Covid Week 11

Maybe this will be my last official "Covid" week whatever post . . . Now we've just moved on to summer, I guess. Maybe I no longer need weekly updates and will just post when/if we do anything post-worthy. :) Maybe. Because it does give me something to do at least, so we'll see . . .

Sunday Home Church.

On Monday the girls, Ben, and myself rode our bikes to Riverbottom park. There we played some pickle ball. It was really fun and the girls loved it - even though they aren't super good. But neither am I . . . :)

 This was probably the most exciting thing this week: Miles started his first job! At Crash Burger. He assembles the burgers. Awesome. I think he likes it. He talks about the people who work there and seems to enjoy it! Yay.
 

 We hired a friend/ward member to build this roof/shelter off the back of our house. We had an old one that we tore down a while ago and so it's nice to be getting something put back up. We'll put a see-through corrugated plastic over the top to provide shelter. It's looking great.

 So is our garden! Ben's done a great job of being a Farmer so far. :)

Lucy became enamored with tea sets one week. So she found one online that she could buy and ordered it. Then she would check its shipping and tracking status like All. The. Time. It finally arrived this week and she's thrilled with it. I think this was colored water to look like tea. Ha.

 We spent a couple of afternoon at Taviwach (the pond) with the kids and their friends and our paddle boards. The kids all love it. Unfortunately, my camera sucks at zoomed-in photos so I don't really take many pictures there. But I did grab this on! Why you ask!? Well, just as we were leaving the girls came running to me to tell me there was a man riding Ben's bike (which was stolen a few weeks ago from the hospital)! Sure enough, they were right. I snapped a picture and then confronted the man. I asked him where he got it, that it was actually my husband's bike that was stolen one morning when he had gotten called in on a case, etc. Supposedly this man traded in a "really nice" item for it from some guy name Randy. Anyways, to make a long story not so long, but sort-of long . . .

I ended up telling him (after he said this was kind of an awkward situation, he didn't know what to do, etc.) to go talk with the police about this Randy guy and that if he were to get his traded item back, to give the bike back to the police. Don't worry, I wasn't counting on that to happen. I just didn't have any other solution to offer. I mean, maybe he wasn't the guy who stole it and so I wouldn't feel right taking it from him. We had to go as Miles had work, but on my way home I called the police (there is already a police report on the stolen bicycle) and told them the bike was at Taviwach. Unfortunately, the bike and man were gone by the time the police got there. Anyways, Emmy was really excited that she almost got Ben's bike back! Ha. It was kind of a funny story. And, actually, the guy might not have been lying - the footage from the hospital's security cameras, though very fuzzy, show an unshaved, short-hair man taking the bike (so says the officer). No way this guy could have grown his hair that much in that short of time . . . I'm not saying he didn't know it was stolen, but whatever. It's not about the bike. It's about stealing. There is a big bike-theft operation going on here in Montrose! (Ha, what a long story I made this out to be. Surprise, surprise.)

Sometimes Bella's lips get caught and it's hilarious.

 Emmy might fill in for Miles a bit now and then on the mowing business - not much, just a little. This was actually her first time ever mowing! Ben took her and just the two of them mowed and trimmed this small yard. Emmy was super excited about.

My "Unofficial Black Canyon Ascent" race ended this week. So I got the "swag bags" all ready. They each had a shirt (except for the 2 that didn't order one), a medal, a gift-card prize (to Colorado Boy, Crash Burger, Sonic, or Looney Bean. Or Amazing Glaze for the girls. The 1st place winners in a group got a $25 gift card . . . down to $5 gift cards.). Plus, we raffled a few items, too. Fun stuff. :)

The cheap, but fun, medals I made. My sister gave me the link to these plastic medals you can get on Amazon and then design it however. I loved how the back said "CHINA" on it. You know, the whole Covid-thing? Ha.

The shirt. The picture isn't great, but I think they turned out really awesome! "Just For the Run Of It." I ordered them from the same place we ordered my family's reunion shirts back in 2017. They are super comfy, great fit, etc.

Emmy babysit for 5 1/2 hours today (Saturday). Go her! She had a good time. Then Lucy was off to a birthday party - mainly outside, except for when it rained and almost-hailed like crazy! After the storm, Emmy came with me and we drove all over town dropping off the swag bags to all the runners. I had 20 sign up - but 6 were my own family. :) It took us 2 hours to deliver them - but, hey, it was something to do out of the house!

Oh, another thing we did was go mountain biking on Friday. I wanted to do this bigger loop but wasn't sure the girls could do it all. Jonas just wanted to ride down. So I dropped Jonas off with the girls up top. Then Miles and I drove to the bottom, rode up, then rode down. We all met at the truck. Miles, with minimum of a 25-minute delayed start (counting the drive back down and then the bike ride back up) ended up passing his younger siblings. That crazy kid. The girls hated the ride, ha. As I began the descent down Lower Spring Creek, I thought, "Yeah, I think this was probably too much for the girls." And it was! But, ahem, it was nice I wasn't with them and could actually have a good ride without having to hear Lucy cry or Emmy get mad. Truth. I do love riding with them, really, but I don't love having to deal with fits. Jonas was told if he was rude or did/said anything mean to his sisters while riding down with them, that he wouldn't be able to hang-out with his friends all weekend. Apparently it worked.

Alright, May's almost over! Now on to June . . . Much of the same stuff, probably. Oh, except the girls begin gymnastics at their new gym!!

Covid Week 10

Well things are getting real boring around here . . . not sure how I/we am/are supposed to survive another 3 months of school break - or more? I feel like we are at an awkward phase in the quarantine - things are quite closed but I still feel a little restrictive. Like, oh, I want to grab this at the store - but should I? I am trying to be a good girl in some respects, while not in others. Ha. Actually, I do think I am being good in all respects . . . it's just that people's definition of "good" differs, especially during such divisive times.

I had a good couple of days at work. Ben had two days off and so that was nice for him. It's his last week of getting paid for 30 hours (no matter if you work less - if more, you get paid for more), so he and his co-worker decided to use it to their advantage this week. :)

Miles took four finals this week. We have a friend who is the principal at one of our local elementary schools - and he let Miles go there on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to take his finals and that was super helpful! Miles did well and ended up with all A's and A-'s, again. Awesome.

Jonas, after spending a couple of weeks obsessing about buying either a dirt bike (no) or a truck (whatever, but dumb to do so right now . . .), saw a friend's cruiser bike that has a motor on it and decided that will appease him for now. He and his friends (including Miles) are going to form the Crusty Cruiser Crew. Jonas bought a kit and is now waiting to put it on his bike (or, rather, Ben's old cruiser). The boys hung out with friends this week and that was good. They watched some scary movie at their friends - The Invite. Sounds awful.

The girls had a little "private lesson" at their new gym. You can sign up for them - which I don't plan on doing regularly, but wanted to get them in the gym and just have something to look forward to and do. They LOVED it.

We got 2 new paddle boards and they are awesome! We took them out to Taviwach on Friday afternoon and the kids (plus 2 extras) had a blast. The only bummer? A paddle sank! What? Who makes sinking paddles? Weird. I have called customer service and am waiting to hear back . . .

I didn't get many pictures from this week, but here we go:

Emmy's first-try at cake-pops! So delicious! We'll have to figure out how to make them look prettier on the bottoms, but she did them all herself and they turned out pretty great.

We decided Thursday would be our Last of the Last Day of School. Emmy and Jonas' last day in-building was March 11th and Lucy was March 12th. Then they each had a different "last" day in turning in their remote assignments, iPads, etc. But Thursday was Miles' last final and so we declared it our Last Day. So, of course, I made their candy-grams: 

And, of course, they jumped off the porch in celebration. :)

 I didn't get many pictures of our paddle boards - but here is one. Both paddle boards look exactly alike. The girls are out in the middle on one. Fun times then and to come on those, for sure.

COVID week 9

So I don't feel like we are totally in quarantine anymore (because we're not), so I will stop calling it quarantine weeks . . . However, things are still not normal and so I will probably continue my weekly updates and call them COVID.

School finished up for my three youngest this week. Emmy turned in her online assignments and iPad (at her school) on Monday. She did well - getting mostly A's and some "Passes." If you didn't get a 90% or above, then you just got a pass. Online wasn't the easiest to navigate, but she worked hard and did really well. Jonas turned in his online assignments and iPad on Wednesday. He probably had his best quarter ever - getting all A's and A-'s. So that was cool. Lucy turned in her packet and chromebook to her school on Friday. She got her long-awaited desk items: writing work, art projects, folders, etc. Miles will finish up all his finals this coming week. The boys are somewhat "busy" with their lawn care - they've added aerating to their services and have done a decent number of them. It's hard with Miles still doing school, but will get much easier when he's not working on school all day long. Ben helps them about 25% of the time - if it's a new job, etc. But for the most part, the boys are getting independent with it - so cool.

Oh, HUGE news that is bittersweet: the girls are going to a new gymnastics place. It's a long story and I won't go all in to it, but it was the right time to make this transition. I think having time out of the gym and away from Coach Kirk, helped them to take this new path. Lucy was in tears the first day I brought up the idea of trying the new gym. Then she became excited. Then she and Emmy had an "evaluation" at the gym and they both loved it! Both girls got in to the levels they were hoping for - Emmy in "Gold" and Lucy in "Silver." Emmy has a couple really close friends in that gym and so she's super excited. They start up on June 1st. The really crummy thing? Because of COVID, the gym is operating at 10% capacity. Classes are spread out, etc. So Lucy will be going Mondays and Wednesdays and Emmy on Tues/Thursdays. But, whatever, it should be great for them. The gym (Black Canyon Gymnastics) has a big team of girls, they compete during competition season, etc. I am really excited for them. But it was hard telling Coach. We've been with him forever. But sometimes change is hard, but for the best - and that's what we're hoping.

Picture time:
Our Tuesday night activity was chosen by our YW Class President. She wanted to do a fashion show with "themes" chosen by the leaders. So we choose 4 themes:

Prom.

80s.

Tourist.

Nerd.

We gave the themes out a few hours before the activity so the girls could figure out their outfits. Then we met on Zoom and picked a theme, the girls changed in to their outfits, and then modeled them for us all. It was cute and the girls really had fun.

Lucy taking back her stuff to school. Sniff, sniff.

Kids were asked to wear a mask when they returned their iPads (oh, and picked up their yearbooks - fun!) at the school. So Jonas wore his ski mask.

The middle school's band teacher, Mr. Lund, is retiring - after teaching at the school for 33 years. He's strict, but awesome and does a fantastic job of teaching band and jazz band to his students. The school did a drive-by parade for him on Friday night - it was a surprise and turned out pretty great, I think. I came up with the idea of making a mustache for Miles' car (which we drove in for the parade). Mr. Lund has a mustache (that honestly looks a lot like what Jonas and Ben ended up making - I found the amazing fabric on my grocery trip to Walmart) and the kids often wear mustaches on their last performance. Mr. Lund and his wife got a HUGE kick out of it - as well as the other parade-goers. We saw so many pointing and laughing and so that was fun. :)

I am trying to introduce my kids to some of the good ol' classic movies. Friday night: JAWS. My kids literally were scared during it. It was perfect.

I organized an unofficial race - the Black Canyon Ascent. It was canceled, of course, due to COVID. But I got 20 (6 from my own family) to register. We have 2 weeks to do - starting on May 16th and going until May 29th. Lucy helped me mark the start and finish - the start line was already gone by the time we came down from the finish spot. No worries, I had tied a ribbon to a post and it was still there.

Since cars couldn't drive here, the finish decor held for today at least. :)

A little after 7, my family (minus Jonas who will run it with a friend next week) and neighbor, Heather, started out. Heather and I were the only runners - although Emmy decided to try and run the first mile and just run/walk the rest (spoiler alert: she ran the WHOLE thing). I felt great those first couple of miles and took a sizable lead in my group. :) Poor Heather is suffering from a new diagnosis of Chrone's/Inflammatory Bowel Disease and had a few stomach issues during the run. But she did and did it well. Brigham was my running partner and besides barking at the cows, did pretty awesome. In fact, maybe he helped me shave 3 minutes off my time?! The four times I have run it (I walked/ran it last year with Jonas), I was always at 72 minutes and whatever seconds. Today I did it in 69:02. Yeah! I was hoping to PR. :)

 After I finished, I started walking back to cheer on Heather and meet up with my family. I cheered on Heather and then not too long afterwards, I see this cute girl. She told, "I have run the whole thing!" I was so amazed and impressed. This is seriously the hardest race I do - way harder than a 1/2 marathon.

She sure knows how to push herself. By the time she came to running down to the finish line, she said, "I can't do it." She was like literally 20 feet away and finally running downhill - that's how hard this race is. It makes you want to quite when you're that close. :) Her time: 1:24:17. So great!

 We got our chocolate milks from the car and started heading down the road to find the rest of the crew.

  There they are! They did a great job, too. I mean, it was obviously fairly easy (while still challenging) for Ben and Miles, and pretty challenging for Lucy. But she didn't complain and finished strong. What cool people.

Heather, me, and Emmy. Why is everyone so much cuter than me? Sigh. :)

And that's a wrap for our week. We're all pretty tired, but continued with mowing, chores, car-cleaning, etc., today. Emmy gave her first go at Cake Pops. We'll try them out after dinner tonight - YUMMY, I'm betting.

Bye!

Mothers' Day

Mothers' Day was nice - for church, we had a great talk given by President Nelson (then Elder? It was from 1989!) on Woman - of Infinite Worth.

The girls and I spent a couple hours working on our Covid-Parody. I had come up with it one day  - with a line or two help from Ben - and the girls were excited to do it (not the boys - any of them, ha.). So we practiced it, took many videos, then the girls added their extra videos, and I added the lyrics. It was a little scary to put it online b/c my voice is so awful, but it's not like I think it's good . . . The girls were excited to have it online and even Emmy's friends have commented about it to her - so that was fun. Here is the link to it if you haven't listened to it: https://youtu.be/a3xqIAHzQzA

Ben asked the kids Mothers' Day questions and got it on video. I love my kids and their answers! Except Emmy's answer on my like hating my kids or something. Whoops, that's a mom-fail if I make her think that . . . :)

I had decided to let the kids choose and make a part of Mothers' Day dinner. Miles ended up with "side dish," Jonas with "dessert," Emmy with "main course," and Lucy with "bread."

 So we had our pastrami chicken casserole, with french bread and creamed leeks - with oreo cream pie for dessert. It was delicious and all well-made! What a great idea for dinner . . . the kids are already talking about doing it for Fathers' day. :)

2020 Family 5K

Well since life is shut down, there was not GOTR race this year. So, we did our own. Nothing fancy, unless you count post-race skittles. :) Emmy and I ran once a week together, and then Emmy would usually do another shorter run or 2 during the week. Jonas "trained" sporadically for it with Aiden. Miles decided to run it the night before - without ever having run more than 2 miles (and that was back in the 8th grade).

And Miles took 1st. Of course. That's how life usually works, right?! It was great, though, and everyone did awesome. I was proud of Miles, Jonas, and Emmy. Lucy and Ben were our cheerleaders - they rode their bikes and would cheer for us at various points on the route. (We did the same GOTR route they always do.)

 Ready to go . . .

Jonas running over the bridge - maybe about the half-way mark?

 Emmy and I on it. Miles had already passed this point a minute or to before.

 Go, go Miles!

 All done! Awesome! It was a beautiful morning for it. Official times: Miles - 24:52, Jonas - 26:15, Emmy - 26:25, Me - 27:00. (Emmy and I pretty much ran the whole thing together. And I was pushing Emmy - myself, too - because I knew she wanted a better time than our last "training" run. On the way back over the bridge I encouraged her to "push it" and she kicked it up a notch. I was already pushing it and so I stay a bit behind . . . :) )

A Fun Family Five-K. 

QW8

Wow, it's been almost 2 months since school was in session - at school. Crazy. Now the kids are almost done! They (well everyone but Miles) have to turn in their iPads and work this coming week. So they are pretty much done . . . which is weird. I mean, you (meaning the school district, not you) don't do anything for the first 4 weeks of quarantine and then you quit by May 8th. Lame and shame on you. Not that "remote learning" had much "learning" involved . . . but it at least kept the kids busy if nothing else. I've already gotten a thousand "I am bored!" "Why can't we" ________ (fill in the blank), etc's. Yep, it will be a long summer.

I mean, I've enjoyed this "break," too, and it has had some redeeming qualities. Still, I (and my kids) pretty much feel like we've had 2 months of summer . . . and now we have 3 more ahead of us.

Okay, enough of that.

This week contained its usual of work for Ben and myself, bike rides, runs, playing at Taviwach with Csilla's kids and the such. The boys have about 6-7 regular lawn jobs - bimonthly at this point, but will be weekly at some point. They have gotten aeration jobs as well. So they are making money and making Emmy jealous. She wishes she could work and earn money! But I am not sure babysitting is quite "legal"? Hopefully soon.

Pics:

Emmy participating in a Zoom class meeting - on the slack-line. Because, why not?

 Lucy crashed her bike in our alley way and got a gnarly scrape on her arm. Welcome to childhood Lucy!

 Dumb picture, but these are my tomato plants - pretty much my contribution to Farmer Ben's garden. We just planted them in the ground tonight . . . fingers crossed they survive!

It was Teacher Appreciation week and so Lucy and I went and hung-up balloons at the school. The teachers were all going to be there this past week and so that worked out well. On Friday Lucy, Emmy, and I drove a card and gift-card out to two of Lucy's teachers. We talked to Mrs. Reich for quite a long time - it was lovely. Lucy loves her so much and so it was so good to have some time chatting with her!

 I took the kids mountain biking at the RAT (Ridgway Area Trails) on Friday afternoon (after spending over an hour helping Miles patch the 4 holes in his 2 tires . . . so lame). The girls did pretty great. We rode the loop twice on "Plaugeground" and I thought it was an aptly-titled trail for this time in our lives. :) It's a fun ride and I was validated on taking my girls on it with their "Weeeee's." Then I was unvalidated when Lucy had a fall (not a big one and, luckily, in the soft sandy part) and cried and cried. But she did the loop again with no falls and no crying - success.

 The boys hung out on their own and rode down a favorite trail, Ratical. Rad.

 The girls' note to try and convince Ben and myself to get them a pool. Really, we just don't have the space for it. But cute note. Oh, and it makes me sound like an awful mother who doesn't want her kids around. I do, just not home full-time for 5-months of the year. Mainly because it's hard on them the kids. They get bored and I have to say "No" to so many things during this quarantine. :(

 Friday night at the Drive-In! It finally opened in our town and so we sent our kids to it on Friday night. Ben and I wanted to finish up the last 2-hours of Poldark and so that was our "date" as the kids enjoyed their night out on the town. Although, of course, it was a little different at the Drive-In - everyone had to stay in their cars/trucks (usually you can sit in the back of a truck, on camping chairs, in the trunk of your car, etc.), windows up, had to call if you need to use the bathroom, etc. But, still, it was fun to get out and do something!

The girls enjoyed their lunch (using some of their gift-card money from Christmas) at Crash Burger on Saturday afternoon. Fun!

Yay for something and some fun week 8.