Canceled

One of the hard things about this lock down has been that we have missed out on a lot things we would normally be doing. The kids have had to miss church activities, and dances, jazz band rehearsals, and in person piano lessons. They have still be able to do lessons over FaceTime, but the lag time makes it difficult for her to really hear well enough. Prom is canceled, the Peru Trip is canceled, Jazz Cafe is canceled, Spring band concert is canceled, Piano recital is canceled, Community Days is canceled, birthday parties - canceled, play dates - won't happen.

We were supposed to go to Idaho and Utah for Brittany's wedding. She got engaged last November. She had planned to get married on March 21st in the Logan temple. Then the church closed temples for all proxy ordinances, and limited the number of guests to 8 to keep in line with the limit of 10 people in a room. So the reception was postponed, and we were no longer making the trip for the wedding. Mom, Beverly, Brandon and Stephen were the family that lived the closest, so it only made sense for them to be able to attend. Two days before the wedding the church asked that living ordinances only be done in the temples that were closest, the ones in their temple district. Brittany was devastated to not be married in the temple of her dreams. Luckily the Logan temple called her and said because her wedding was only 2 days away she should come to Logan anyway, and not worry about switching to the Idaho Falls temple. She was relieved.

So Brittany got married to Trent, and instead of the cruise that they had planned on, they got an Air BnB in St George for a week, and then stayed home for another week in their new apartment. Brittany's work had a policy in place that said if she leaves the state she had to self quarantine for 2 weeks. So instead of a week honeymoon, they got two!  They were both doing college courses online, but other than that, they had plenty of time to spend alone - a perfect honeymoon if you ask me.

The other big change was that our niece (cousin for the kids) was supposed to get married on April 25th in the Provo City Center temple. We weren't going to be able to go since Aaron and David were going to be in Peru. However after counseling with their bishop they decided to move up their wedding date by a month. They had 6 days to prepare, but since there wouldn't be a large reception, there wasn't much to plan. They got married in the Payson temple on March 26th. They were the only ones in the temple. They had immediate family only, took some pictures outside the temple and had a small reception for the two families at Daralee's house before they headed out for their honeymoon. I don't even remember where they went. Both are taking online classes from BYU.

 

The next day all of the temples closed for all ordinances until further notice. I think their bishop had some insider information as their stake president works at the church office building.

Missionaries that were abroad have also been sent home. They are to be quarantined for 14 days, and then will have to decide whether they will go back on their mission to a location in their home country, or to postpone for 12 - 18 months. Those that have served for about than 18 months will have their mission service considered completed and honorably served. I also know that those with underlying conditions that put them at risk (like asthma) were sent home. 

There are also those that have received their calls that will need to decide if they should postpone their mission for 12-18 months, or do their MTC training from home through video chats, and then wait until they can travel, or go stateside until they can travel.

David is in another category. He is ready to send in his mission papers, but there is no guarantee that the MTC will be open by the time he will go, and he may have to do his training and then wait until he can leave. Or he can postpone for 12-18 months.  I think he'd leaning toward putting his papers in anyway, but giving an availability date closer to the end of the summer instead of the beginning. It's just so hard to make plans when everything is so uncertain. 

First Few Weeks of Corona Virus Stay At Home Order

I am literally a year behind on posts, but I am feeling the urge to document my life right now. Let's just say, as with the rest of the world, nothing we are experiencing is normal. Our state was one of the first to shut down schools, and we now know we will not be going back for the rest of the year. While we are now in our 4th week of no school, we didn't have any specific resources for the first two weeks. Some teachers reached out with ideas, and there were plenty shared on the internet. After two weeks the district provided grade specific (and class specific at the high school level) resources, and optional assignments (worksheets, activity ideas, websites to use etc). However our district was waiting to hear about what was actually required of them to implement distance learning. They are still providing resources, for the next two weeks, but it won't be until the 27th that we will know exactly what assignments our kids will be required to do for pass the classes they are in.  

I feel like we've been on Spring break for 4 weeks, and that in two weeks all of a sudden I'm going to be stressed out trying to keep everyone in line to finish the required work. They are doing the packets, and online reading and math games. The boys have been doing seminary from home since school was shut down. Thank-you Br. S* for being an amazing seminary teacher and getting lesson emailed out daily since the beginning!  Timothy signed up to audit a computer science course and David found a photography course. But I feel like there will be an onslaught in a couple of weeks, and I am dreading it.  

David has been working at the hardware store since the shut down. Originally he was working 3-5 after school. Then he was doing 8-12. That's twice the hours as usual. I think it's great that he's been able to earn more money for school and mission. Then they attempted to have reduced hours and had David work the entire shift 7am-1pm. That was a long week. However this week they determined they had a greater demand to be open longer, so they asked him to work 8-5 every day. I think that's too much. In a couple weeks he's going to need to do a lot more school work, so I hope they will let him reduce his hours.  I was told that he is on track for graduation, and that his only required classes will be CWP (Current World Problems) and ELA (Honors English). He has an independent study course for statistics, Bio-Med and was taking Band. 

I haven't heard what Timothy needs for graduation, but he was taking a personal fitness class, band, ELA, Biology and Algebra 2. I'm pretty sure he needed all of those except band. He's trying to learn some trigonometry on his own right now, but he really needs some instruction. I don't know if I can remember something I did 26 years ago!

Today it was cure when Melanie asked me a question about a worksheet, and before I could answer Amy said I know that, and helped her! It was so sweet.

Now for the fun part.  We have been doing a lot more together. Games, puzzles, movies, playing outside - the weather had been fantastic!  We planted the garden, and we almost have the irrigation up and running. We are having a few sprinkler issues though.

Here are a few pictures from the last two weeks in March:

 watching more movies

 Melanie lost another tooth, it had been loose for weeks!

 puzzles

 chalk obstacle course made by Amy

 board games

 coloring

 reading

 more puzzles

 amending the soil with our own compoast

 trailer ride with Dad!

 Prodigy games

 home church

One of may favorite things that we have been able to do is have Aaron home more on Sundays. He does two zoom meetings in the morning for bishopric and ward council, and then we have our church at home. We decided since we are doing the sacrament at home we would dress up in our Sunday best for that ordinance. We have done different things like read talks posted by ward members that were assigned talks but able to give them, and testimonies that members shared on our ward Facebook page, and a video from the new sister missionaries in our ward. Last week we read a talk written by a recently returned missionary from our ward. He was serving in the Philippines and was to return home in June, but because of the virus came home in March. Then we shared some of our favorite conference talks from the week before. I miss the fellowship and social aspects for meeting together as a ward family, but it is nice to not have Aaron gone for the bulk of the day. He goes over to the church around noon to take any tithing envelopes that members want to hand deliver. Otherwise members donate online or mail it to us. Most of his visits are done over the phone now.

 family Zoom meetings

 ice cream at a friend's house, we kept our distance

 Melanie made me a card

 I planted the garden

 finally got some TP! We should be set for a couple of months!

 games and dress up!

 lots of minecraft for Amy and Timothy

 Allison using the doll bed

One of my friends from high school got COVID 19, and was self quarantined at home in NY. He is a personal trainer and does videos for the Daily Burn. I randomly saw him in an ad for the Daily Burn. I'm glad to report that he didn't need to go to hospital, and is recovering.