My 41st Birthday

So my birthday was great! Quarantined and all! In fact, it didn't even really feel like we were under restrictions for the most part.

I was super nervous on Wednesday afternoon when the Governor came out with his "Stay at Home" orders for the state. Ugh, I thought. I wondered if the store we were planning on renting the skis from would be able to stay open, as well as if we could still go out and enjoy nature - since California has basically shut-down its outdoors (which is super lame). So I found the official document outlining what the Governor's orders meant - and, lo and behold, "nordic skiing" was specifically mentioned as an okay activity - YAY! Also, Ben had called the store and was told they are able to stay open because they have essential/emergency supplies. YAY. Furthermore, the store's owner was allowing for free rentals because he just wants people to get outdoors! YAY.

We decided to leave after lunch - it's just easier not packing so much food, or having to eat in the car or trail. One of my best-friends dropped off some beautiful flowers, a balloon, and Cadbury Mini Eggs (possibly one of the greatest candies of all time). The eggs gave all of us some energizing fuel for our skiing. :)

As we were driving up to the Grand Mesa - about an hour's drive from us - the weather was a big iffy: blowing wind with pelting snow. I was a bit worried, but it was what it was and I couldn't do anything about it. Luckily, it turned out to be super pleasant. I mean, it was only 18-degrees, but oddly felt warm. There was no wind - which is shocking as usually we experience wind on those trails. It snowed quite heavily at times, but we did have a few moments (seconds) when the sun peaked out. It was quite great!

Lucy struggled the most, of course, as she is the youngest and smallest. But, really and overall, she did do great. I did lose it on her for a moment (she was trying to climb up a hill, kept falling, I went up to help, she kept crying, wouldn't let me help, just kept whining, and so forth) . . . but other than that, all was pretty great.

 Everyone - minus Ben and the dogs. Oh, the dogs had a great time! Bella just chases after Brigham the ENTIRE time. Brigham just chases after . . . who knows what. We probably skied about 4-5 miles. Brigham and Bella probably run about 10. :)

 So pretty!

 The girls were having a great time!

 Jonas, in order to "prove [he] is a man," skied down this hill with his shirt off. Wow.

 What a nut.

 White-headed Miles.

Cute Bella. She reminded me a bit of "Aunt Jemima." Ha.

Here is a video compilation. It's 4 clips. Just as a note, my kids are decent skiers - but seeing them here, they look not-so-great. That's just because it's super hard skiing downhill in nordic skis! They still rocked it - for the most part. :)

Here's another video. . . it shows some of the realities of life with kids. It's not always like the smiling, happy pictures I post! :) A lot of times, it is. But there are also definitely times like this, too:
(I had to break it up in to 2 videos because it's too long for blogger. But they are each about 2 minutes long.)

We wrapped up the day by ordering pizza from Colorado Boy (delicious), opening gifts (rubber-band earrings from the girls, cool pants and dress and backpacking pillow and headlight from Ben, money, etc.), watching Yesterday (totally fun), and eating a Rice Krispie cake, of course.

A great birthday indeed!

Quarantined Week 2 (QW2)

Well another week of covid-19 and its effects . . . In some ways, it was a little better. Everyone is a bit more used to the restrictions and receiving new restrictions each day. Thursday, though, was a bit harsh - the whole state was put under "Stay at Home" orders. Which now means that my kids really shouldn't be doing anything - including outdoor activities, which I had previously ok'd - with anyone outside of those they live with. Again, this probably affected Jonas the most. Miles is bummed and wants to see and hang out with his friends - but is kept busy during the day with his classes. It's hard on him, though, having us (or his siblings, really) home all day. Jonas continues to get upset and be angry, but that's nothing too new for him. Of course, these restrictions are hard and I actually do sympathize with him - despite what he thinks. The girls have each other to fight and play with, so that helps. Jonas and Emmy both have quite a lot of "optional" work their teachers are assigning via Google Classrooms. Their homeroom teachers (plus Lucy's teacher, plus one of Miles' teachers) call on a weekly basis to check in.

 On Monday, while I was working, Ben took the kids to Buzzard. The girls made it to the top - the "look-out" point. Awesome! I was super impressed and happy for them, too. Super cool. (The boys went, too, they just didn't stick around with Ben and the girls!)

 We played lots of games this week - each of us having a turn to choose a game. Emmy did some "math" work - figuring out how many candies in each box and then how many each of us would get. Awesome.

 Jonas picked "Apples to Apples" for his game night - fun!

 After work on Tuesday I took the girls on a bike ride. We have a new path in town that is just about all done - it connects the North side of town (a bit more north than we live) to the South side of town (where the Rec. center is). It took us about an hour total, but it was a great ride! We even had to wait for the train on our way back. Super cool.

 We had over-ripe avocados . . . so we decided to make lemonade with our lemons. Or, rather, avocado ice cream with our over-ripe avocados. My family truly loves it - so much that Lucy licked the bowl clean. :)

 For a YW activity, we did a "Cupcake War." My kids delivered supplies to the YW (cupcake mix, cupcake liners, and frosting) and the instructions on Sunday. Then we meet via Zoom on Thursday afternoon to visit and show-off the fun and creative cupcakes. I put up the voting on facebook and two winners were declared. The girls had fun - one of the YW, when I asked what the best thing they've done so far while quarantined, replied, "Make cupcakes!" How cute.

 The boys joined in and decorated one or two themselves. :)

 Emmy's Pot 'O Gold cupcake.

 Emmy's Beach cupcake.

 My Coronavirus with Masked Person cupcakes.

 Swirled cupcakes.

 Miles' Daisy cupcake.

 Lucy's cute and fun "Easter Grass" cupcakes. They actually gave me my inspiration to make the virus cupcakes. I had already decided that's what I wanted to do, I just didn't know how to do it . . . until I saw Lucy's!

Apparently Jonas' cupcake was so ugly he had to eat it right away, before I could get a picture. :)

Bella being spoiled by Jonas.

 Jonas' un-lucky roll at Pass the Pigs (my game of choice). (The other games we played: Ben - Cover Your A$$ets; the girls teamed up and chose Secret Hitler; and Miles' game of choice will be played on Sunday - Monopoly.)

Just this morning (Saturday) we participated in a drive-by parade. A young girl in the stake (we are good friends with the family) had her birthday today. So a drive-by-her-house parade was organized (by her YW leaders, I think). It was cute and fun - and, of course, we had to use Miles' car because it's awesome for parading around . . . (I also told him I would pay for the gas . . . :) ).

My birthday was on Friday and I will post about that on a separate post.

There you have it - QW2.

Quarantine Week #1 (QW1)

(I don't know how to get the white background color off . . . oh well!)

Well life has obviously drastically changed for everyone. On Monday, this is what I wrote:

I am not going to lie . . . these past few days have already been hard. I mean, I have practically three teenagers at my home, for whom social-life is a HUGE part of their lives. In fact, they think it's the most important aspect of the lives at this point. They are teens after all. So when their social life is stripped from them, it isn't going to be easy nor fun for the most part.
My oldest will be able to continue his schooling as normal because he does it online via BYU high school. But now he gets to do his rigorous class-load with three siblings home all day. Fun. Not. He is super bummed about having to miss out on seminary, climbing, ceramics, and his Project Unify class. But he's okay for the most part.
My next son is 14 and hasn't quite "matured" like his older brother. So he's just angry about the whole situation. He's often not too pleasant to be around. The fact that he doesn't get to hang out with his friends is devastating to him and it hasn't been pretty. He threw a great teenage-tantrum when I presented the kids with a "routine" for their days at home. I get it, but it still doesn't make it better to endure.
My oldest girl was excited about the routine/schedule - gotta love girls! She is honestly bummed about not getting to see her friends in like FOREVER. She will miss them and miss some aspects of school as well.
My youngest has cried just about every day since hearing that school has been canceled. She is still at the age where she adores and loves her teacher (the fabulous Susan Krickbaum Reich)! She wants to play with her school-friends! She wants to do her schoolwork! It's been mostly sad for her.
My kids' biggest threat to their survival will most likely be their mother . . . and not the corona virus. :) But we'll try our very best to do our very best, be our very best, and hope for the very best under these unique (and crushing for the teenage minds) circumstances.

And that was just by day ONE. Ha. That's how it pretty much continued for the rest of the week, with some more downs and a few ups. Miles continues to work on his BYU HS classes - sometimes in the cellar! Good thing Ben and I cleaned it out. I don't know why - maybe it's quieter down there? Jonas isn't super happy about it, but is doing okay, albeit being bored a lot. He still gets angry, but that was pre-Covid19 and so I can't totally blame the virus. Emmy is overall managing well; I think she did break down and cry one day (at not being able to see her friends). Lucy still ends up crying about once a day - and I don't blame her. I want to cry a lot, too.

School is canceled until at least April 17th. I do not see it starting back at all this school year. Lucy was able to pick up a packet of option "school work" last week. She got to see her teacher and give her a big hug - even though it was against the rules. It brightened Lucy's sadness for a bit! Emmy and Jonas will now have optional classwork as well - all their teachers will be using Google Classrooms and uploading materials, etc. We'll see how that goes. We have a simple schedule at home - focusing on reading, writing, and arithmetic. It's going fine. They were getting out and running at the middle school's track - until that got closed. Because, you know, running outside is bad for kids. I personally know plenty of kids still congregating together in cars and houses - I was trying to be good and keep my kids at a distance. But it just gets hard as they shut down everything.

I have so many thoughts, but I will not share them all. A lot just make me beyond frustrated (like the track). But especially this: My husband's job is deemed non-essential for elective surgeries (which I totally understand). So he'll be down to working two days a week for quite some time. But guess what? The governor has deemed the sale of liquor essential so they'll continue to operate full-time. Give. Me. A. Break. Seriously! A young 22 year-old riding his bike on Monday morning here in Montrose was hit and killed - by an 18 year-old drunk driver. Nobody is up in arms about the deaths that alcohol cause each and every year. In fact, it's apparently an essential part of life. Beyond ridiculous.

But, we are trying to do our part to be good citizens. We won't be perfect at it, but we'll try our best.

Pictures from QW1:

 Using Instagram to make silly pictures is always fun if you're a tween.

 The girls enjoying the best smoothie ever on St. Patrick's day. I never leave work for lunch, but I did that day! I had gotten the smoothie all prepared the night before (except for adding the milk and ice), but I wanted some!

 Wednesday we were able to get out and do some mountain biking. It was the girls' first real mountain biking outing and they did so good! Yay for following my own parenting advice: lower your expectations. The girls are excited to go back again.

 Lucy wrote a letter to the governor. We mailed it off. :)

We took a walk on Thursday up "Flat-top." It was quite cool and windy, but we had fun. I'm glad my boys have each other, my girls have each other, and my dogs have each other. Ha. They all had a blast - but I think the dogs did especially. Jonas brought his BB gun and had fun shooting at ant hills and other various things.

Ben is ripping up our backyard. We were going to put in a new sprinkler system and sod as the backyard is literally just dirt (aka, mud when wet). But . . . we thought we should financially hold off on that. So Ben is living his dream of being a farmer. Half of our backyard will be made in to a garden. Then next year we'll hopefully plant grass. :) Ben is excited and it should be pretty cool. We are thinking about getting chickens again . . . we are less worried about what Brigham would do than what Bella would do. Ha.

Obviously our finances will change as Ben is scheduled to work 2/5 of normal. Luckily we have adequate savings so it won't be much of a stress, really. In fact, I just submitted our taxes yesterday. While we don't get a refund from the government anymore, Ben over-saves on his income from first-assisting. So once we pay off the government, whatever is left over is then deposited from Ben's work account to our checking and/or savings account. This year was our biggest year ever of giving back to us. Lucky us. Thankful for the outpouring of blessings tithing has brought to us!

We are doorbell ditching the YW activity for the week. A counselor saw a cute idea on facebook: Cupcake wars. I bought the last of the white cake mixes, along with frosting and cupcake papers and we'll doorbell ditch them at the YW houses today. Their challenge is to decorate a cupcake and then virtually we'll show them off to each other this week and vote on the best one. Hopefully it's fun for the girls!

We'll see what QW2 will bring!

Bella Turns 2!

Bella's birthday was on March 12th. It was a Thursday and I was working and I remember how the world starting canceling life that day . . . The doctor and I were practically in shock at everything that was happening. Little did we know that it was only the tip of the iceberg that day!

Anyhow, Jonas and Emmy didn't have school (not because of covid-19 closure) and Emmy was off at a friend's house all day. I had asked Jonas to go to the pet store and buy something for Bella. Plus, I told him he could make carrot cake to celebrate as well.

Jonas actually took Bella on a walk to the pet store and she "picked" out her present - a silly unicorn chew toy. :) I had given him my credit card to get cream cheese at the store and he did that as well. Then he made us (including the dogs) a yummy carrot cake. We sang "Happy Birthday" and the dogs scarfed down their piece of cake in one swallow!

We are so glad to have Bella - she brings a lot of fun to our family!

She really did love her present!

Miles Turns 16, Gets His License, & Drives His Siblings Around . . .

Miles' 16th birthday was a pretty good day, I think. Nothing amazing, but he's getting older so we better ease him into the boring-ness of birthdays when you're old. :) Ha. He started his day getting up early (like 4:50 body-time with Daylight Savings) and going to seminary. He loves seminary so it was a great way for him to start his birthday! I took him to lunch - he picked our local Indian restaurant, Guru's. It has a buffet for lunch and is delicious. Miles enjoyed his lunch and then was off to the high school for his ceramics and Project Unify classes.

After school he participated in the "Open wall" climbing. It happens every Monday now that climbing season is over. Well, now that the whole entire world is shutting down, it's not happening. But it was happening and so luckily Miles was able to go on his birthday. He really loves it.

He got home, I picked up Jonas from the rec,  Ben finally got home, and then we enjoyed his classic birthday dinner: elk pasties. They are delicious.

 Then it was present time! Wahoo! He got some awesome jumper cables, some car cleaning supplies, some awesome shirts, a vest for church, a watch, a book, a jellyfish lamp, puzzle, and cash. Emmy even gave $10 for "gas money." :)

 Oh yeah, he got this awesome package of socks - rolled up like sushi. (That's one of his cool shirts - that he requested. "Less Wifi / More Nephi"

It was a little late and we didn't have time to watch a movie. So, instead, we watched 3 episodes of The Middle. Our family adores that show.

 Then it was banana split time! That's what Miles chose for his "cake." Awesome and fun!

This was Tuesday - and Miles wore his other shirt he got. I love it so much. He got a lot of comments on it. :) "How to pick up chicks."

And this was Wednesday! Miles took his 10-minute driving test (at 7:15am), passed, and so we went to the DMV and got his license. So cool!

And this was Wednesday afternoon - Miles taking the girls to gymnastics. And Jonas going along for fun. Actually, Miles dropped the girls off, came back, and then he and Jonas headed out to collect some money they were owed. Scary!

Here's the video of Miles driving for the First. Time. Ever - without a parent in the car!

Ignore my lameness.

On Thursday, Miles drove his car to seminary. Then he had to drive south of town for an event he was participating in all day with his Project Unify class. He came home and I was still at work. Emmy had gone to a friend's house (the middle school didn't have school) and so I asked him if he wanted to pick her up. "OK" was his reply. He asked to take the Flex and I was fine with that. But, apparently, Jonas and Lucy chipped on "gas" money and so Miles drove Delilah. Oh the weirdness of it all.

Miles is great and we had fun celebrating him on his birthday - and then celebrating his license the next couple of days!

Happy Sixteenth Birthday Miles!

(Your school picture that we never ordered and I just found online and now wish I would have ordered. It's nice! It would be even better if it wasn't copied from online and thus blurry!)

My oh my. You are officially old now. Which means I am even older. It's weird when I tell people I have such an old child - but then I look at the bags under my eyes and am like, "Yep, that sounds (looks) about right."

Of course 16 = DRIVING. ALONE. You've been driving for the past year, but if all goes well with your driver's test on Wednesday morning, you'll have a real license to drive. You're a decent driver. You get your parking skills from me. Which is unfortunate. You're excited to drive your car, but not excited about that it gets 5 miles-to-the-gallon. It will be a fine and fun car for this little town . . . but you might need to think about something else when your average driving radius is more than 10 miles. There are new, stricter laws for you - which are good, really. You can't drive with any friends unless a parent is in the car for the first 6 months of your license. Then the next 6 months you can only have 1 friend. But you'll get to drive your siblings all around . . . maybe.

You've had another good year in terms of academics, athletics, and the such. You continue to do very well with BYU's high school. You continue to enjoy your electives you've taken at the local high school. This semester you are in ceramics and really enjoy it. You continue to hate your english classes - not the reading aspect of it, just the writing. But you're managing it a bit better this year. You have a different seminary teacher this year but she is awesome, too (homemade fleece blankets for everyone for Christmas anyone!).

You were involved in the mountain biking team again. Unfortunately, every race was on Sunday last season so none for you. :( But, we just found out this week - half the races (which come out to 2) this coming season will be on a Saturday! Yay! You also joined the climbing team and loved that as well. Your upper-body strength greatly increased (not necessarily due to climbing - just due to maturing, I think). You want to continue to stay strong by climbing and biking in the summer/off-season.

You are super in to music. You love listening to it . . . like a teen loves . . . listening to music. Ha, sometimes you do act like a regular teen! I think Imagine Dragons is still your number 1 group (much to Jonas' chagrin as he hates them. But he hates most music that all the rest of us enjoy). You like some odd music. But also kinda cool, I guess.

One of the greatest things about this past year is that you're becoming quite an awesome person. You're pleasant to be around. I like talking to you (most of the time). You're pretty easy-going and easy to get along with. You don't cause contention in the house (most of the time). You come out and help me bring in the groceries without me or Dad asking/telling you. You try to make the right choices.

Your strength this year has grown leaps and bounds - physically, mentally, and socially. I am glad I can be a part of your journey through life. Love ya!

love,
mom

P.S. I looked at last year's post - I can't believe I never changed the picture, ha!

P.P.S. Whoa, another thing that sounds just like a normal teenager! You and Jonas slept in until NOON on Saturday. I'm dying. I just found this out. Your dad, by like 8 am on Saturdays, is so anxious that you boys wake up, etc. I always tell him, "Just let them sleep in! They get up everyday during the week before 6am. This is their day. Blah, Blah." But I had no idea you would take it to that level. Wow, that's impressive. (I was gone at a Relief Society activity and came home around 1. When I saw you in your PJs and working on your chore, I just thought you had taken your merry time in the morning - which is what you usually do . . . )

Willy Wonka Book Club

It was our turn for the book choice and we decided on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The girls had listened to it years back, so it was fun to read it this time. It's just great!

It was easy to come up with a fun book club - candy-making! Plus watching the movie, of course. The girls chose the newer version of the movie . . . which I opposed, but whatever! I'm old and old-school. :)

One of the girls wasn't able to come, but we still had fun with the four girls.

On Friday night my girls made the "lickable" wallpaper.

 Super cute! Emmy realized she's not nearly as creative as Lucy . . . :)

Edible teacups . . . that were filled with skittles. They were way cuter in person.

 Enjoying their teacups . . .

 Drinking their skittles . . .

 Homemade Reese's Peanut Butter cups. YUM.

 Their candy boxes. We made the peanut butter cups, jolly rancher lollipops, some jello candy melts, and almond joys. They we sent home (or kept home) with the advice to share! :)

Jolly ranchers - so easy and yummy.

Another great book and fun book club!