We are finding our groove and getting all our schoolwork done.  We’ve got this!   We are also 6 days post earthquake.  I can’t believe how many aftershocks we’ve had.  We’ve had hundreds!!  We obliviously haven’t felt that many, but we have felt a lot of them!   It’s crazy (and scary sometimes)!  The entire house shakes and some of them are enough to get your heart pumping!  It sounds like I’m being dramatic, but Mike and I both have woken up in the night and felt a little motion sick- like after our cruise.  Neighbors have been saying the same thing.  

Mike has been so busy with work.  He goes into his “office” and works all day long.  He emerges for food every now and then, but the man works hard all day long.  I wish we had a better set-up for him and offered to redo the office with new furniture and whatever he needs, but he is content with things how they are.  He’s always content.  I know he wishes he was at work with all his stuff, but I LOVE having him home. 

This week Will has asked to join me on some of my runs.  At first I was worried he couldn’t keep up since he’s not used to running, but I was wrong.  He ran 11 miles with me over 3 consecutive days and most of those miles were at an 8 min pace with hills!!   I think he’ll be my track star!   He’s a natural!  

We decided to clean out the garage and make room to store the extra fridge.  The boys wanted to help clean as soon as they saw the hose.  😂

Now we have tons of space and I love having the extra fridge.  Makes me soooo happy 😃. With our last two groceries trips, we are busting at the seams! 

Social distancing has been a little difficult for the kids.  They want to play with friends and go places, but it’s just not okay to do that right now.  We’ve been dropping off packaged candy (like Hershey Hugs) to our ministering families, but there isn’t much we can do for them.  It’s so tricky!   We send candy hugs since we can’t give real hugs.  

Some people are getting even more creative with ways to minister 😂

Earthquake!

On Wednesday 3/18 at 7:09 am we were awakened in an unusual way!  With us being home bound with Covid-19 going on, we were all still in bed.  Usually Mike would be biking and Morgan would be on her way to High school with her carpool, but today we were all in bed...   I remember feeling movement and was starting to come out of my sleep when Mike’s body protectively rolled over on top of me.   We both looked at each other and yelled “EARTHQUAKE! Get the kids!”  Then within a fraction of a second we were out of the bed and running down the hall to the kids’ rooms.  The kids were awake already and obviously terrifyied. We gathered them and ran downstairs to meet Morgan and Miles who were running upstairs.   Then it was over.  I’d say it only lasted about 30 seconds- but it felt like much, much longer while we were scrambling around.  

We went outside to check things out and then gathered around the kitchen table to discuss what to do if another one came.   It was strange thinking about it and experiencing it and not knowing if it was over.   I told Mike that him shielding me with his body when the earthqauke started was the most protective thing he’s ever done for me. I fell even more in love with him 😍

The earthquake was in Magna and hit downtown Salt Lake harder than Bountiful.  As everyone that was working today headed home because of the earthquake, Mike was heading into the office because of it.  He headed down to check out some of their properties and see what the damage was like.  

The Salt Lake Temple is closed and has been under construction since January. The earthquake caused it’s Angel Moroni to drop his trumpet.  Of course the big joke right now is that Angel Moroni, after the earthquake, did a Mic Drop 🎤.  😂

Wedneday night the kids didn’t want to sleep alone.  They were still nervous and we’d felt some aftershocks throughout the day, so we had them all sleep upstairs.  

Miles used bean bags for a mattress.  🤣

For a day it was strange to not think about Covid-19. When Mike was running around downtown, I called him and said “remember there is still cononaviris floating around”.  It completely took our mind off of it.  

We’ve been social distancing and not having play dates, but we made an exception for Nathan.  His parent were gone to appointments and he was home alone feeling the aftershocks.  He was nervous so we let him come hang for the day.  

It’s been a few days since the earthquake and we are still having aftershocks.  I sure hope our house hasn’t had any structural damage. Doesn’t look like it to the naked eye, but our deck worries me the most.  

So glad it wasn’t worse than it was! So many lost power, but we luckily did not have any issues.  

COVID-19: Schools issue Soft Closures

I am so happy the schools finally decided to close down!  We don’t need our kids passing this around to the older community.  Luckily this virus doesn’t seem to affect kids too much, but they can spread it around.  It was definitely the right call!   Mike’s work is all being done from home as well.  It’s great having everyone home.  

Teachers have 2 days to get all their coursework ready for us to do at home, so we have 2 free days until home-school gets real.  I’m excited and nervous about all this....

For now, we paint, go on walks and play a lot of basketball in the driveway.   

We've had this rusty old gecko in the yard since we bought this house. (Shauna left it behind) I've been beaning to throw it away, but was glad I didn't when Will came inside and asked if he could paint it. 

COVID-19- Home Church

It’s been amazing to see everything unfold with the spread of this virus.  It has greatly strengthened my testimony that our prophet gets revelation for us!  At the beginning of last year the church unrolled a new home-centered church study program.  Over the last 14 months, members have gotten into a habit of studying the gospel at home with their family.  So many resources have become available over that time- YouTube lessons, podcasts, blogs, etc!  It’s endless!   Now fast forward 14 months and we now have church meetings cancelled, for who knows how long, and we are only worshipping through home-based means.  Well, we know the drill!!   It’s just fine!   Mike being the bishop through this adds some unique challenges, but he’s doing an amazing job.   He encouraged our ward members to partake of the sacrament in their own homes each Sunday.   What a blessing!  As our family gathered and it was a sacrament experience I’ll never forget.   We gathered in the kitchen and talked about the sacrament- mainly the broken bread and how it represents “our broken”. We each come to the Savior broken in some way and are looking to the sacrament to make us whole and closer to the Savior.   We had a great discussion.  Then we sang a sacrament hymn while Mike prepared the sacrament.   Then he blessed it and Miles passed it. What a blessing for us to have the priesthood in our homes! It was my favorite sacrament meeting ever!  (Meg was so happy that weeks ago she hid away 2 little sacrament cups in her scripture case. They came in handy 😁)

After the meeting was over, something GLORIOUS happened! Mike went to clear the white tablecloth and when he pulled the tablecloth, he didn’t realize our white bread plate was still on the table.  The plate hit the tile and should have shattered...  Instead just a corner chipped off.  I immediately grabbed the plate and hugged it - so grateful for this gift!  I yelled for everyone to come look at our plate. It was our sacrament plate for our broken bread that reminds us of our own broken, and now our plate was a little broken to remind us of that. It will be a perfect reminder of our lesson that day and we will continue to use this broken plate for our future home sacrament meetings.  Then I have plans to display it once we are back to regular church.  What a great reminder!!   Heavenly Father is aware of us always!  

COVID-19: It's Coming

All we've heard about lately is Coronavirus, Coronavirus, Coronavirus.  It's making me feel a little uneasy.  I've got the itch to buy groceries and fill up our pantry just in case. I've got 7 people to feed - that's a lot of people and a lot of food!   I've got the itch to buy stuff - but so does everyone else!  The stores are crazy!  You cannot find toilet paper, bottled water, or hand sanitizer anywhere!!  You can buy sanitizer on amazon for about $80 a bottle...  This is crazy!

The kids hear about hand washing all day at school, at home, everywhere!  Look at Will's poor little hands.  I got him some gloves and Neosporin to wear at night so hopefully that helps.  I noticed when he washes, he scrubs the back of his hands....  I told him that wasn't necessary, just to scrub the insides palms and fingers.  Hopefully it will clear up soon.  It's kind of painful for him.

I wish I would have been quicker about grabbing toilet paper while I could.  I didn't realize that it would become impossible to buy any, anywhere!  I went to Target right when it opened and noticed a line forming - it had to be for toilet paper. I got in line and within a few minutes an employee came out with 15 of these packages of TP.  I was #13 in line so I was one of the lucky ones!

Our neighbors the Smiths ordered a huge pallet of TP for their store and employees and she had a few extras, so she dropped this off on our porch.  What a lifesaver!  No more early morning lines!!

A couple of weeks ago my brother asked if we wanted his old fridge because they were remodeling and were getting rid of their fridge.  I told him I'd love it for our garage!  We already had a big freezer, but I wanted more fridge space instead. We decided to keep both until spring when we could more easily rearrange the garage.  I'm so happy we kept both!  What great timing for us to have so much extra freezer / fridge space!  I've taken so many groceries trips and we have filled them up.  The inside kitchen pantry is stocked and our inside fridge... But here's a look at what's extra in the garage!  I feel much better knowing I can feed my family if we go on a lockdown.

They've announced that all church activities including church have been cancelled.  The school district announced Thursday that all school activities have been cancelled, (the play, after school extras, dances, etc) but that school will still be in session,  I about flipped my lid.  Why cancel everything, but still pack kids into classrooms.  I've chatted with neighbor moms and they all think I'm over the top and crazy, but I just don't see why we'd keep sending them to school.  Seems so counterproductive to all the other restrictions we've put into place.  I feel like some people aren't taking this as seriously as we should.  I hope I'm wrong.

Morgan’s first cavity

It was bound to happen...  Morgan got a cavity.   When she heard a shot was involved she wanted go crawl into a cave and never come out...  Luckily our brave little Ivy told Morgan she’d hold her hand.   Ivy sat on Morgan’s lap and did not budge for the entire procedure.  It was so sweet!  These kids do love and look out for each other.  

BBC Red 👏👏👏

Mike coached Miles’ BBC team again this year.  It’s their last year 😭. They had such a fun season together.  They went from being scrawny little boys a few years ago, to full on grown young men!  It was fun to watch them grow and develop as basketball players.   

Morgan the highlighted babe!

Morgan got her hair highlighted for the first time this week.   

What a babe!!!  

Lovable Ivy

How cute is Ivy the Ninja!  She puts Ninja kids on YouTube and acts out what she sees.  It’s pretty darn cute.  She even dresses the part sometimes 🤺

She keeps grandma company while she’s down with her broken foot.   Puzzles for hours!