Cora's first Leading Role

Before COVID hit, the kids' elementary school was doing a school play, Frozen.  Cora, of course, wanted to be in the play, and was really disappointed when they had to shut the play down when the schools closed.  

In June, after things calmed down a little bit, the theater who helped put the plays on, offered to start the play practices back up for anyone who was interested.  Masks would be worn at practices and costumes would be sanitized and all manner of promises were made.  Cora, who enjoys being as busy as possible, was desperate to get out of the house and do SOMETHING normal, and had been offered the role of Olaf the snowman.  We warily consented to letting her be in the play, and she had an amazing time.

Cora had to memorize a LOT of lines, but luckily she was pretty familiar with the source material, and it didn't take her long to get the lines memorized.

She was a little more nervous about singing all by herself (she had to do the song "In Summer" pretty much as a solo!), but even though she knew she wasn't a perfect singer, she put a big smile and her face and sang and danced her little heart out.  I was so proud!  She did amazing.

Lots of friends and kids from the neighborhood were in the play, so it was really nice for the kids to reconnect, and Cora made some new friends along the way too.  On the nights of the performances, the audiences wore face masks, but the kids got to take them off so we could see their smiling faces.  

Their faces were very smiley, and no one caught COVID!  Cora decided that she wanted to be in every play that the Spotlight theater did from then on, which has been interesting, fun, time consuming and expensive. :)  But she really enjoys being on stage, and I am glad she found another thing she loves to do.

Arden even helped out backstage with moving scenery and such.  Such a nice big sister!  Here are the Frozen girls together.

We love our little snowman/girl!

April/May 2020 - Quarantine Life

School was originally supposed to start back up after Spring Break.  Not so much.  We were all home, schools closed, offices closed, church clothes.  No play dates.  Not much of anything except trying to figure out how to do all of the stuff we usually do, but just trying to do it from home.

There were a few things we did to keep ourselves busy.  Cora was pretty bored a lot of the time, and wanted some sidewalk chalk.  Amazingly I found some at the store, and one sunny day in April we decided to draw a big Easter bunny on the driveway (you can't really tell from this picture, but this Easter Bunny is like 6 feet tall and used up 3 full pieces of pink chalk).

Now my chalk juices were flowing and I decided to write some messages on the sidewalk.

I may have gotten carried away.

While working from home, we suddenly had to have all of our meetings virtually.  "Zoom" became a very familiar word.  We had some fun with filters and backgrounds...here is an example of a meeting where masks suddenly became a thing (not the masks we would all soon become familiar with, but actual masks).  I work with weirdos.

Loki and Olive were NOT sad that everyone was home.  They liked to follow me around, and one day I was sitting in a chair in my bedroom trying to get some stuff done on my laptop, but before too long a couple of black fuzzy things decided to join me on a chair built for one:

Preston had a couple of lock down projects.  First, we needed to redo the deck, including putting the deck supports into some bigger footings.  Preston got a couple of bids he felt were ridiculous, and decided we could do it ourselves (i.e. 90% Preston, 10% me).  I believed him until we had to carry all of these bags of cement into the backyard:

Our across the street neighbors have their own cement mixer (I know, right?) that they let us borrow, and Preston and I became expert cement mixers.  Here he is, finishing it up:

It turned out really well and hasn't fallen down yet.  

Preston, like many others, decided to take the opportunity to become sourdough bread makers.  He got himself a "starter" and nursed it along many a day, and made lots of bread for us:

We decided that the kids were old enough that we didn't really need a "play room" anymore (sad!).  The kids decided they would rather have a "game room" where they could continue their newfound chess traditions and stuff.

Goodbye, crazy colorful playroom (*sniff* *sniff*)!

Hello sophisticated and grown-up game room!

All races were cancelled of course, so I found myself enjoying the trails a lot more, and not worrying about running fast on the roads.  

Olive was happy to come along.  

And Covid or not, birthdays still happen!

Cora turned 11!  She liked to watch baking shows on TV, and made this cake herself!  (Arden was apparently in a picture-bombing mood this day)

Cora with her birthday lamb (and Arden's disembodied head!)

Dax's birthday was in May, he turned 12!  He is ginormous!

Cora decided she wanted to make his cake also, but she wanted to try out fondant.  Dax requested a Star Wars cake, and here is what she delivered (I did the writing, but the rest was all Cora):

She figured out that fondant isn't as easy as they make it look on TV, but it was not bad for a first attempt!

School at home was...a challenge.  I would usually help Dax and Cora in the mornings (while Arden slept innnnn), while also trying to get some of my own work done.  Here we are, working away in the play- oops, I mean game room (Diet Coke is an essentially part of helping with home schooling):

I could usually be done helping the little kids by early afternoon, at which point Arden would decide to join the land of the living.  After an hour or two of trying to get some solid work of my own in, I would Arden out with her homework in the evenings.  It made for LOooNG days for me, but somehow we all survived.

The kids really missed their friends!  After a couple of months of seeing only their family, I decided it would be okay to go play outside at a park with some friends.  Even though they were getting a little old for playgrounds, they had the place to themselves and had so much fun!  It felt so nice to sit and talk with a friend while the kids played  Friends are so important, not only for kids but even for moms, right??

I was a super happy mom when they decided that no new assignments would be made the last official week of school.  We were all at the ends of our home-schooling ropes!   

At least now we could stay home together all day and fight about things other than homework.  Bring on summer!

Spring Break 2021 - Phoenix

Since Costa Rica was off the table, we improvised as best we could.  Things were pretty locked down, so none of the usual options (hotels, theme parks, crowded beaches) were open.  We were still technically supposed to stay home, but we thought if we drove our very own car down to somewhere warm, and stayed in our own place that no one could be mad at us.  

As we drove out of Salt Lake City, those big electronic signs over the road said things like "STAY HOME STAY SAFE," which made me feel a little guilty, but off we went anyway.  It is a long drive down to Phoenix, but the kids (and the dog) did pretty well.  It was fairly uneventful and normal, except when we stopped for gas I would use half a bottle of hand sanitizer afterwards.  It was exciting for the kids, and for us, when we saw our first cactuses:

We rented a house in a suburb of Phoenix, mainly for one reason:

Our.  Own.  Pool.  We got there kind of in the evening, and we definitely enjoyed the sunset over the palm trees and the pool.  It's not Costa Rica, but it does not suck.

The weather was pretty perfect, still cool in the evenings and mornings, but nice and warm during the days.  We spent most of the days like this (swimming around and asking Dad to throw you even though you are now way to big to throw).  

You can't really tell, but that tree at the end of the pool was an orange tree.  There were orange blossoms on it that smelled like heaven.  And there were also lots of oranges, which we picked and ate.  Fresh oranges from a tree are four times as good as oranges from the store for some reason!  Best oranges I have ever eaten. 

Usually Dax was the first one up, and he would just hang out in the living room and watch TV until Cora woke up and then we would head out to the pool and swim until lunchtime.  

Usually around lunchtime I would go in search of Arden, who would be dead asleep in her dark bedroom.  She would pull one of those "WHO DISTURBS MY SLUMBER?" moments for a while, and I would have to do a lot of convincing and begging to get her up and out of bed, but usually by the afternoon she would have regained her sunny self:

We sent Preston out into the scary world to the grocery store to get us groceries, and then we would usually send him back out again to find us some takeout for dinner.  He was a good sport, and probably didn't mind the alone time.  

I looked around the area for a place to go running, and there was a nature preserve kind of thing nearby, which unfortunately I can't remember the name of.  But, guys.  The desert was blooming and It. Was. Breathtaking.  Forgive my picture overload, but know that this is only a very small sample:

The flowers on the cactuses were amazing!

So many colors!

There was an old rusted truck down in a gulley in the middle of nowhere.  It made me wonder what the story behind it was.

They were really some of my favorite runs...the sun felt so good in March, and the colors looked amazing to my winter-weary eyes.  I never expected to find so much color in the desert:

They weren't my fastest runs because I kept stopping to take pictures:

And I really love those Saguaro cactuses.  

Like, wow?

There are seriously dozens more where those came from but you get the idea.  It was so, so pretty.  I convinced Preston to come along one morning, and he walked while I ran.

He agreed that it was beautiful, so I became determined to get the kids out of the house and take them on a hike.  They were a little bit less than enthusiastic, but they came, and I even got them to smile a little bit:

The coolest thing we saw was this owl, who had built a huge net in the middle of a cactus, and had some cute fluffy babies in there!  

The day had gotten cloudy so I didn't take many pictures, but it was still really pretty.  The kids were impressed for about 10 minutes but after that they wanted to know how much further until we could turn around and go back to the pool.  Oh well.

In the evenings it was a little too chilly to stay swimming.  We would watch TV ("Nailed It" from Netflix was a favorite).  The house we stayed in had a "game room," and it had a chess table, and surprisingly the kids all wanted to learn how to play chess!

They all picked it up pretty fast.  Arden and Dax were the most into it, and it was fun to watch.  We ended up getting a chess set when we got home.  

We brought Olive down with us, and since she loves swimming in Bear Lake we thought she would enjoy the pool.  She got in on the first day and couldn't figure out a way to get out on the side, and it freaked her out a little so she wouldn't get back in.  She enjoyed herself lounging around though:

And she of course accompanied me on my runs.  

Everything touristy was pretty much closed, so we didn't have a lot of options, but we did a pretty good job of keeping ourselves "busy" i.e. being lazy and relaxing and playing.

We played lots of games in house and in the yard between swimming sessions.

One day, Preston got sent to Target to buy a rash guard for Cora, who had gotten pretty sunburned after a few days.  He came back with....a rash guard and an electric scooter.  What?

The kids had a fun time riding it up and down the road, and it was nice to have another activity.  The house we stayed it is in the background of the picture above, and here is a picture of the cute little courtyard where we sometimes ate.  

We had a lovely, relaxing week in the sunshine, and it was nice to feel the sun again.   Another beautiful sunset on our last night: 

Goodbye Phoenix!