Visits, COVID 19 Testing, Cooking, Field Trip, Gimpy, Beef Wellington, Social Distancing

Another week and a half has come and gone.  It seems like we are just in a holding pattern or that it is just like the movie Groundhog Day where every day seems to be the same with school being out.  We did have a few out of the ordinary things happen, though.  I got a random email from Matthew's teacher from high school.  She had sent out a group email and accidentally added my email on it.  I replied back saying that we had received an email from her.  It was not sent on purpose, but she then asked how Matthew was doing.  I told her he had been struggling with the lack of routine and getting bored from doing the same worksheets from his current teacher.  She was trying to help out and said she would give us some handwriting worksheets that he used to work on while he was in her class if that would help.  I said I was more than happy to try something else out for him.  When Matthew gets bored he starts causing trouble so I am trying to find ways to keep him busy.  He doesn't like watching any TV, or reading any books, or playing most games so finding things he is interested in has been difficult.  I was more than happy to try something else out.  She came by and kept the strict 6 foot social distance, but she was so excited to see Matthew.  She stayed at the bottom of the porch and visited with us and Matthew.  Matthew was so excited to see her.  When he found out she would be stopping by our house he was glued to the peep hole in the front door just watching for her to come:

When she got there he was beyond excited.  He grabbed Sophie and showed the dog to her.  She was kind enough to bring by a bag of treats for Matthew.  When he did his worksheets in her class he would earn a small treat for each handwriting page he did.  He misses high school so much.  His new school has been really good and he loves it there, but it isn't the same as high school.  She said she missed Matthew and was happy to see him again.  I was so grateful she wanted to help him out and brought by those things for him.  That was pretty awesome!!  We have also had a few people drop off some of their shredding for him to shred which has been great, too!!

Aaron and I have been following along with the Coronavirus updates and found out they were doing randomized testing of healthy adults to see if more people are carrying the virus than what has been reported.  Aaron and I were interested in getting tested so we filled out the questionnaire and both got selected to get tested.  We were told to go to Ogden Regional Hospital around noon on a Friday.  Aaron told me it would be a fun lunch date.  I had my doubts, though--haha!  Here's how they test for Coronavirus:

They stick about an 8 inch long sterile Q-tip up your nose until it reaches the back of your throat and then they twist the Q-tip around to get all kinds of goodness on it.  Then they take it out and bag it up to be sent to the lab for testing.  I went first and it was AWFUL!! It doesn't help that I absolutely can't stand anything up my nose anyway.  Even when they put an oxygen nasal cannula on me during my baby deliveries I didn't handle that well--I kept pulling it out of my nose.  Also I would choose the flu SHOT over the flu mist any day of the week, too.  Anyway, the nurse was very nice, but seemed to be very thorough when she got inside my nose.  She seemed to be so thorough I think she got part of my brain in my sample--haha!  It hurt a lot.  After she was done inside my nose, it started bleeding which was fun.  Then it was Aaron's turn.  

She didn't spend as much time up his nose so he got off easy!  I wanted to tell her to come back and be more thorough, but we were both done being there and were more than ready to leave.  It was convenient, though.  They did everything while we stayed in our car which was nice.  I think I will be choosing our next date since I rated that date 0 out of 5 stars.  That was not a fun date activity for sure!!  We had to wait 2-3 business days for the result which was negative.  They sent the results via a text and an email.

Glad it was negative even though I was 99.9% sure it would be negative.  It was interesting to be part of that study.

The kids are still doing homeschool, but now they get A LOT of breaks.  During one of their breaks they decided to wrap Sophie up in blankets.  She tolerated it for a lot longer than I thought she would.  I think she is ready for all the kids to go back to school, though--especially when you see this look from her:

Josh is enjoying cooking different things while being at home.  He made us all a key lime pie last night which was pretty tasty.  

 With all the cooking he is doing I am afraid this meme might come to pass--ugh!!

 Anyway, we have been playing some games.  We played Code Names last week.  I didn't think Sarah and Noah would get how to play the game, but I was pleasantly surprised.  They were on my team and we actually won one of the games of three that we played against Josh and Daniel.  Wahoo!

 I am always up for funny memes and liked this one:

 Aaron has never been an animal person.  He says he just 'tolerates' Sophie, but don't let him fool you.  He is always petting her, but won't admit to it.  I had to take a picture to show I am not crazy--haha:

Speaking of Aaron he injured his ankle about two months ago.  It hasn't been healing and continues to be painful.  It will even be swollen some nights depending how long he has been standing on it.  After two months of dealing with it he figured he better get it looked at to see what is going on.  He saw the doctor two weeks ago and after examining it she thinks he has a torn tendon in his ankle.  She would normally send him to get some imaging done, but with Coronavirus going on that really wasn't  something she wanted to do at that point.  She gave him a boot to wear for 3 weeks to see if it helps.  If it doesn't improve after wearing the boot she will send him for imaging and depending on what that shows he might need surgery.  Fun times.  Here's my gimpy boot guy:

We did get some majorly good news this week, though.  Sarah's bloodwork came back and her liver enzyme levels have gone down drastically.  Although still a bit high she is almost within the normal range which is awesome.  We were supposed to have an appointment with the liver doctor last Monday, but they cancelled it until all things Coronavirus calm down.  However, she did call and was very pleased with Sarah's results.  They have not been anywhere near normal for almost a year and a half so this is awesome!!  Sarah still needs to take her daily Ursodiol to help her liver, but that was exciting news!!

Matthew's current teacher sent out a cooking challenge game.  Anyone in their class could participate.  They had to follow a recipe and take a picture without any identifying characteristics to the teacher after the meal was completed.  The teacher would then show all the pictures to the aids and they would choose which meal looked most appetizing.  The student had to be able to cook most of it by themselves so we chose spaghetti and meatballs.  I let Matthew do about 90 percent of the cooking and he did great.  We just had to read instructions and follow them.  He cooked the meatballs in the Instant Pot:

He warmed up the sauce and cooked the premade garlic bread in the oven.  He served it with fresh broccoli--his favorite.  He was mad I made him add carrots because he HATES them, but we were trying to be healthy.  Here's how his meal turned out:

 The teacher gave out the results this morning.  Out of 7 participants Matthew came in 4th place.  His teacher is going to send him a $5 McDonald's gift card in the mail for his prize.  He was pretty excited.

I have always wanted to try the dish Beef Wellington.  Even when I lived in England I never got to try it.  I asked Aaron to try it out for Sunday dinner and he was more than happy to attempt it.  He even got Daniel to help out for a bit:

Beef Welling is a Beef Tenderloin cut of meat that you sear on all sides.  Then you coat it with a horseradish mustard.  Next you cover the horseradish mustard coated tenderloin with a duxelles coating which is diced mushrooms cooked with shallots, garlic, thyme, butter and olive oil.  After coating the tenderloin with the duxelles coating you then wrap it with Prosciutto which is a cured ham that is very thinly sliced (it is similar to bacon).  Then you roll everything up in a puffed pastry crust and cook it.  Here's Aaron rolling up the tenderloin for it to chill in order to wrap it in the puffed pastry:

After wrapping it in the puffed pastry you coat it with an egg wash to help brown it and then cook it.

Here's some of the different steps:

 The finished product:

It was really delicious!!  We served it with 3 pounds of parmesan roasted broccoli and 3 pounds of smoked potatoes.  The tenderloin was also 3 pounds before he even started putting it together.  It was a hit because there were NO leftovers whatsoever.  My kids eat so MUCH!!  It was fun to try it out and I highly recommend Beef Wellington!

To try something different out I found a box of different Japanese snacks on Amazon.  I ordered it for the fun of it for the family to try.  It came and we tried them all out Monday evening.  Here's what everything looked like:

 We would all look at the package before opening it.

Everything was written in Japanese so you couldn't tell what anything was.  We all gambled.  Most everything was good.  A few things were really gross--jerky seaweed and dried squid was the ickiest thing.  Most everything else was good.  It was a fun activity.

We NEEDED to get out of the house yesterday.  We did a mini field trip and it was pretty fun.  We first stopped by Devil's Slide which is up Weber Canyon.  It is a weird geological formation that two parallel limestone layers lie vertical by each other.  It was pretty cool:

We then drove over to Lost Creek Reservoir.  We parked and hiked down to the shore.  Daniel was wearing his camouflage shirt so he was a bit more difficult to see hiking down to the shore--haha!

 We then had a rock skipping challenge.

The kids did a decent job at skipping rocks across the surface of the water.  Noah even skipped a rock off of Daniel's shoulder which Daniel was NOT happy about.

We then drove over Trapper's Loop where the mountains still had a bunch of snow on them.

 I then picked up two pizzas and took the kids to Beus Pond for a picnic.

We walked around and it was nice to be outside on such a beautiful day:

We did feed the ducks and fish, too:

 The fish were MASSIVE!!  The pictures don't even show how big the fish were.  It was crazy!!  Here's some of the fish that came to eat:

 In walking around we even saw three turtles sunning themselves off the shore:

Aaron had to go in to work so we missed having him with us on our field trip.  It must have been a successful field trip because Sarah and Matthew fell asleep as soon as we got home.  Sophie just joined in on the slumber party:

 I had to take this rare picture of my kids NOT fighting and my house which is clean for 5 seconds before it all changed to document it does happen sometimes--haha!

The kids are still doing homeschooling.  It is a bit difficult to do band online, but Daniel manages.  He records his stuff and sends it to his teacher:

I bought a ukulele a while ago, but never got around to doing anything with it.  However, Daniel wanted to try it out last week. 

 He made up some goofy songs which were funny.  I was able to record one of them without Daniel knowing and it was pretty funny.

It has been beautiful weather the last few days.  Josh and Daniel even got to mow the lawn today.  Wahoo for Spring!!

We are still alive and doing okay.  Things are definitely crazy right now, but we are surviving for the most part....

Hiking, Hot Momma, Food, Games, Homeschooling, Birthdays, Spiral Jetty, Conference, Easter, Pink Moon, Homemade Smoker, Bloodwork

We have been trying to keep somewhat busy these last two weeks.  Not being able to go out along with other people has been harder for us than I thought it would be!! The kids have been doing okay with their online schoolwork which is nice.  Matthew is having a really hard time with the huge change in his routine.  He is not adapting very well and it makes for some contentious times in our house, but for the most part we are doing okay.  Sophie just has to go on more walks than normal, but she and Matthew will be in the best shape of their lives by the end of this stay home order--haha!  There was one day I NEEDED to get out of the house.  Sarah had a Zoom meeting so we left her at home and the rest of us went on a walk.  There is a really cool trail down by Lagoon that goes along the backside of the amusement park.  There was a really cool tree with a huge hole in the base that the kids all wanted to get a picture of:

After parking to get to the trail there was a deer pretty close to us.  It was cool to see a deer so far into the city!

The trail went behind the zoo at Lagoon so we got to see the animals which was cool:

 We even got to cross a couple bridges, too:

 There was a seat carved into a tree trunk.  Josh sat down and picked up Sophie so they could get their picture taken:

 Part of the trail headed up by Farmington Pond.  There were quite a few people here so we didn't stay long.  It was pretty to look at, though:

 It was nice to let the kids get some pent up energy out.

 We got to go under a bridge, too:

 They had some signs along the trail.  I took a picture by this one to send to Aaron, since he was at work, to be funny--haha!  It says, "Caution. Severe Curves Ahead!"

 Speaking of funny things....way back when when we got my cell phone Aaron thought he'd be funny and name it 'Hot Momma'.  Since I don't see how my phone pops up on other people's devices I completely forgot it was named 'Hot Momma'.  However, I got a huge reminder today, though.  Noah was trying to join in his online class Zoom meeting today.  Sarah was already doing her class Zoom meeting on the iPad so Noah needed to use my phone for his Zoom meeting.  There has been a warning come out these past few weeks of hackers joining Zoom meetings uninvited and posting horrible pictures so I have tried to make sure their Zoom meetings are safe before they continue.  Anyway, back to Noah--I tried connecting to his class Zoom meeting.  His teacher came up on the screen, but my phone was not fully connected.  I could see her and hear her, but not say anything.  Since it was connected to the audio part of the meeting I heard his teacher say, "Hmmmmmm.....there's someone trying to join this meeting named 'Hot Momma'?  I don't know if I should let them join.....That sounds kind of fishy....."  Luckily, she gave me a chance so Noah was able to participate.  I didn't have a good way to explain why my phone was named 'Hot Momma' without looking crazy so I just continued like it was no big deal.  I don't blame her for being wary!  I would have been concerned had I been in her place, too.  No one normal has a phone named that--haha!  Now I need to see about changing my phone name so people don't think I am some sort of weirdo---well more than usual anyway--haha!

In trying to keep things interesting I picked up some Jelly Belly Knock off jelly beans for the kids to try out.  They had fun making up their own 'recipes' with the different flavors.  However, there were a ton of coffee flavored beans in there which none of us like.  When I first opened the bag, Noah asked me why it smelled like the gas station--haha!

 In having all the kids home all day long we are going through food like you can't believe.  A lot of the time the kids are only bored and not hungry.  To try and help out with that and save my actual snack foods for real snacks I bought a veggie tray for everyone to snack on.  This whole Costco sized veggie tray was GONE within a few hours.  It was CRAZY!!  I helped me feel a little bit better after seeing them previously empty the whole jelly bean bag minus the coffee flavored ones of course.

 We have been trying some games and puzzles, too.  We did take an afternoon and play Settlers of Catan without too much crying--haha!

The kids have also played Monopoly and Munchkin as well.

It is harder to have everyone at home and try and keep a clean house.  Since everyone is at home we are going through dishes like crazy.  The dishwasher is getting ran about 2-3 times a day because no one can reuse a dish or cup--ugh!!  Anyway, I seem to be the only one to see the sink full of dirty dishes which drives me CRAZY!!  

I showed this meme in a passive aggressive way to my whole family hoping they would take their blind glasses off and do the dishes without being told.... I am still waiting for that to happen, though--ugh!!

Noah did have a birthday this past week.  He is now into the double digits!  As per tradition he did get 10 surprise donuts to eat and/or share the next morning from Aaron.  They were eaten quickly so I don't have a picture--haha! We weren't able to go out to eat so Noah got to pick what he wanted us to make for his birthday dinner.  Smoked hamburgers won out.  Aaron made the hamburgers with all the fixings--fresh onions, lots of tomatoes, pickles, blue cheese, cheese, mayo, mustard, ect.  He asked for an ice cream birthday cake, too.  Here's what the cake looked like:

Aaron made 24 burgers and we only had 4 leftover patties.  The kids loved them so much they got up early the next day to eat them for breakfast.  You had to get up early if you wanted to snag a patty so no one slept in the next morning--haha!  Anyway, here's Noah getting ready to blow out his candles:

 We were glad G&G T were able to come and have dinner with us!  I think they are getting some cabin fever like we are, too!

 Noah got some more Legos, some science books and some candy.  After wrapping Noah's birthday presents Aaron had two empty wrapping paper tubes.  He gave one to Josh and they dueled to the end...

They dueled to the end of Aaron's tube which fell apart.  After that Aaron made Josh trade him tubes and they dueled some more.  Too bad Josh's tube was in very poor shape--haha!

Having the kids at home has been boring, but chaotic, too.  However, I love getting middle of the day loves, though.  Sarah even fell asleep cuddled up to me the other afternoon.  I loved it!!

 It was time for another field trip.  I had a mini breakdown the other day since all I seem to do most of the day is break up arguments which gets frustrating.  It's been a long 4 weeks without anything to break up the monotony.  Anyway, Aaron took a half day off from work and we drove out to see Spiral Jetty.  Spiral Jetty is a sculpture made in 1970 using rocks, mud, and salt crystals.  It is found at the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake.  I have wanted to go out and see this for a few years so why not now?  It was about a 90 minute drive from our house which was nice.  We listened to more of our book on CD which kept the kids quiet--that was one of the best parts!!  It was a beautiful day, too. This is what it looked like when we got there:

We hiked down to the end to see what it looked like.  This is what the trail looked like going down:

 There were only two other people in the whole area which was awesome.  Social distancing was not a problem at all.  I tried to social distance from my family, but they wouldn't let me get a foot away from them let alone 6 feet--haha!

While we were driving out there we saw a bunch of boards standing up in the sand.  We walked over and checked them out, too.

 Daniel:

 Sarah:

 They were pretty cool.  You could see where the water has come up to on the boards, but it was not too wet when we were there.

 The kids had fun playing in the sand.  Sarah wrote, "Sarah wuz here."

We did a 'Mancil' family 2020 sand picture, too:

 There was an old rusted out ball--maybe an old anchor?  It was cool to see.

It did go along the shore of the Great Salt Lake.  They had the best skipping stones along the edge.  Here's Noah skipping some rocks:

Walking around on the sand there were old dried out puddles that were filled with salt crystals.  It looked like ice, but it was salt:

There was another boarded structure we walked over to check out, too.

Since this area is along some migratory bird trails there were a few bird skeletons around in the sand. Me and Josh thought it was interesting to see the sun bleached bones and how the skeletons were still somewhat intact.

It was pretty remote out there.  However, it was awesome just getting away and walking around enjoying a beautiful day.

Two weekends ago it was Conference Weekend.  As per tradition Aaron made everyone a HUGE, delicious breakfast.  Josh made the waffles and Aaron made his eggs on a hill which is a fresh biscuit cut open and topped with home fries/hash browns, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage gravy.  It was yummy and so filling I didn't need to eat the whole rest of the day!!

Conference was awesome.  It was crazy to have it all streamed and not from the Conference Center.  I am glad we were able to watch it and the kids are old enough to want to watch, too.  We were even more excited when they announced a temple to be built in Syracuse, Utah.  If they build it in the spot we think (this is pure speculation and we don't know for sure, yet) it will only be about a mile and a half from our house.  That is so exciting!!

The evening of April 7 was the Super Pink Moon which is the biggest and brightest moon of the year.  It is a full moon and also the closest to the earth which made it stand out brighter.  Here's a picture I got.  The round orb on the mountain was a street light, the moon was the white orb in the sky:

 Here's the kids a bit annoyed I pulled them away from their electronics to see it, but they were glad to see it once they got outside.

 President Nelson, the prophet, asked everyone world wide to fast April 10 for Coronavirus, fast recovery to economy, health care workers to be protected, and for a return to normalcy.  The kids weren't excited to fast, but I think it was a worthwhile faith building experience.  I am glad they were old enough to participate.

 I want to document this interesting time so I took a few average pictures during this week.  Here's how everyone looks throughout the day doing their homeschooling:

Sarah doing a Zoom meeting from her room.  It is crazy when the tables turn and YOUR kid yells at you to be quiet because THEY are on a call.  Haha!

One of Sarah's teachers sent her a handwritten note on a handmade card this week through snail mail just to say 'Hi'.  I thought that was really nice!

 Here's Noah doing his work:

 Matthew and Sophie chilling since Matthew doesn't have as much online schooling as everyone else.

 Josh doing his work on his computer in his lap sitting on the couch:

Daniel sitting at the kitchen table doing his work: 

It was Josh's birthday last week, too.  Here's Josh's 17 surprise donuts that morning:

We didn't go out to eat so instead Josh chose stuffed manicotti for his birthday dinner.  He also wanted Better Than Anything cake.  He wanted to make the cake part so I let him.  I finished it off with everything else, though.  It's his birthday he shouldn't be forced to cook everything even if he wants to--haha!  Here's the finished cake:

 Opening presents.  We were glad G&G T came to dinner with us again.  Everyone seemed to like the homemade cheese manicotti.  I craved spaghetti/tomato sauce every time I was pregnant and all of them love spaghetti/tomato sauce which is funny!

Josh got a new pair of running shoes and some American Flag Flaps--running shorts.

 Josh's friends couldn't come celebrate with him since the social distancing thing, but each one got in their own cars and did a drive by 'Happy Birthday' honking instead.  That was pretty cool!

I love the Spring time!  My tree in front looks so pretty full in bloom right now!

 We did get out of the house Saturday and did a cook hike with everyone.  It was a cool trail by Kaysville.

 There were lots of rocks to kick and climb:

 It even had a bridge to cross.  Sophie was NOT a fan of the bridge, though!

 A pretty view of the valley:

 Living here is so pretty!!  It was nice to get out of the house for a few hours just to break up the monotony for a bit!

Josh loves cooking.  He wanted to try out a new recipe this past week.  Two weeks ago he did cinnamon rolls and this time he found a recipe for Lemon Strawberry rolls.  They were yummy!  If he keeps this up we are all going to gain a ton of weight by the end of this Stay Home order!!

It has been hard to keep in touch with all the young women especially with the social distancing meaning we aren't going to church right now or having weekday meetings.  We did go around and 'Egg' the girls to let them know we are still thinking about them.  Sarah was excited to find her hidden eggs in our front yard!

 I even made all the kids come with me to help 'hide' the 12 year old girls class  eggs for them at each of their houses.  While we were out we ran into some friends whose dog had just had puppies that were a month old.  We played with and held them for a while.  They were so sweet.  We then had to get along on our way to finish hiding everyone's eggs, though.  Here's Josh holding a tiny puppy making its sweet grunting noises.

Aaron is still considered an essential worker so he is still going in to work most days.  He is trying to get a telework thing set up, but he can't do a lot from home so he will be going in to work most of the time.  However, he did do a half day telework Thursday.  Last weekend Aaron found a great deal on a food grade metal barrel container.  He has wanted to build his own smoker for awhile so why not now?  In-between working he put it together.  Here's what it looks like:

 After putting it together and burning off the honey coating the inside of the barrel (that is what the barrel originally held before we got it) he made his first food using his new homemade smoker.  He made bacon wrapped meat balls.  I didn't try any of them, but they must have been good because the kids and Aaron ate them up pretty quickly.  Here's what they looked like before we let the kids try some:

 Saturday after our hike we did color Easter eggs.

Here's some of the eggs we colored:

The next morning the kids came out of their rooms to find their hidden Easter baskets.  Sarah and Noah:

 Josh, Matthew and Daniel:

Candy for breakfast is okay, right?!  Haha it is as far as I am concerned for Easter!!

To celebrate Easter since we can't go to church due to the Stay Home order we did talk about and watch the videos of Christ's last week of his life.  Hopefully the kids more fully understand what the Resurrection and Atonement mean for them.  I am grateful Jesus did rise from the Tomb and in such we can be together forever!!

Later that day Daniel and Noah had fun playing with their egg tops that covered their Easter baskets.  Nice helmets!  What weirdos!

Even though a lot of things have shut down we still have some medical needs in our family.  I had to take Josh to get his allergy shots last week.  We had to answer a ton of questions before we were even allowed into the building and answer the same questions when we got out of the elevator on the right floor.  Luckily, Josh won't need to get his next shots for another month so hopefully, things will have calmed down by then.  

Matthew had a 6 month follow up appointment with his psychiatrist, but she called and postponed it for two months.  Sarah was supposed to have her 5 year follow up Kawasaki appointment with the cardiologist Monday, but they called and rescheduled a few more months out since everything is so crazy with Coronavirus right now.  Her and Matthew both needed some bloodwork done today.  I drove them over to the lab.  When I got there instead of having us go inside they had us call and give our information over the phone.  They then came out to my van to draw their blood while they were inside my van.  They didn't want to risk exposure to Sarah and Matthew so it was a mobile blood draw.  The lady that drew their blood did an awesome job!  It only took one stick for both of them which was nice.  Here is Sarah getting her blood drawn:

Matthew's turn:

An amazing thing happened, too.  We are trying to figure out Matthew's future plans and possible living arraignments.  Right now we are hoping to have him stay with us until he finishes school at Vista and serve a service mission.  After that we would love for him to have as much independence as he can by moving into a group home.  This is all unknown to me so we are figuring things out as we go along which can be good and bad.  Anyway the lady that drew his blood today has a special needs son who followed along this particular path pretty closely.  She talked with me about group homes and told Matthew a little more about them.  It is nice to actually talk to someone who has gone through this so I can get some reassurance and comfort to know that it is a good thing to have them eventually move out and be as independent as possible.  I am thankful for tender mercies like that especially when they happen so unexpectedly!!