City of R

  Instead of catching some waves and going to Disneyland, we did lots of yard work.  We drove 2 hour and went to City of R.  It was deserted.  We only say one other car there.  We loved hiking around the different trails.  The boys loved climbing on the rocks.  We brought Sophie with us and she acted like the happiest dog on earth.  March 31st.

Chase's 17th Birthday

Instead of being in California for Chase's birthday, we celebrated it the best way that we could considering all things.  It was a quiet day.  Chase requested that I make crepes for his breakfast with the special syrup.  It was a quiet day for Chase.  We couldn't go anywhere for an activity.  Chase wanted to go to M's drive through for dinner.  He loves their chicken basket dinner.  Tanner had the idea to make things fun for Chase, he wanted to hide his presents.  So Chase had to play hot and cold to find his presents.  Tanner was giggling the whole time.  Chase got some clothes, a new comforter since his old comforter was over 20 years old.  Chase got a nice chess set.  Chase got a new grey suit for his birthday.  It was supposed to be for Prom, but that was cancelled.  Chase wanted an Oreo ice cream cake for his cake. It wasn't the way he thought we would be celebrating but it was still a good, low key birthday.
  Chase is an amazing young man.  He loves anything that is related to sports.  He likes to play video games, specifically Apex.  He'll play Mine Craft with Tanner.  He's so sweet to play games and hang out with his younger brothers.  Chase normally hates to read, but during COVID, Chase has been reading!!!! He's rereading The Michael Vey series.  He likes fashionable clothes.  He likes to have a lot of cool shoes.  He's sweet to go to young men's activities and missionary preparation.  Basketball is his favorite sport to play.  If it wasn't for his knee issue, he'd play football.  Chase has a funny sense of humor.  Chase is incredible on the piano!!  He's able to learn and memorize a song so quickly when he applies himself.  He's great to help out around the house.  He's the first to grab the vacuum Saturday mornings and hit the basement.  He loves to go cliff jumping with Kael despite his parents objections.  Chase loves to eat Walmart tangy fruit snacks.  That's his favorite thing to grab from the pantry (crazy).  His favorite treats are: otter pops, a slushy drink or mint Oreos.  He's not much of a chocolate fan.  He likes rap music.

Dad's Toes.....

I was staying at mom and dad's because I was waiting to hear if my work needed me.  Dad happened to have his slippers off and I looked at his toes.  They looked horrible.  It looked like pus was coming out of his toes.  He said that he had ingrown toe nails.  I told him he needed to get these taken care of.  So we ended up going to Logan and having the podiatrist that Matt works with, his NP saw dad.  She completely removed two nails because of the ingrown toe nails.  She said that one of the toes had two sets of nails digging in.
  The next day I looked at his toes and was very concerned.  The tips on a couple of his toes were turning purple.  His big toe had turned purple! His toes were cold, his capillary refill was > 3 and I could only feel one pulse on his foot and it was diminished.  I could tell that something wasn't right.  So I texted my friend BreAwn that is a NP for our vascular doctors.  (She used to be a TICU nurse).  Originally we were going to have to wait until the end of April for an appointment.  So BreAwn called the office and squeezed him in with Dr. M on March 23.  On Monday, Mom sent me pictures of Dad's toes.  They looked even worse.  So I sent the picture to BreAwn.  She said that he needed to be seen a lot sooner.  Thursday morning, I woke up at 5:30 and couldn't go back to sleep.  I just had a feeling that something was wrong with Dad.  I ended up getting up and exercising and getting ready for the day.  BreAwn texted me at 9:00 and said they were fitting Dad in this afternoon.  Dr. M was extremely concerned with Dad's leg.  He had NO blood flood in his toes and very limited blood flow to his foot. Only his capillaries were getting blood to his foot.  Dad started taking things seriously when Dr. M said "I'm not worried about your toes being amputated.  I'm worried about you losing your leg!"  He said Dad needed emergent surgery tomorrow (Friday) to restore the blood flow to his leg.  (In hind sight, we shouldn't have had his toe nails removed because we didn't know how severe his vascular problem was.  But it made us aware of his problem so he didn't lose his leg)
  Because of COVID restrictions, we were only supposed to have one visitor but Dr. M said we could have two.  Luckily it was before they started getting really strict.  Originally Dr. M was hoping to do an angiogram and look at his blood flow and just open things up.  But after a couple of hours, things weren't going well.  He decided to do a femoral popliteal bypass graft.  Luckily my friend BreAwn was in the surgery so she sent us a couple of updates.  My stomach sank when she said they needed to do a bypass.  Dad stayed in surgery for another six more hours!  I was getting so worried.  They finally finished up around 11:00.  The surgery was very complicated.  They harvested the graft and attached it.  They went to flush it and there was still not blood flow.  So then they had to keep digging for the problem.  They finally figured it out that his femoral artery was completely occluded from the TVAR procedure.  When they closed it, the device snagged on the inner lining on his femoral artery partially occluding it.  With time, clots formed around the partial occlusion and eventually caused a complete closure.  Dr. M ended up doing a 4 inch femoral artery graft.  Dad is so lucky he didn't lose his leg!
  Dad went to my floor (TICU) after his surgery around 11:00.  My sweet friends allowed Mom and I to come back despite the no visitors rule.  Seeing Dad wake up from surgery was so hard!!  He wasn't responding really quickly and his arms and hand were posturing.  He was really slow to talk and look completely confused.  At first I was worried that Dad had stroked.  But luckily he started to wake up and become more appropriately responsive.  We ended up staying an hour with him.  Before we left, he said "what the hell happened?"  That made us laugh!  Mom and I finally went home around 12:15.
  The next morning, mom stayed home and I went to the hospital.  We knew with the COVID restrictions they wouldn't let both of us in.  When I got there, I had to talk to the nurse on the phone.  They weren't going to let me in.  After talking to her for 15 minutes on the phone in the waiting room I said "are you really not going to let me back to see my Dad?"  They bent the rule and let me come back.  When I walked in my unit, Dad was walked around the unit with the physical therapist.  At first they said I could only stay for 15 minutes.  They relaxed once I was back there and let me stay a couple of hours.  They said to wear my name tag and say that I'm doing education hours if anyone asked.  My unit is the best!! They were so sweet to bend the rules for me.  Dad looked so much better!!!  He was back to talking the nurse's ear off!! (and anyone else that came in the room)
  Dad was doing so well that he was transferred to the floor on Saturday.  Visitors were not allowed on the floor but they told the floor nurse the situation and she said I could come and get Dad settled.  Dad had a great nurse on the floor.  Luckily she was relaxed and was so sweet with letting me stay.  I stayed with Dad another couple of hours.  We planned for Dad to go home the next day.  Dad only had his docker pants and I knew that would be uncomfortable.  I talked with his nurse and she said I could run to Costco and buy him some sweat pants and then just run them back up to the room.  So that's exactly what I did.
  The next morning (Sunday), Mom drove to the hospital.  She called Dad to tell him she was here.  The nurse brought him down to the car.  This COVID thing is making things so strange!!!!
  Dad did really well at first.  But after about 5 days, the scabs on his toes went black and looked really bad.  His lower extremity had 3-4+ pitting edema.  He got a big seroma on his upper thigh.  I texted BreAwn and told her about it.  She put him on STRICT bedrest!!  She said that it was crucial for him to keep his leg elevated.  That was really hard for Dad!! By Monday, March 30, the seroma was the size of a softball and was very painful for him.  I texted BreAwn again...she said that they would squeeze Dad in and have someone try to drain it.  I took Dad in at 10:30 and Brad, NP drained it.  He said that it could take up to a year to drain it.  That was discouraging for Dad. But it felt a little better being drained.
  On April 20th Dad went to see a wound specialist for his toes because they weren't getting better.  The wound doctor was wonderful.  He's a vascular doctor so he knew all about Dad's surgery.  He said "if anything could have gone wrong, it did with your situation!"  He cut off all of the black scabs.  That was so painful for Dad.  He lined up home health to come in three times a week to do dressing changes.  He told Dad that if he wanted any chance of keeping his toes, he needed to keep his foot elevated.  "No yard work!!"  Dad was really discouraged.  He said that Dad was one week away from having the wound get to the bone.  They would have had to amputate his toe tips if that would have happened.  Luckily Dad's toes responded really well to the dressing changes and improved.  After a few weeks, he switched Dad to daily dressing changes that Mom did.   After 8 weeks, Dad was finally discharged from the wound specialist.  His toes look 100% better.  At Dad's vascular follow up appointment, he asked BreAwn why he feels so tired.  She said "you got the wind completely knocked out of your sails!"  She told Dad that this was a major surgery and that it's normal to feel this way and that it's going to take 6-12 months to fully recover.  This has been quite the ordeal.  It's hard to see Dad so weak and frail.  I hate it!  He's always been so strong and energetic.  It's been good to rally around him and help him with some yard work.
  BreAwn has been a lifesaver through all of this!  She's been a tender mercy sent from Heavenly Father.  I'm so grateful for the wonderful people I work with and how they've helped me!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The leprechauns visited us and left us a few surprises.  They left green candying gold coins hidden around our house.  Tanner loves St. Patrick's day!  He's been counting down for a couple of weeks.

 

COVID....projects

The governor addressed the state on Friday, March 13th.  He announced that starting on Monday, March 16th, schools would be closed for a two week period. All non essential businesses will close.  He issued a "Stay Home, Stay Safe" order.  On Thursday before the order, I went to Walmart.  It was surreal!!!  I've never seen the shelves so empty!  It looks like a zombie apocalypse is coming.  The only thing we were short on was paper towels.  Luckily Marilyn had some extra.  Going through this has made me appreciate the counsel we've been given to have a good food storage. It's made me realize what I need to stock up on to be even more prepared.   People are going nuts at the grocery store stocking up.  They're stock piling things.  Grocery stores are putting limits on how much you can buy (if you can even find it).
  On March 16, the hospitals shut down all non emergent cases.  So Matt has been home a lot!  Because of COVID, all of our travel plans have been cancelled.  We went from having the best travel year to the worst.  Our spring break, Hawaii conference, Alaska cruise, church camps, and Chase's HEFY have been cancelled.  We've been so disappointed about these cancellations.  But there is nothing that we can do about it.  Chase and Maddie were devastated about their HEFY trip being cancelled.  When we found out that our cruise was officially cancelled, Mom booked a cabin in Island Park for the same time. So at least we have something to look forward to.  Hopefully everyone will stay healthy.

 We called the trampoline store on Monday and ordered a new trampoline.  Luckily we did it early enough that they still had some available.  As COVID has progressed, trampolines have turned into a hot commodity.  I'm glad we were able to get one.
  There have been many positive aspects of COVID.  I feel like we went from a crazy busy schedule to nothing at all.  But I've loved slowing down and having more family time.  The boys have been so sweet together.  We've gotten into puzzles.  Mylissa sent us a puzzle that had all of the temples in the world.  It was really hard.  Bridger and Tanner have played lots of Star Wars legos.  They set up battle  scenes that take up two to three tables.  We've played lots of board games together.  We tried to fly a kite and that was a flop.

  On March 18th, school was transitioned to "home school."  The teachers had to set up everything online.  Tanner's teacher made packets to supplement the computer modules.  Tanner's homeschool took 1-3 hours a day, depending on how focused his was.  Somedays it seemed like it would take all day.  Some days he would fight everything we went to do.  I finally said "I'm going to take a picture of you and send it to Mrs.  Barnett.  You don't act like this at school and treat Mrs. Barnett like this so why do you treat me this way."  I started making a check list for him and that seemed to help a little.  Once we got into a routine after a couple of weeks, it got better.  

Bridger and Chase were awesome with their home schooling.  I didn't have to worry about them.  They were so responsible and figured out what needed to be done.  They did a great job of staying on top of everything.  Chase had a really hard USU psychology class.  The teacher only had slide shows for them and two test.  He worked so hard but ended up with an A- so stupid COVID ruined his 4.0!  Luckily class work ended on May 20.  Chase had to take the AP History test online from home.  It was only one question and they had 45 minutes to complete it.

  Bridger and Chase tried to fix Bridger's electric scooter but after three attempts, we gave up.  I tried ordering two different parts but they didn't work.  

  Matt and the boys made shelves along the back wall in our garage.  They turned out awesome!!!  It took them about a week to clean out the garage, make the shelves and then put it all back together.  It's so nice to organize everything and have more storage.

  I've learned how to make masks.  I've made about 25 masks. I also learned how to make fancy scrub hats for me to wear in COVID rooms.

  I did a major overhaul with the fridge and cleaned out the entire thing.  It ended up being a four hour project!  But it looked so good afterwards!

  All sports were cancelled.  So the boys' spring sports like soccer were cancelled.  All professional and college sports were cancelled.  They've cancelled the Olympics for this summer.
 Disneyland and Disney World closed.

 All movie theaters were closed.
 All malls and shopping stores were closed like Farmington S.
 Restaurants were closed for their dinning in but you could still go through their drive throughs.
My Little Red 100 Mile Bike Ride was cancelled.
  

Matt and the boys made a box around our water pump. 

We've gone for lots of bike rides.  We're borrowing Caleb's tandem bike attachment.  Tanner loves it!  He wants to go for a bike ride every day. 

  We planted bushes and flowers in our front island and around the two rock walls in the back yard.  We also bought three beautiful trees from J&J nursery.  We put the Bakeri pine tree in the island.  We planted the two Dawayk beech trees in the back yard.  I hope they make it here!!  I've had about a 1/4 of my perennials die that I planted last year. 

  We've watched lots of movies.  Matt and the boys started off with all of the Star Wars movies.  Once that was finished, they started on all of the Marvel super hero movies.  That took a little longer but eventually they finished it. 

  We've had NO FAMILY parties.  So we've learned to do "zoom" parties with our families and lots of FaceTime.  It's a way that we can see everyone and visit with each other.  I've loved this!!! It helps to still feel connected.

On May 8th, the government lightened restrictions and said that it was ok to be in a group of 20 people or less.  (The previous recommendation was nothing larger than 5 people for a group.) We've spent 8 weeks in lock down with pretty much our immediate family.  We eased the restrictions a few weeks ago and let the boys hang out with Nicholas and Thomas.  

Shantelle's Birthday

For Shantelle's birthday, we got together at Mom's.  We ate greek food.  Then Shantelle bought a bundt cake that was so delicious!!!  It was so fun to be together.  We haven't seen each other since Christmas.  After we ate lunch, we watched the governor address the state.  He announced that starting on Monday, schools would be closed for a two week period. All non essential businesses were close.  He issued a "Stay Home, Stay Safe" order.  We talked about how people were going nuts at the grocery store stocking up.  Shantelle said she couldn't find toilet paper.  So mom gave her some of hers.  Shantelle said she'll always remember this birthday because it was a first time that she was excited to get toilet paper for her birthday.

Chase's Soccer Season

Chase's soccer season was cut shot because of COVID.  They were able to play a few preseason games and then the rest of the season was put on hold and then cancelled as time progressed.  I loved watching Chase play even if it was for only a few games.  Chase was excited for the season because Jesse was the new head coach.  Hopefully they'll have a season next year.

Basketball Dinner

Chase and his team had their basketball dinner to celebrate the end of their season.  Tricia had Texas Roadhouse cater the food.  A few moms came early to help Tricia and Rachel set up everything.  Most of the coaches gave a little speech.  Coach Shaw's speech was so moving!  He was so appreciative of everything that the team had done for him during his surgery and recovery.  Chase has  loved being on the basketball team!  The coaches have been so great with him and have helped his so much.  It's made me so happy to see Chase accomplish one of his goals (to make the basketball team).  He's worked so hard to get to this point.

No training wheels!

I tried all last summer to get Tanner to ride his bike without training wheels.  When I took them off, he cried the whole time so I put them back on.  So this spring I was shocked when Tanner asked me to take off his training wheels.  I took them off and went in to wash my hands.  When I came back out, Tanner was out in the driveway riding his bike!!! I was so surprised!  He had the biggest smile on his face and was giggling.  So we went and rode up and down the street.  He was so excited to show his older brothers but they weren't home so he asked if he could show Jen.  I thought that was so cute that he wanted to show her.  Unfortunately she wasn't home either.  So Tanner showed off to her chickens.

Mack's Play

Tanner's friend Mack his his young brother Broc were in 'The Wizard of Oz' play at our little theater.  Tanner has heard Mack talk about the practices.  Tanner has been so excited to see them in this play.  Mack and Broccoli were so cute in the play.  Tanner got a cute picture with them after the play.

Chase's Soccer Support

Chase had a soccer game in P.  Shantelle and her girls came and watched Chase's game.  They were so sweet to come and support Chase.  Tanner and Bridger were so happy to see their cousins.  We were also really happy to go see their new puppy Ivy.  We went out to dinner at our favorite Indian Food restaurant after Chase's game.  Robby came and met us.  It was so fun to spend the afternoon and evening with Shantelle and her family.  I miss having these moments with her.  So I just have to soak it up.

Fast Offerings

Bridger was in need of a companion to do Fast Offerings with him.  Tanner got all ready and was his companion.  It was so tender to see Tanner and Bridger, side by side going from door to door.  Bridger takes this priesthood responsibility so seriously.  What a great example for Tanner.  Tanner loved being Bridger's companion.