Spring Break - Covid19 Style

With Utah and almost the rest of the world in lockdown, there was no way we could go anywhere for spring break.  We had talked about maybe doing a few things but didn't have anything set.  I was grateful we didn't have airplane tickets or other things like a lot of people did and had to cancel.

So we did a true 'stay-cation' this year.  Usually stay-cations mean going places locally but this stay-cation was literally staying at home.  I thought of an idea though that I thought turned out really good.  Each day I had a different place that we 'traveled' to virtually.  Each day we did an activity, made a craft, ate something with that theme and watched a movie.  Each day was a surprise and they would wake up to the white board showing where we were traveling to that day.  Here's what we did each day.

Monday was Disneyland.  We ate some Mickey Mouse pancakes, rode some virtual rides, made a Mickey and Minnie craft.  We then watched Fun and Fancy Free Mickey Mouse movie and ended the day watching home videos from our past trips to Disneyland and Disney World.  That actually made me feel so sad because I so wish we could take them again sometime soon.  The only bummer of the day was Jaron woke up sick.  How does someone who has been home straight for 3 weeks get sick?!  He ended up having strep throat so it was good to get him on some anti-biotics and he perked up again fast.


Tuesday we went Camping.  We did a 'hike' around Highland Glen park and lake, climbed some trees.  We made these cute tents out of paper and popsicle sticks.  For dinner we ate hot dogs and then made smores in the oven.  Then we set up our tent in the basement and the kids watched Mr. Trooper Mom about some summer camp something or other and then they slept in the tent that night...and the next night because they thought it was so much fun.


Wednesday we went to Hawaii/Beach day.  We went on a bike ride, had ice cream shakes, tried to learn to hula, made Hawaiian lays, listened to Hawaiian music, and played with water squirters.  We then had a picnic on our beach towels at the park and then they watched Lilo and Stitch that night for our movie.


Thursday we traveled to Scotland for National Unicorn Day...Aria's request of course.  We went on a Unicorn Hunt, listened to bagpipes playing, made a big rainbow on our window out of tissue paper.  I made rainbow layered jello and then they watched Black Beauty for their movie (not a unicorn but a horse is close enough right?)


Friday we went to the Olympics.  The kids were sad that the Olympics that were supposed to happen this year has been postponed.  So we had our own.  We made our own medals and torches, watched the torch run and told about Grandpa's story of carrying the Olympic torch when it blew out.  We had some competitions, long jump, running, jump rope, high jump, rollerskating race and hula hoop contests.  We then had our own medal ceremony to the Olympic theme song.  We made sugar cookies and decorated them with M&Ms representing the Olympic rings and watched Cool Runnings that night for our movie.


Considering this was a last minute idea in my mind, I think it turned out really cute.  It wasn't that hard to plan, didn't take all day and I still had to work but the kids looked forward to it each day and it kept them busy enough that they didn't think about missing out on any vacations we might have really gone on.  I think it will be one we all remember for quite a while.

March 2020

Overall considering we're in lockdown and can't go anywhere we've been staying pretty busy.  My previous post goes into the details surrounding Covid-19 pandemic but here is what we stayed busy doing the rest of the month.

The 2nd day of online/homeschool was St Patrick's Day.  These kids love this holiday.  They spent lots of time making traps all over the house.  They are determined to catch a leprechaun one of these years.  Unfortunately it wasn't this year but they had fun trying.  And luckily our secret leprechaun didn't haven't the corona virus and made it to our house to give us treats again this year.  The neighborhood did a clover hunt and put clovers in the windows of everyone's houses.  We walked the neighborhood and counted 83 clovers that day, lots of fun!  And we had our traditional green dinner that night as well.


We've had lots of school projects going on.  Posters, inventions (Jaron made a corona virus catcher to keep and trap the corona virus), math and spelling tests.  Aria passed off the last of her addition and subtraction math facts.  Siena had done it earlier in the year and had a little easier of a time, but this had been a goal of Aria's all year and she had worked so hard so I was happy she was able to accomplish her goal even if she did it at home.  The kids also started having zoom calls with their class 1-3 times a week.


Card domino lines and buildings going on one entire day and pretending to be dogs another day.


Lots and lots of reading going on here, and I love it!


We got a pretty good snow storm the first Friday of online/homeschool so we had a snow morning and let them go build snowmen and play.  They built the biggest 2 snowmen they ever have before.


School spirit Friday still continues even if you don't actually go to the school


The kids asked if they could clean out the van one day....why yes you can! They spent over an hour cleaning, washing the windows and putting everything in it's place...thank you!!!


The kids helped me label the take home reading book order that I had placed and received.  They started reading the books after a while more than helping but hey, I don't mind that at all.


A Sunday walk around the temple grounds since our lesson for home church that day was look towards the temple.  Shane and I can't attend now and the kids aren't old enough so it was a nice talk about how we can still look towards the temple and keep our eye on it as our goal.

Gilbert and Covid-19

Wow, what a month.  When March started no one had any idea of how this month would go.

The month was all good and normal until March 9.

Monday morning, the kids didn't have school because the teachers had meetings so they were excited to stay home and play.  I went upstairs to work and the kids ran to the basement to go roller skate and play with Gilbert.  Right as I sat down I heard Siena yelling/crying that Gilbert was in his cage just laying on his side and not moving.  I thought NO!!!  But it was true, Gilbert had died in his sleep that night and we had no idea!  He had been acting fine, eating, being played with, etc.  The kids had said he was 'squirmy' the last few days and come to find out he had been constipated and we didn't know it.  The kids were devastated.  It was seriously the saddest thing.  They were heartbroken and so shocked as I was.  There was not a more loved guinea pig.  Everyone loved Gilbert, especially these 3 kids.  Even their friends and neighbors would come over and immediately want to hold him.  So we had a little funeral for him and buried him next to Diamond and then spent the day making little Gilbert stuffed animal pets like their Diamonds.  These were a lot of work but they love them and it brings them comfort to play with them.


As if that wasn't enough, the great Covid-19 quarantine started just 2 days later.  It was a Wednesday night and we were sitting down to dinner when Jennifer texted the family asking if we were watching the Jazz game.  She said they had done player introductions and were about to have tip off when all of the sudden the players all left the court and the game had been postponed.  Come to find out Rudy Gobert had just tested positive for the corona virus.  This set off a chain of events and by the end of the night Tom Hanks had announced he had it in Australia and the NBA postponed the season indefinitely.  By Friday, Utah announced they were shutting schools down and everyone would do online/home school for 2 weeks (which ended up being the rest of the school year but at the time we didn't know that)  Church has been cancelled until further notice and everyone is being told to stay home, work from home and do not go anywhere that is not essential (Basically to get food or medicine, etc.)  Everything shut down, inside dining restaurants, temples are shut down, the church is bringing home most missionaries in foreign countries, all activities have been suspended from sports to dance to music lessons.

We knew some things were going on and luckily my family had all been texting for a while and stocking up on food, medicine and stuff because when this all hit, people went crazy.  People went and stocked up on stuff like it was the end of the world. And as I'm writing this in May, it's still hard to find toilet paper in stores and many other items.  So I felt prepared on that end of things but this first week of the pandemic has been nuts.  Every day and almost every hour there are new reports coming out of what is going on.

It's been stressful and exhausting trying to keep up with all the changes, trying not to stress my kids out but keeping them busy and entertained since they can't see or play with any of their friends.  Trying to keep up with work and now home school, getting groceries, etc.


So Monday, March 16, we started online home school.  The teachers have been great and had things up and going very quickly.  Things have changed and evolved over the weeks but the first week felt crazy trying to get it all organized, go pick up things from their classrooms, a million emails from the district, principal, teachers, specialties, etc.  and then printing and printing pages off of school work for them to do.  That first week felt like a year!  Some days have been good and fine and other days have been crazy and stressful.


And as if we weren't dealing with enough, we woke up Wednesday morning to an earthquake.  I could tell it was a big one because of how long it lasted but wasn't hard enough to do damage. I thought the kids would be freaked out and so I ran into their room when it ended and they were all amazed and then said they thought it was cool and wish they could feel another one.  So at least i haven't given them my fear of earthquakes.  We felt some aftershocks but were far enough away from the epicenter that it didn't affect us much except my nerves!

Not having church has been an interesting change.  I miss seeing all the primary kids but having a break from being primary president has been a nice mental change for me.  I've sent out a couple emails to the parents with songs and lessons, etc. but for about 6 weeks haven't done much else.  However, having home church has been so different but in a very nice way.  Shane has been able to administer the sacrament for us each week.  The spirit is always present during our little sacraments.  Each week the kids have given a little talk.  Each of them has played the piano or violin for one of our songs and then we usually listen to a general conference talk.  We still have our home church again the afternoon like we had been doing before and overall it's worked out nicely.  This last week (I'm writing this in May) it was fast a testimony meeting and all 5 of us shared our testimonies.  The kids shared short but very sweet testimonies and the spirit was so strong in our home that day.  I loved hearing the things they had to say and it will be a Sunday I will never forget.


Each of the kids have been doing fine overall.  We've had lots of talks with them about this, what it means, how we need to stay home so we can stay healthy and overall things have been fine.  All 3 kids play together nicely most of the time but each of them have had their days and times of pure frustration and melt downs.  And I don't blame them.  It's hard for them to really grasp the enormity of this, they just know they can't play with friends and their mad about that.  We've gotten on the marco polo app that lets them record videos to each other so they've enjoyed that and we've seen more movies than we ever thought we could.  They enjoy more tablet time each day.  But they've also been more creative in their play, playing games with each other and just finding things in the house to do that they wouldn't have thought of to do otherwise.  Siena's been doing more crafts and a little sewing and cooking.  Aria has turned into a book worm and luckily we found a good online website that she can read book after book as even the library closed down for a period of time.  Even now we can pick up books once a week if we place them on hold first.  Jaron has maybe been the most stir crazy.  He loves to play with balls and will do anything if someone will play ball with him.


I think I'll leave this post as is and start another one now that talks about what else we've actually been doing during this quarantine time.