Wow! What an incredible 3 months we have had! There is so much to share and I felt that it might be easiest to wrap it into one post because generally our lives have been quite unique with the Covid-19 pandemic. Here is a summary of our lives' happenings.
March started out like most months. The kids were engaged in school, church, and activities. Here are some fun school pictures. They don't always turn out the best, but I thought they were fun to share.
Christian and I celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday at the school activity night.
Eve has been really enjoying her friends.
Here is a tree that Eve planted with SAVE club which made her very happy. This was a few days after some drama with some of the kids in the club breaking rules that she had to report.
Eve was nominated as Student of the Month, and got to attend a recognition night at the Rotary club.
Eve was preparing to go the church prom. Here are some of her choices
This is what she was planning to wear.
We planted fruit trees in our front yard (2 peaches, a nectarine, and an apricot)
This is Christian's 1st and only soccer game Spring 2020.
For St. Patrick's Day I made green pancakes and a rainbow with fruit.
This is a school paper of what Christian is grateful for.
And then, mid March everything shut down. No more school, soccer, dance, gymnastics, church, playgrounds, or friends.
So, when the gym/studio closed, we practiced at home.
School went totally online or came home in packet form. Most days they did some school work and then focused on a little math and plenty of reading.
Stores turned crazy, with toilet paper, paper towels, sanitizing wipes, soap, and canned goods being in low supply. This is the line when I went early at opening.
We enjoyed plenty of time for dinner these days. We did have a friend or two for occasional "forbidden" play dates. 🤣 We limited it to just a few families.
Spring Asparagus soup
With distance learning, the kids had lots of time to snuggle the cats
This is Eve on PJ day for school. Not too hard with distance learning!
We have been very grateful for built in friends! Thank goodness for siblings . . .most of the time. :)
On the day before Matt's birthday he was able to go dirt biking with some ward friends. We got ready to surprise him when he got home.
Here is the kids'surprise serenade.
While dirt biking Matt fell and hurt his wrist. Fortunately nothing was broken, just very sprained. You can see the early stages of swelling and bruising in this photo.
It makes a thumb war interesting!
He turned 42. I think there are extra candles on the cake somewhere. Ha Ha!
Sundays were even more meaningful! We are grateful for our inspired leaders who have emphasized family/home gospel study. When we started total church at home it felt special, but very natural.
Since the kids no longer had PE or sports we got to do a lot of exercising together.
We decided to try a 30 days to splits challenge. Though all the kids participated at various times, Sheri and I finished it. She got her splits, and I got more flexible. :)
For Matt's birthday he got an inflatable kayak. We were able to try it out on the nearby Tuolumne River.
We were able to get some roof repairs done from March/26-April 6. Our wood eaves should now be properly protected from water.
April brought new beauties, but we were still enjoying the lemons we harvested over the last winter months. It has been nice to have more time to bake.
Because we had lots of time I decided to create popsicle stick trackers for the kids to remind them of positive ways to spend their time. They included scriptures/seminary, exercising, reading, homework, creating, connecting with others, service, music, and daily chore. This helped them manage their time, though screen time was still a constant draw. We've learned to balance it. Life has been remarkably sweet!
We are grateful that we have so much technology that allows us to see and talk with friends and family all over the country! We were happy to Skype, Face Time, Zoom, and Marco Polo with grandparents, sisters, brothers, uncles, cousins, missionaries, close and far friends.
General Conference weekend was lovely! We were supposed to have our YW fundraiser and deliver lots of cinnamon rolls, but that got put on hold and eventually cancelled. We decided to make a batch or two anyway.
Also we celebrated Eve's 16th birthday on Conference weekend! She didn't get to have a big friend party or go on any dates, but we still wanted to make it special.
Eve is such a great girl! She has many insights that are beyond her years! She is a great example to her siblings and is thoughtful about how she can make our family happier. She often looks for ways to serve her family. Each day she grows more confident with herself and is learning so much about the world. She has many ideas that would make the world a better place. She tries to do what is right and creates beauty around her. We hope to celebrate her birthday milestones soon.
We made her cake the day before. It was a white cake with strawberry ice cream and a special strawberry lemon sauce.
We had a bit of time between conference sessions to play in the yard.
Oh, and we had a sudden downpour which flooded our street. We decided to pull out the kayak.
Masks became very popular and Matt was required to wear them everyday as he continued to go to work since he is an essential worker. This is a mask that his co-worker gave him. He also sewed a few.
The kids did't have to wear them much, not until we went on vacation later in the summer. It's a rough life!
The kids found ways to entertain them selves.
Here are some crafts we made for Roberta. :) We were not able to deliver them for Easter since her care center was not allowing visitors. Guess we can save them for next year -hopefully.
We enjoyed Easter weekend.
For Easter breakfast I made overnight blueberry french toast to go with our HB eggs.
The kids all helped me to put together gift bags for the Young Women. I included a message about Christ being the Light of the world and candles and candy. We had fun delivering them. I am grateful for Matt's help with this also!
One weekend we decided to head up to the mountains and have a little hike, but all the state parks were closed due to the pandemic. We had to settle for pulling off the side of the road to enjoy the snow.
Our yard gives us constant reminders that it's a beautiful life!
Here the kids are playing king of the kayak
As it warms up, the wet suits were no longer needed.
We were thrilled that Jen and Joe could come to visit. The kids were so surprised! We had a lot of fun and enjoyed lots of music, games, and movies.
Jen and I got to catch up and solve problems on our daily walks.- our favorite activity!
Springtime here is gorgeous, just like my sister!
We were also able to take them kayaking. We are grateful that they went to so much effort to come see us! We loved having them!
We wish they could have stayed longer!
To fill our time we have had to get creative.
One of the creative activities the girls did was photography. Here are some fun pics they took in the neighborhood.
As spring weather turned to summer the garden was growing and we planted warm weather vegetables. Matt also put in sunflowers, and we rearranged some of our succulents.
It was finally time to take on the much needed house painting project. I got 4 different bids and we spent many date nights looking for house colors we liked. This is the house before. You can see that the white paint was peeling off. Also the stucco cracks on the side and back were quite obvious.
Here is the final result. We were very happy with how it turned out!
The kids spent lots of time in the pool. Here is Sheri with her mermaid fin and some of her tricks.
I had the chance to try out a few new recipies. This is a lentil enchilada dinner I made that is super tasty!
April and May brought cherries to our tree and to our local area. Matt's coworker gave us a giant bag of sweet cherries, and oh, we were in heaven! Here are just a few.
Matt made cherry lemonade with some of the lemonade concentrate we froze this winter.
On Mother's Day I was surprised with this delicious breakfast in bed made by Matt and freshly squeezed orange juice delivered by Sterling.
I also received lots of sweet notes from the kids.
My biggest surprise came when I realized that the kids had secretly stayed up late the night before to paint all my baseboards in the kitchen, living room, dining room, and hall. I had taped them in preparation for the upcoming week's painting project, but was feeling pretty heavy with the weight of getting it all done on my own. Can you imagine waking up and having it all done? It is like the Elves and the Shoemaker story. All I could do was exclaim "Wow!" over and over! It was seriously the best gift ever! Needless to say, I felt like one lucky Mom! Service is my strongest "Love Language." I felt such relief for weeks knowing it was all done.
April and May were filled with doctor appointments. The kids all had their regular well visits. In addition we got some blood work and saw a dermatologist for Eve. She has been discovering a lot of hair loss and was diagnosed with Alopecia. The cause is unknown, but we know it is from the body's immune system attacking the hair follicles. She received a steroid shot to calm her immune system as well as a priesthood blessing. We are grateful that she could be in quarantine while we give it time to grow back.
We also took Sheri to a dermatologist /plastic surgeon to get a recommendation on her mole. He determined that it was probably a benign blue nevus. He couldn't be certain without removing it, and said it may change later in life. For this reason he recommended removing it. I felt such mixed emotions about it. Ultimately we decided to let Sheri decide. She wanted to have it removed and so about a week before her birthday we did that. In the end, I realized that either choice would have probably been okay. Either way, she is beautiful inside and out. I am grateful that she will not have to be concerned about it in the future
I continued to ponder how to best support the Young Women in my ward with all the restrictions in place. Here is a cute idea I found online that I gave to the girls.
I had lots of cute helpers with deliveries. Again, Matt helped me deliver half of them and we each had runners which made it faster.
Here are some more photos of our daily life in quarantine.
Eve taking ballet via Zoom.
My weekly workouts. I often have a child to join me. Sheri has joined me the most. Instead of spelling our names for this workout we just do all the exercises with a few arm and back exercises thrown in.
She also loves to help me bake.
We decided to have a drive by Senior celebration for the youth in our ward. I felt so badly that they couldn't have their Senior year milestones.
Here are a few more random pics.
Breakfast in bed again, just because Matt is sweet.
Matt got a few more kayaks so we had enough for everyone to go together.
The kids learned to play the Star Spangled Banner together. Perfect for Memorial Day!
For Sheri's birthday she requested beignets. We learned to make these from Kristen Owen. I was pretty impressed by how they turned out.
The kids swam and again it was a low key birthday due to quarantine. However, Sheri and I did get to go clothes shopping which was a lot of fun!
Thoughtful Sterling got Sheri the new prequel book from the Hunger Games series. She was so surprised and I was impressed that he thought of it all by himself and even paid for it.
Sheri had a nice birthday! We love her sweetness and her thoughtfulness. She does her best to do what is right. She is a great sister and friend to others. It is fun to see her growing into a young lady.
On the 25th of May we went down to Garrapada State park to explore the coast near Monterey. It was a beautiful day! We started off with a hike to the tide pools where we looked for sea creatures. Then we went to a beach to play in the shallow area and watch the beautiful waves.
This is what the last day of 1st grade looked like for Christian. It was just a short Zoom meeting sharing how they are doing and saying goodbye to the teacher.
Speaking of things that we have missed out on because they were cancelled/changed due to COVID-19, here is a list of most of them.
School Field Trips - Christian & Sheri
Math Blast competition - Sheri (She prepared with her team for months)
Spring Soccer - Sheri and Christian
Church Prom -Eve
Annual Gymnastics Performance -St, Sh, Ch
Performing in the Lion King Musical - Sterling
YW Camp (in person) - Eve and Sheri
Jonah's wedding (Matt's nephew) - Matt
Women's Conference - Beckie
Band Concerts/Music in the Park Day - 3 oldest
CMEA Festival at CSU - Sterling
Band Banquet - Eve
8th grade trip - Ster
Santa Cruz trip Ster
6th grade promotion activities & ceremony - Sheri
8th grade promotion activities & ceremony - Sterling
Disney Land band trips - Eve & Sterling
Dance classes/ recital - Girls
Temple trips - 3 oldest
However, we have felt so blessed during this time to have loving relationships with each other, more time to read, ponder, play together, to have health, Matt's employment, beautiful flowers and trees, beautiful food, and most of all, the gospel perspective that God is mindful of us and can guide us in our challenges.
I will close this post with a few videos and some final photos from Memorial day weekend.
Fun during workout - Sheri jumps rope
Girls dance together
Sterling on a tree branch
Sterling on the field
Sheri's tricks
Kids practicing their Star Spangled Banner
Sheri's 7th grade Band audition
Eve's Wind Ensemble Audition
Playing on the beach.
Memorial Day Weekend -Here we went on a family bike ride. This is one of the few days where it rained, and pretty hard, on our way home. It was a fun adventure.
In conclusion, life keeps rolling along. I feel that despite COVID-19 we were able to thrive. We are so grateful for each other and our many blessings from God!
