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.