April 2020, Part 1 - Coronavirus Quarantine

During the quarantine after we were asked to shelter in place, school continued virtually with online conferences with their classes and weekly assignments. We woke up every morning, ate breakfast, and set up each girl with either their school laptop or mom and dad’s iPad so they could start assignments. Luckily all four of our girls were pretty self-motivated so we didn’t have too much push back when it came to working on school stuff. We tried to make the best of it. Taryn’s PE class had weekly obstacle course assignments that were optional, so we created a couple and let the girls race through them. This was our first obstacle course that we made and it was pretty intense. The girls had fun racing through it and trying to beat their own time and also trying to beat Dad’s time.

They had some jumping and running obstacles, a soccer kick, and even a box for sit-ups. My favorite station was right after the sit-ups where they had to pull five weeds and put it in a box. The kids didn’t even mind that I threw that one in there.

We have some old pool vacuum tubes that I used for the obstacle course, but the girls found them and decided to play a game of ring toss one day. It was fun how they could be pretty creative when they needed to be to find things to entertain themselves at home since we couldn’t go anywhere.

 

Tessa got these bumper balls for her birthday, so we got to pull them out and give them a try. The girls thought it was really fun and kept having tournaments to play each other since there are only two. Abby had to pretty much stand still and see if she could stand her ground with Taryn running into her, since she’s so much bigger than Taryn. But they all had fun and luckily neither of them popped on our hard, dry grass/ground.

 

Tyler and I, and sometimes the girls, keep doing puzzles. Here are the ones we finished in the month of April. Some of them we borrowed from my parents and some of them are ours that we pulled out to put together again.

Most of the puzzles we did were around 1000 pieces. Those seem to be the most challenging, but can still fit on our small circle table. But we do have some multiple puzzle sets that have some 500 and 300 piece puzzles, so we did a few of those as well. The girls sometimes pulled out puzzles from their room and we’d do the puzzles with them too. We like this United State puzzle that is double sided. One side is all the states like this second picture.

And the other side is this second picture, but you can also pull out all the pieces shaped like a state and put it together like the United States which is in the first picture. Taryn did all three of these puzzles with a little help from me and Tyler, but she did it on the floor which was really hard for us old people. :) 

My parents made sure that we had a puzzle of the United States because they always had one at home and my brothers and I put it together a lot as kids. I think we ended up with multiple puzzles of the US because here’s another one that Taryn found and put together on her own. She also spent an afternoon doing some princess puzzles outside of her bedroom. She did this one on the right completely by herself.

 

Here are a couple more that Tyler and I worked on together during the month of April. Whenever we spend time together working on puzzles, I have these visions of our life when we’re empty nesters and retired. It’s something we can do together for years to come and that makes me happy.

 

With everyone home from work, we spent a couple of weeks waking up early every morning to exercise together. We would go for a run/walk/bike ride. Abby has been very diligent about keeping up her workouts for volleyball and had set a goal to run a mile every day. I like to run too, but I’m not as fast as Abby, so we’d jog together with her way ahead of me, but the other girls would ride their bikes and Tyler would either jog with Abby or stay back and help Taryn stay caught up on her bike. It was fun family time together. Abby also had to run sprints a couple times a week for her volleyball class, so she’d talk the girls into running with her. I’d keep the time on a stopwatch and the girls would run down our street for either 15, 30, or 45 seconds and then walk back up the street to do it again.

We did another obstacle course in the front yard one week and all the girls ran through it even though Taryn was the only one who had to do it for class. We used chalk to set up different exercise stations like hopscotch, jumping jacks, lunges, jump rope, and the balance beam on the curb. I would take a picture of the girls exercising and upload it for Taryn to get credit for her PE class. These were fun to do.

We play a lot of games. It’s a good thing we have a huge selection of board games. Sometimes all six of us will play games together, and sometimes it’ll just be a couple of us depending on who wants to play. This particular night, Tyler and I played a game with just Tessa and we took a picture because we sent it to my friend Annie who also likes to play games and for her birthday she wanted people to send pictures or videos of things you like to do to brighten her day. I’m glad we did that because we don’t have many pictures of us playing games, so it was fun to have a reminder of this part of the home quarantine.

Zoom is the new app that allows for digital meetings. Some of the kids’ classes were done through Zoom and we’ve even had some church classes and meetings through Zoom. It’s become the new thing in everyone’s home. We even Zoom with our families once a week which has been awesome. We Zoom with Tyler’s parents and siblings every Sunday night. We Zoom with my parents and siblings every Thursday night. This has been one of the benefits of the quarantine. Before all of this Coronavirus, we didn’t really talk to our families except on people’s birthdays or when we visited in the summer. Being able to see and talk to everyone once a week has really been nice. It has really helped us focus on and appreciate what’s really important like family.

I saw a post on Facebook that showed some kids dancing in the dark with glow sticks taped to their bodies, and I thought, “we’ve got to try this!” We had some extra glow sticks already hanging around in our garage, so one Friday night with nothing else to do, the girls put all black on and we taped glow sticks to their arms, body, and legs and made a circle to clip in their hair for their face and the girls danced to music. It was hilarious and awesome.

After they did some dances for just me and Tyler, we took the show on the road and walked up to the Kasallis’s house to perform for them on their front yard so as to maintain social distancing. They laughed and thought it was cute and were impressed that our girls would do it, saying that their house of boys would never do something like this. They enjoyed the show even though it wasn’t as pitch black as it is inside the house with the street lights on. The girls walked back to our driveway and danced one more time for the neighbors across the street who happened to be out on their front porch. It was a fun evening and well worth it after spending a good 30 minutes making sure all the sticks were taped on. I posted these pictures and some videos on Facebook and everybody loved it. We got so many comments. It really was a fun time and we were happy to entertain so many others.

Tessa’s been in an art class this year at school and her assignments continued with the online schooling. One week she was assigned to sketch something to do with the quarantine that showed how she’s been spending her time and also that would show that it’s a quarantine. She sketched this picture with a pile of games and puzzles because we’ve done a lot of those as a family and she added the masks and quarantine tape to remember the event. I was very impressed and I love seeing all of her artwork. She’s really enjoyed art class this year even though as a 7th grader she was in a class with mostly 6th graders. Still still learned a lot and had fun.

Finally a few more puzzle pictures. Tyler and I got new puzzles in our Easter baskets so some of these puzzles are from that. The John Wayne puzzle was borrowed from my parents. It had very weird shaped pieces that made it challenging.

We borrowed this deer one from my parents as well and the boat dock one was from my Easter basket  and it is actually 2000 pieces, our biggest puzzle to put together so far. It took a long time to do and barely fit on our circle table where we do all of our puzzles.

One of the days in April was National Siblings Day so I took a picture of all the girls together and posted it on Facebook next to a picture of me and my brothers from when I was little. I love these girls so much and can’t imagine my life without them. I love that we get to spend this extra time together making the most of a hard situation as the world as we know it is changing. I’m so thankful for Tyler and for my daughters that we have each other and that we have the gospel to rely on knowing that there is a plan for us and we just have to have faith. I love my family!

March 2020, Part 2 - Tessa's 13th Birthday, Quarantine for Coronavirus

When we left school for Spring Break, we thought it was just going to be extended by one week, but before those two weeks were up, the orders had been made to shelter in place which meant you stayed home except for necessary items like groceries and medicine. We spent the two-week "Spring Break" trying to have a normal break with fun activities to keep the kids entertained even though we weren't allowed to travel. Trying to explain to the kids what a virus is and a fast-spreading one like the Corona Virus was a little difficult, but we answered questions the best we could. I just kept thinking about this board game we have called Pandemic that we played and used to help explain what was going on in the real world. It helped us explain what a pandemic is and how it was pretty similar to the board game that had spreading outbreaks and infections. Board games became one of our go-to family activities as we looked for things to do inside our house.

Since everyone around the world was beginning to shelter in place, there were a lot of free resources online of activities to do. A lot of famous artists would do free drawing lessons, or famous authors would read their books aloud. We did a drawing/sketching lesson with Mo Williams one time but found that he talked a lot more than he drew, so the girls only lasted about half of one session. We toured some museums online and did Disneyland virtual rides. We watched the animal cams at the San Diego zoo and spent one morning watching the polar bears play for hours.

Our city's recreational department suggested a "Chalk the Walk" day where you decorated your sidewalk with positive messages so that when you went out for walks or jogs (which was allowed), you could be uplifted by the messages others had written since you weren't allowed to stop and visit anyone. The girls and I each took a square of our sidewalk and wrote our positive messages like "The world needs people like you" and "You are loved." We were low on chalk at the time so we ended up making our own chalk with food coloring and cornstarch, but they turned out really cute and we got a lot of compliments. During our second week of "Spring Break," Tyler's work closed down as well. During this shelter in place time, all businesses were to close except for essential workers like doctors and grocery store workers, so because Tyler works in an elective surgery center, they were not deemed "essential" even though he works in a hospital. So Tyler was home with us all day too. One day, he and Abby decided to work on a project and Tyler made Abby a jewelry holder that she had designed. He even let her help drill the holes in the plexiglass that would become her earring holder.

In the middle of March, the church even canceled all church services and activities. We started having church on Sundays at home. We were asked worldwide to keep group gatherings to less than 20 people at first, but less than 8 people after the first week. Luckily, the prophet had introduced home-centered, church-supported church in Jan 2019 so we were able to easily move into church at home. The first two weeks my parents joined us for sacrament in our home. Tyler and my dad were able to bless and pass the sacrament for us and it was a great experience. I am so grateful for the priesthood that they hold so that we could partake of the sacrament on a weekly basis. My dad helped Aubrey learn how to lead music as the girls took turns picking hymns to sing and leading the music. We also take turns bearing our testimonies and one of the weeks, Aubrey learned I am a Child of God on the cello so she could play a musical number for us. It's been very spiritually uplifting for me to see my family doing church reverently and happily on our own. I love being able to feel the spirit so strong and have these teaching and spiritual moments with my family in our home. After two weeks, with the shelter in place initiative, my parents started staying home on Sundays too, but we each continued our sacrament services on our own.

Tyler and I did a lot of puzzles and I decided to keep track of all the puzzles we put together during the quarantine. These were the first two puzzles that we worked on during March. After doing most of the ones we owned, we started swapping puzzles with my parents so we'd each have new puzzles to work on.

 

Being outside is encouraged as long as you stay in your own neighborhood and follow the social distancing rules of staying 6 feet away from others who are not in your family. Most days during our "Spring Break" I would have the girls go outside to play - either to ride bikes, do chalk, or just play. One day the girls each had a different mode of travel, and I took a picture because it looked like a Mario Kart race as they each rode up and down the hill of our cul-de-sac. I thought it was pretty cute. After the two weeks of Spring Break ended, with the shelter in place started, schools decided to begin online school for the foreseeable future. Teachers set up classes and assignments online and everyone had online conferences with their teachers and classes on platforms like Zoom or WebEx. The kids are resilient and quick to learn new things and had the online school mastered within the first week or so. Homeschooling was the new norm as parents helped students with assignments and teachers had "office hours" where students could Facetime them or find them on Zoom to ask questions and get help. Taryn's PE class had assignments that included scavenger hunts and outdoor obstacle courses, so we had fun trying some of those. Here she is marking off one of her scavenger hunt items since she was supposed to find a fire hydrant. It was another good reason to get out of the house and get a little exercise, so the PE classes were good for that.

 

Right as we shifted from a long spring break to shelter in place, Tessa's birthday approached. The Sunday before her birthday, we had our final Kasibbons dinner together. So we were at least able to celebrate her birthday along with Tony and Grandma V's birthdays who are couple days before Tessa's. Audrey provided the dinner, so we were in charge of the dessert, but with three birthdays, we decided to make three different desserts since they all like different treats. We made a cherry cheesecake, a key lime pie, and a chocolate pie. Then they each had a dessert to blow out a candle, so it worked perfectly. And there was enough dessert for everyone. It was fun, and we enjoyed our time together. After doing Kasibbons dinners for almost two years now, it was hard to realize that we had to stop because of the gathering restrictions. With just our two families we have 13 people and we usually invite other families to join us, so we definitely were too large of a group to get together. I'm glad we were able to at least celebrate these last birthdays together before being forced to stay in our own homes.

At first, Tessa was excited about the extended spring break which meant that she'd be home for her birthday and could have a birthday party without the problem of school the next day, but by the time her birthday rolled around, the shelter in place was put into effect and no one was allowed to have large gatherings so a birthday party was no longer an option. However, on Tessa's birthday, our friends and her church young women leaders planned a surprise drive-by parade where the families decorated their cars and drove by our house honking and singing and giving her gifts and posters. 

It was so fun and such a surprise. There were so many cars that just kept coming around the corner. 

What made it even better was the fact that we live on a cul-de-sac, so once they got to the top of our street, they turned around and passed by us another time. It was so fun. I videoed the entire parade so I just saved some pictures from that as cars passed by. Tessa's arms was full of gifts, balloons, and candy by the time they all left.

Abby also wanted to do something special for Tessa. Usually, in middle school on your birthday, your friends decorate your locker so everyone in the school knows it's your birthday. Tessa was a little bummed that she didn't get that, so Abby decided to decorate Tessa's bedroom door. Aubrey and Taryn helped too. They wrapped it with wrapping paper and then painted it with flowers and the message. The girls printed off and colored turtles to add to the decor. Tessa loved it. She chose pudding and toast for her birthday dessert this year and luckily the candles survived in the pudding long enough for her to blow out the flames.

The girls added the posters and balloons that Tessa got from the parade in her bedroom to decorate the room too. Unfortunately, the balloons didn't last very long because one of Tessa's main birthday presents was a new desk for her bedroom, so we had to move out the balloons that night so Tyler could work around the furniture and build her new desk which she loves. Tessa got other things that she asked for like a BYU "yeet" shirt, journals, mechanical pencils, and gift cards. She was very happy with all of her presents. The big thing I did for her was creating a slideshow of pictures and videos that I had her friends and leaders send to me so that they could wish her a happy birthday virtually since they couldn't do it in person. I had all the cousins and grandparents send messages and even used one of her friends who's mom I know to reach out to all of her school friends so Tessa was really surprised every time a friend from school showed up with a video on the slideshow since Tessa had no idea how I'd be able to reach all of her friends. It turned out really cute and I hope she'll remember it forever. Celebrating birthdays with a drive-by parade during the quarantine has become a norm, so Tessa likes to say that she is a trendsetter because her birthday was one of the first to be celebrated this way. This made her happy and a birthday she'll always remember.

Abby took Tessa outside on her birthday for a photoshoot and these are some of my favorites. 

I had decided that 13 would be an age where I frame a picture to hang up of each of the girls, so I knew I needed pictures to choose from for our wall. There were so many good pictures, it was hard to decide which one I wanted to print.

I'm glad I have the blog to be able to include more than one picture of this cute new teenager. Tessa is still our bubbly, outgoing, happy girl even if she has some sassy, "teenager" moments. She's always willing to help and is great at overseeing her sisters and being in charge of activities and games. She likes to play board games and video/computer games, and she loves to write her own movie scripts and direct the kids to be able to video their movies. She's a straight-A student and she loves to smile and be with her friends. She still loves the color green and turtles. We're so proud of her and I'm glad she was able to have a fun birthday in these new, different circumstances. We love Tessa!

Happy Birthday, Teenager!

March 2020, part 1 - End of School in School, Start of Extended Spring Break

Abby and I minister to a lady in our ward named Geri. As we would visit her, we'd talk about our hobbies. Geri spends a lot of her time making baby quilts. Abby mentioned that she always wanted to make a quilt, so a plan was set and Geri helped Abby make her very own quilt. We would go over about once a week and Abby would sew sections together and pieced together her own quilt of fabrics that she had picked out herself.

Geri would do the cutting and ironing and have everything ready to go when we got there to work. I would sit and visit with Abby and Geri as they both worked. Geri sent the top off to her friend to do the final quilting and when we went to pick up the finished product, we had to get a final picture. It's a good size quilt and quite an accomplishment for Abby. She was also ready to start her next quilt right away because she had such a good experience.

One of the young women activities in March was a roaring 20s party. Abby was able to borrow a flapper dress from Audrey and enjoy the evening with treats and games. I thought it was a cute picture to have of Abby and the other young women in the Mesa ward.

Tessa had a final concert before Spring Break. It was an orchestra concert, but they had a couple numbers that were for full orchestra so a select number of band kids were able to perform with them. Tessa played the bells in one song and tambourine in the other. We love listening to her perform. She played her parts with confidence which was a big difference from when she first started playing. You could hear all of her parts and she sounded great.

 

Firemen came to the elementary school and brought their fire truck for the second graders to check out. Taryn's teacher, Mrs. Bock, took this picture of their class with the fire truck and sent it to all the parents. Taryn's had a great year this year and loved being with Mrs. Bock and these kids.

March is when Dr. Seuss's birthday is always celebrated, so the students were encouraged to dress up as Dr. Seuss characters for the day. Taryn dressed up as Cindy Lou Who and Aubrey dressed up as Thing 1. I thought they turned out pretty cute, especially since we didn't start planning until the night before and even the morning of to put together the outfits. Dress up days are one of the fun things/memories of elementary school days.

One of Aubrey's best friends, Hattie, moved out of state over spring break so they took some class pictures the last day of school before spring break. The first picture is Aubrey's GT class with their teacher, Mr. Martinez. Aubrey loves this class. It's huge, but the kids all have fun and learn a lot as they work on projects and assignments. The second picture is Aubrey's home room and math/science class with Mrs. Currey. Aubrey actually prefers math and science over reading and writing even though she loves Mr. Martinez. Mrs. Currey is also an awesome teacher that everyone loves.

 

I'm so glad Hattie's mom got these pictures before they moved because I love having full class pictures. Here's one with Aubrey's closest friends from class this year - Kristen, Aubrey, Hattie, and Bailee. These girls hung out all evening after the final day of school to celebrate one last evening with Hattie. Aubrey's had a great 5th-grade year with good grades and great friends.

I don't always do something for St. Patrick's day, but the kids talked me into making green frosting to go on our cinnamon biscuits that I made for breakfast that morning. It was a fun way to start our Spring Break.

The first weekend of Spring Break was over Tony's birthday and for his birthday he wanted to go to White Sands. We went by their house that morning to wish him a happy birthday and so they invited us to join them. Tyler is not a huge fan of White Sands because of all the sand, but for Tony's birthday, he relented. We hadn't been in a couple of years, so it was fun to get out and enjoy the sunshine and friends. The Marshall family also came and the kids had fun playing with friends. They dug in the sand, jumped from the top and of course slid down on sleds.

 

I like getting close up pictures of the girls and using the portrait feature on my phone. These girls are so pretty and the white sand makes a beautiful backdrop.

Here's Abby and Aubrey. It was a little windy which is kind of painful when the grains of sand blow into your skin, but the sun made it warm enough so it wasn't too cold, and the breeze kept it from getting too hot.

We took a picture of the moms and dads too so here I am with Lisa and Audrey. And we took a picture of Tony and Tyler as they walked around and played with the dogs and played football with the boys.

This was the start of our Spring Break, but it was a little different than normal. As we left school for our Spring Break, we were told that it was going to be extended for another week. The beginning of March was the start to a new normal. A virus showed up in the Asian continent that was spreading easily and rapidly. By the time it started reaching the United States, actions were starting to be made. Many schools were extending Spring Breaks in hopes that people would spend time at home and away from others to try and curb the spread of the disease. It's called Covid-19 or the Corona Virus and it's spread through germs from sneezing or coughing and touching your own face. People started to worry because of how fast it spread and worrying that hospitals would become overloaded with sick patients. Most of the symptoms are flu-like: fever, body aches, shortness of breath, but if there are already health or respiratory issues in patients, they can get really sick and die. Watching the news shows how fast it spreads and how fast the death rate was rising from it. Having people stay home during Spring Break and not travel was a hope to flatten the curve of how fast the virus spread, so we left school thinking Spring Break would be two weeks long instead of one. The following posts will show how different this school year and spring break really has been due to the Corona Virus.