Working, Blog Books, Snow, Snuggles, Service Projects, Sadie Hawkins, Cooking, Homework, Dance

Another two weeks have come and gone.  I am still working here and there.  I did a clinic down in Orem. IT was a charity clinic.  It was the 4th of 4 weekly clinics.  To help with Covid and social distancing all clinics had been held outside in a parking lot.  When I got the details for this clinic they said to dress warm.  Looking at the weather it was going to snow all day and the high was supposed to be 28.  I dressed in multiple layers to keep myself warm.  However, when we got to the clinic they decided to let it be moved to indoor since the weather was going to be so bad.  We were so glad!!  However, by the time we got everything set up we were starting to overheat due to all the layers we were wearing since we had planned on being outside.  Each of us took turns to remove a few layers in the bathroom.  After delayering we both felt a lot better--haha!  This clinic was a flu clinic, but tomorrow we start our Covid clinics.  Crazy times!!

Before I had to leave to go to the clinic I had a spare 15 minutes.  It was early morning and Noah was the only other person awake in the house.  He was glad I was awake, but was a bit disappointed when he found out I was leaving to go to work in a few minutes.  He then said, “Okay.  I will snuggle with you until you need to leave for work, Mom.” I loved hearing that.  I enjoyed snuggling with him and to be honest I was a few minutes late for work since I didn’t want to stop snuggling.  Those moments don’t happen too often anymore so I had to take advantage!!

Speaking of work we weren’t able to meet together for a Christmas dinner this year due to Covid.  Instead our boss wanted to hand deliver our Christmas present to us.  Every year he picks a famous person and theme for that year.  Last year is was Fred Rogers and the theme was ‘Look for the Helpers’ to help inspires and encourage us to do our best.  Last year we at the end of the season our boss reserved a movie theater and played the new Mr. Rogers movie for us while we munched on popcorn and a small drink from the concession stand.  This year our famous person was Disney.  He overcame a lot of obstacles to get Disneyland started.  That really was applicable to our season this year.  Since there were too many nurses to hand deliver to, he split up the deliveries and assigned them to different office staff.  My gift was dropped off and it was nice to visit with someone from work who I hadn’t seen for a few months for a few minutes.  In the gift there was a cool glass slipper with the saying that ‘One Shoe Can Change Your Life’, in addition to a motivational quote, and an inspirational bracelet.  It was a nice touch that it was hand delivered.  

We did get an early Christmas present in--our 2019 Blog books.  The kids have had fun perusing them and remembering all the different things that happened in 2019.  

In the past month we have had two different opportunities to meet with the local missionaries via Zoom.  The local missionaries are really fun to interact with.  They gave us a few different challenges to try and then we will meet with them again to discuss what has transpired.  Here’s the missionaries on Zoom:

We finally got a good snow storm that stuck around.  When the kids got home from school they had fun playing in the snow in the backyard.  Sophie also joined in on the fun, too.

When they were done playing in the snow it was time to get started on homework.  Sophie can never let a good lap go to waste.  She snuggled right up with Daniel as he tried to get his homework done.  

She didn’t care that she made it a bit more difficult for Daniel to type, but that’s the price you pay to get Sophie lubs--haha!

However, the poor dog does have to deal with getting over snuggled sometimes, though:

The City Youth Council had a few service projects these past few weeks.  The first service project was the food drops.  They find a few families that are struggling.  They then put together food packages that they drop off anonymously on their porches.  Here’s the Youth Council putting together the food packages:

Daniel helps with sorting the food:

Putting together the baskets of food:

Loading the cars:

Drop the food off, doorbell ditch and run to stay anonymous.  Josh and Daniel were in the same group.  Here’s right before they doorbell ditched and ran:

A few weekends ago Josh went to Sadie Hawkins.  The school had cancelled all dances so a group of friends put together a Sadie Hawkins Dance for a few couples.  Josh was asked by Hannah.  The Sadie Hawkins theme was ‘Decades’.  Josh and Hannah chose the 70’s for their decade.  They dressed up as hippies.  

The group of nine couples went out to eat at Pizza Pie Cafe.  They then went over to Hannah’s house where they had root beer floats and danced.  They had lots of fun.  Josh’s senior year has not been the best due to the Covid situation, but at least he is able to have a few ’normal’ things going in his favor.

Sophie had been getting quite fluffy so I finally took her to get groomed and she feels so much better.  Even if she HATES going to the groomer you can tell she feels better afterward and looks so much better.  

The groomer even put a Christmas bow in her hair and gave her a Christmas bandana.

The second service project the Youth Council did was a Sub for Santa.  They all met at Walmart and were split into groups.  Each group was given a list of items to pick out for a person in a family who needed some help.

They wandered through the store until they found the items they needed.

Checking out:

The leaders then prepared the gifts and dropped them off with the family.  They kids enjoyed being able to be a part of it and trying to pick out the best gifts for the person on their list.

The third service project they participated in was called ‘Wreaths Across America’.  Each December on National Wreath Across America Day at different cemeteries people gather to honor, teach and remember and lay wreaths on veterans' graves.  

This is an effort that is done at more than 2,100 locations across the United States.  The Youth Council got there early to attend the ceremony beforehand.  Then they filed out and put wreaths on different veteran’s graves.

Some of the graves had to be uncovered from the snow.

It was a great experience for all of those who participated.

Last week Josh put together an ‘Egg Nog’ challenge.  He got a group of friends together.  They all met at the school track.  The idea of the ‘Egg Nog’ challenge was to see who could run the most laps while drinking the most egg nog without barfing.  Doesn’t sound like much fun to me, but I guess I am not into running with a belly full of egg nog hoping not to barf--haha!  Josh stocked up on egg nog and headed over to the track.  He met up with friends and did their challenge.  Surprising enough Josh won the challenge, however, he doesn’t want anything to do with egg nog for a little bit--haha!

Josh loves to bake.  He wanted to try his hand at making pecan pie.  I found a recipe for pecan pie bars so we picked up the ingredients and Josh went to work.  He made two pans worth and they didn’t stick around for long.  They were pretty tasty.  Here’s a partial pan. I had to take this picture before they disappeared completely:

We also made some soda jelly.  Josh picked out some 2 liters of Strawberry Fanta and some Country Time Blue lemonade.  We followed the recipe and after water bath canning them they all sealed.  Wahoo!  Here’s what they looked like:

Josh also had a chance to meet up with some friends and walk around the Ogden City Village to see the lights.  It was cold, but they had fun:

The kids get a long Christmas Break this year--two weeks!!  However, it hasn’t been too much of a break for the kids.  They have quite a few school assignments they need to get caught up on.  One big one was Daniel’s Stem Fair project.  He has known about this for about a month, but has done nothing for it.  It wasn’t until I threatened to turn off his phone and ground him until it got done that he finally decided he should do something about it.   He decided to compare bounciness and deflection with different types of balls.  He set up a measuring tape and a camera to view the bounciness of each type of ball.  Aaron then sat at the top of the bonus room and dropped the balls for Daniel to measure.

I am happy to say that Daniel got his project done and I didn’t have to follow through on my threat of turning off his phone and grounding him.  It was a happy ending for everyone--haha!

Sarah had a team dance performance.   They had to dance with a mask on, but she was glad to finally be able to perform.  

At the beginning of this month we were able to go back to in person church since we were out of Covid Jail.  During Sacrament meeting Josh let me know that the bishopric asked him if Matthew wanted to bless the sacrament with Josh.  I said it would be okay.  When it was time for them to go up and bless and prepare the sacrament, Matthew was struggling a bit.  Due to Covid they have changed how they hand out the bread to people to keep it more sanitary.  Matthew was struggling to place the broken bread in the mini cups.  Aaron saw he was struggling so he went up to sit at the table to help him.  It was pretty cool to see Aaron, Josh and Matthew up blessing the sacrament.  Then seeing Daniel help pass it.  I was grateful they all were able to have that experience.

Another happy occasion is that my sister, Jennifer, was able to finally receive a much needed liver transplant.  She has been on the list for a while, but it finally got to the point that she needed one sooner than later.  We had a family fast for her this month so we were so relieved to finally hear that a healthy liver for her had been found.   She had the surgery and after over a week in the hospital she was able to make it home for Christmas.  Here she is with her cutie grandson Wodin.  She continues to improve each day and we are so glad!

Day 2 Canyonlands, American Butt(e), Dead Horse Point, Stargazing, Bighorn Sheep, Thanksgiving x2, Band Concert, Mission Papers

The next morning after hiking in Arches it was pretty rough trying to get out of bed.  Aaron and I both hurt all over from the previous day’s 13 miles of hiking.  We got up pretty early because we wanted to see as much as we could at Canyonlands National Park.  We all ate a quick breakfast.  Aaron and I then took some ibuprofen while our kids made fun of us and then headed out for the day.  I just told them we are still rockstars and then showed them this meme--haha!

Since we had about a 45 minute drive to get to Canyonlands Aaron didn’t want to have to wear shoes for that long.  He went full on Dad mode with white socks and flip flops until we got to Canyonlands and then changed into his sneakers.  He doesn’t like wearing shoes for longer than he has to.

The previous day I had forgotten to take a picture by the Arches sign so we stopped and took a quick picture since it was on our way to Canyonlands.  Aaron is wearing his socks and flip flops--haha!

We made it and it was COLD!!  When we got of the car it was 22 degrees so we hurried and took the picture than got back in the car to drive to our first destination.  Yep Aaron is still wearing his white socks and flip flops....

On the way in we passed by a deer.

Canyonlands is divided into three different sections that are pretty spread out.  Since we wanted to hike more than drive, we spent the day only in the Island in the Sky District.  There was hardly anyone around, too.  For the most part we had the whole place to ourselves for almost the entire day which was cool!  Our first stop was Mesa Arch.  It didn’t disappoint either!

We didn’t get our sorry bodies out of bed early enough to watch the sunrise at Mesa Arch, but got there within the first hour and it was still pretty!

All along the way there were lots of Juniper trees.  We did stop by and try some Juniper Berries.  They weren’t very tasty, but it was interesting to try some.

Our next stop was the White Rim Trail Overlook.  We ended up spending more time here than we had planned on since the views were so amazing and there was a lot to take in.  Here’s the beginning of the trail.

The trail went all along the cliff rim.

Josh wanted to recreate his falling off the cliff picture.  There was no danger in this picture since he was a good 20 feet away from the cliff edge--haha!

Here’s the ‘Falling off the cliff’ picture he took when we went to the Grand Canyon a few years ago next to the one he took at Canyonlands:

Sarah wanted to try it out, too:

I know this is picture overload, but the views were so pretty!

Along the trail there were so many rocks to climb on, too which made it even more interesting.

While we were making it back to the car, Josh told me he had hit rock bottom.  Then he pointed out this sweet formation.  What a comedian....haha!

The next stop was to Aztec Butte.  On our way hiking over to see it there was NO ONE around.  That’s when Aaron pointed out another formation for all of us to see.  He called it ’The American Butt(e)” as he lifted up his sweatshirt and showed his plumber's crack.  I swear I am surrounded by a bunch of immature 8 year old boys all the time!  Here’s the infamous ‘American Butt(e)’ formation--I have censored it, though--haha!  I give it about a 1 out of 5 stars and wouldn’t recommend visiting. 

On the way to Aztec Butte we stopped by the granary.  You had to crawl over a ledge and across some smooth stone to see it.  The Indians hid and stored their grain in the stone caverns they built.  It was interesting to see:

Along the way there were a few more holes in the rock.  There was one even big enough for Josh to lay down in:

To get to the top of Aztec Butte you had to do some full body scrambling--climbing on your hands and knees up a smooth rock face.  Aaron’s ankle was bothering him so he sat the rest of this hike out.  The rest of us scrambled up to the top.

At the top there was a trail that went all around the edge of the butte.  There were views from all sides.

There was even some remains of an old Indian dwelling:

The pictures don’t even do the views justice.  It was so pretty!

Here’s Sarah walking toward me on the trail.  You can see how close to the edge of the butte the trail went:

After walking around the top of the butte for a few minutes we scrambled back down and headed back to the car.

Our next stop was Whale Rock.  It was a huge smooth rock you had to scramble up on your hands and knees.  Daniel started at a wrong part.  However, he didn’t discover that until it got too steep at the top and he couldn’t make it.  He got really frustrated when he had to turn around and start all over again at a different point.  Sarah, Noah and I started at a steep part, but were able to make it to the top.  Here’s Sarah and Noah getting ready to scramble up the smooth stone:

Me trying to scramble, but I wasn’t as good at it as the kids were.  I even ‘scrambled’ a hole in the back of my pants.  Luckily it was small and I had black thermals on underneath so no one saw it.  Phew!!  Aaron sat this hike out because his ankle was really hurting.

Josh and I were the first ones to the top.  Here’s the view:

Sarah, Noah and Daniel finally made it to the top, too:

We then scrambled down and had a quick lunch in the parking lot.  We then went on to Upheaval Dome.  This is a large crater that was most likely formed by a meteorite a long time ago.  However, no one is 100% sure about it’s formation that is the popular guess.  We hiked up to see it:

The sun was starting to get low in the sky at this point and I still wanted to try and see Dead Horse Point so we headed back to the car.  On the way out of the park there was one section of road that had HUGE drop offs on both sides.  This is what one side of the road looked like:

It made me a bit nervous just to even drive over that section of road with drop offs like that on both sides!

We did make it to Dead Horse Point State Park before it got dark.

We had enough time to drive to the look out point and get a few pictures.  Here’s the Colorado River and its meandering path:

After seeing Dead Horse Point we drove into town and grabbed a quick dinner and ate it in the car.  Then as night fell before the full moon rose we headed back into Arches National Park.  Arches has been designated as an International Dark Sky Park which means it is recognized for its quality night skies where there is little light pollution and you can see so many stars.

We drove over to Balanced Rock and waited for it to get really dark.  Then we stepped outside to star gaze.  Before we did that I had to get a quick picture and blinded everyone with the flash.  They really loved it--not really, but what can you do?!

The skies were beautiful, unfortunately, the camera didn’t pick up on a lot of it.  We did get a great picture of Saturn and Jupiter:

There is a really cool night sky app that tells you what you are seeing in the sky as well as different constellations.  It is called Sky View.  Here is one screen shot from what we saw with the Sky View app:

Here is the only decent star picture we got, and it still doesn’t show how many stars you could see in the sky!

After star gazing we went back to our condo and hopped in the hot tub which we had all to ourselves.  We only hiked 9 miles that day, but we were still pretty sore so the hot tub felt great!

The next morning we had to pack up because we were heading home that day.  However, I did want to get in a few more arches outside of Moab before we left.  After loading up the car and checking out of the Air BNB we headed over to hike to Corona Arch, Bowtie Arch and Pinto Arch.  How could we NOT hike Corona Arch with Covid going on this year?!  Here’s the trailhead:

To get to Corona Arch you had to scramble on your hands and knees in a few places.  They even had a few cables you could hold on to across some steep parts.  Here’s us using a the cable at one point:

They had a ladder you could climb at a different steep spot, too:

The first arch you came to was Bowtie Arch.  It was HUGE!!  It used to be called Paul Bunyan’s Potty--which my kids found hilarious.  However, another arch got named that in Canyonlands so they had to change the name.  I prefer the new name Bowtie Arch, to be honest.

We then walked over to the Corona Arch that was close by.  It was pretty cool!

It was BIG, too.  Here’s everyone at the base of the arch:

After enjoying the view for a bit we then started heading back to get to the Pinto Arch trail.  Here’s Aaron climbing down the ladder:

Working our way down the cables:

Throughout Arches and Canyonlands there were different rock stacks called Cairns that helped show you what direction to go to stay on the trail.  Corona Arch trail had a huge section of cairns you passed by.  They were pretty cool to see:

When we got to the Pinto Arch branch of the trail we were greeted by some Desert Bighorn Sheep.  They were neat to see:

We trekked up the trail to get to Pinto Arch and it was really steep.  We finally made it, but it was brutal.  Glad to say we did it, but I don’t now if I would have done the Pinto Arch trail again.  Here we are at the base of Pinto Arch:

Here’s a closer view:

The view looking down from Pinto Arch was pretty cool, though:  

We made our way down the steep trail.  Aaron and I were a lot slower paced than the rest of the kids. This 5 second video clip shows how far ahead of us the kids got:

We finally made it to the parking lot.  We ended up hiking 6 miles by the end of that hike and we were sore!!  I turned and got one last pretty picture of a cliff with the moon right above it before we started our way home:

Josh had to be home by 6 pm because he had a ‘Friendsgiving’ he wanted to go to.  A bunch of his friends were getting together and having a fun Thanksgiving dinner together.  Josh signed up to bring rolls since he wasn’t going to be around to cook anything beforehand.

It was nice to be back home.  However, Aaron’s ankle was not happy.  It was pretty swollen from all the hiking he had done on it the past few days.  It looked like half a tennis ball on the side of his foot.  Poor guy!

The next day was Sunday.  My shoulder had been hurting me so I had Sarah step on my back and shoulder to try and pop it back in to place.  Josh snapped this picture and texted it to me with the hashtag #oldpeopleproblems.  I was not amused....I just told him I was still a rockstar even if I needed some ibuprofen--haha!  I think after hiking about the distance of a marathon over the space of two and a half days post Covid I did pretty well all things considered!!

 Also Sunday we were so glad to finally be able to have Matthew come visit our house again since no one was in quarantine anymore.  We did virtual church together along with the sacrament.  We did do a family fast for my sister Jennifer who is awaiting a liver transplant that could happen at any time at this point.  At the end of our fast we fixed another Thanksgiving dinner since Matthew wasn’t able to attend our last one.   Even though it was a few weeks late everyone still enjoyed a second Thanksgiving dinner.  It was nice to have our immediate family together under one roof.  We did all the traditional Thanksgiving foods except Aaron did tri tip instead of turkey.  There were no complaints!

Monday afternoon Matthew had a check up visit with the Psychiatrist.  Matthew is doing well with all the big changes that have happened in the last 6 months.  She is keeping him on the same medication doses and will see him again in 6 months.  Since Matthew is a true routine follower he became quite distressed that he wouldn’t get back to his group home until after his allotted time for dinner between 5-6pm.  I tried to tell him it would be okay to eat dinner a bit later than usual, but he was still worried about it.  He then begged me to pick something up for him on the way home.  I caved and we got a quick burger from McDonald’s.  It was good to have dinner with him, though.

Two nights ago we decided to go out driving as a family to look at Christmas lights.  We visited the Layton City display.  We have been visiting this display every year since we moved up here so it is fun to see the same decorations set up in different spots every year.  We still think driving through the light tunnel is fun.

Yesterday Josh needed to get his allergy shots done.  He is at home doing home school since the high school is on a soft closure finding time to get the shots done wasn’t a problem.  I am looking for silver linings here--haha!  Whenever the kids had to get shots at the doctor’s office they would always get a treat.  Josh caught me at a weak moment and with his pretend puppy dog eyes told me that he needed a treat since he got shots.  I caved and we did lunch at Chick-Fil-A.  How can you say no to Chick-Fil-A?!

Last night Sarah and Daniel had their first in person concerts this year.  Because of Covid, the band teacher only allowed families to attend the class performance that they had a child in.  Which meant Beginning band went first so we were able to come and watch Sarah play her flute with her band class.  Everyone had to wear a mask and all the chairs in the audience were spaced to allow for social distancing. After the beginning band performed we all had to leave the building so they could sanitize everything before the next class performance.  Since we didn’t have an intermediate band player we just had to sit out in the car in the parking lot until the intermediate band finished and they had sanitized everything.  We then went back in and watched Daniel play his baritone saxophone with the Jazz Band.  Then they sanitized everything and then Daniel was able to play the baritone saxophone again when the advanced band played next.  Here’s Sarah playing her flute with the beginning band:

Here’s Daniel playing his baritone saxophone that is almost as big as he is with the Jazz Band and Advanced Band:

This past week Noah had the opportunity to try out for the school play.  At the last minute his nerves got to him so he didn’t want to try out, but be on the stage crew for the play.  He is pretty excited to be able to participate and not get any stage fright since he will be in the background.  I am proud of him for trying something new outside of his comfort zone.

Also this past week Josh met with our bishop and started on his mission papers.  He has already started filling them out when he has had a few extra minutes.  Oh my goodness I am so excited for him, but a bit sad because he will be leaving within the next year.  We already got his neurology appointment scheduled for February (his pediatric neurologist is really hard to get in to see!!) to get her to fill out part of the medical forms.  Everything is happening so quickly--I am still in a bit of denial to be honest....