10 Year Anniversary- Married for a decade!

On 6/8/10 Josh married me.  On 6/8/20 we celebrated a decade of marriage! 

 I would love to say we went on a nice romantic beach vacation, or even a family celebration trip, but neither of those happened.  That's okay!  We had a nice little evening on our anniversary as a family at a local restaurant.

I attempted to surprise Josh with somewhat of a romantic evening with sparkling mineral water and raspberry syrup to mix in and some dark chocolate.  It was a good thought until Trexton woke up, and then Zaylee woke up.  ha ha  

Josh bought me roses, which is one of my favorites because I love the smell.

While we were in Wyoming, my family humored me by taking 10 year anniversary pictures.  The sign in the pictures says, "This is what 10 years looks like."  We have a cute picture, kissing picture, a couple reality pictures, and the process of the pictures...

 

I wanted to make our 10 year anniversary blog post a little special with 10 adventures we have done together over the last 10 years.

1 - Marriage 

2 - Master's Degrees

3 - Houses bought 

4 - Amazing Kids

5(0) - States visited 

6 - Grandparent's deaths

7 - States lived in 

8 - Professional Sporting Events attended 

9 - Countries visited 

10 - Years married

I love being married to Josh! It has been a busy and adventurous 10 years.  I have a feeling the next decade will be just as busy and adventurous- maybe even more so. We might even make it to a romantic beach vacation for our 20 year anniversary. :)

The Great Lockdown of 2020

Do you know how many times I have read "can we have a do-over with 2020?" It has been an interesting year, that's for sure.  This is due mostly in-part (but not all) because of a new Virus- Covid 19, also knows as the Corona Virus.  It originated in Wahun, China, and made it's way around the world thus causing the United States and other countries to have a great LOCK-DOWN.  Basically, we were told to stay home.  This post is dedicated to this odd time.  I want to hit all aspects of the "adventure (un-adventure)" we are having so I can remember what are experience was like during this time, and so my grand-kids can read about this great event in history that they are learning about in school.

Social Distancing
When this thing first started in China, it was all over the news and Facebook.  I was getting sick of hearing about it... And then it came to the US, and instead of it just being a sickness in another country it was now a sickness in the US.  Then it came to Nevada with Las Vegas getting hit somewhat hard in the MGM casino, and because it was now in our city, it was starting to affect OUR lives.  We didn't exactly get the virus.  (Well, we might of earlier in the year, but that is another section).  It affected our lives in a different way, called Social Distancing.  Church got cancelled, Temples closed, groups were not suppose to gather, and school even got cancelled for a few weeks at first, but it has been extended to the end of the year.

Ultimately most states, including NV, had a stay-at-home order.  Many businesses have been closed because our governor has said only non-essential businesses should remain open.  The order lasted roughly 2 months, give or take a week or two.   Anyway, thankfully restaurants still served food, but it was drive-through, curbside pickup, or delivery.  The library closed, and even the playgrounds have been closed, and are still closed in Las Vegas.

One thing I wanted to point out, is how "dead" the strip was.  We took a drive on it one night, and even though there was still some cars, there were hardly any people walking around.  It was odd, but cool!

Grocery Shopping

So many people I know have posted pictures of the empty shelves at the grocery store. I have one picture, but it was not from the beginning of the pandemic when people really panic shopped.  My picture was taken after toilet paper started to get re-stocked and stay for more than 15 min. 

 When this thing first started, people went crazy with buying toilet paper.  Luckily, I had just ordered a huge pack from Boxed, so we had plenty of toilet paper.  There were people who literally could not get toilet paper from anywhere.  It would be taken off the shelves as soon as it was stocked. That was the first thing to go; then people started panic buying soap, hand sanitizer, paper towels, canned goods, bread (I am guilty of this one), Kraft Mac and Cheese, rice, eggs, and other items.  When I went to the grocery to buy bread the store was packed.  I was lucky to get a parking spot, and the check-out lines were huge.  The only isles I saw that were out of stock at that point was rice and paper goods like toilet paper and paper towels.  It only got worse from there.  I was glad we had a good supply of everything else we needed.  This was at the beginning of the panic buying.  I think school had just barely "shut down," and businesses were still open. When we went to Sam's Club a week before, it was't packed, but the toilet paper and water bottles were gone, as well as, some soap products and white eggs. 

The next time I needed groceries I did grocery deliver, and of course, I didn't receive everything I ordered because they were out of stock on many items.  The next time I actually went to the grocery store, there were hardly any people there, and somebody was disinfecting the carts.  The next time after that was the weirdest experience.  The grocery store workers gave me a freshly sanitized cart, we were told over the intercom several times to stay 6 feet away from other customers, and the checkout had a big clear shield between the customer and the checker. Plus, there were 6 foot apart markers on the floor to indicate where the customers should stand in the checkout line.  I saw a worker disinfecting the milk handle door, and they came and got the cart from me right after I unloaded the groceries into my car so they could disinfect it again.  Many people had masks on.  I wore gloves since I didn't have hand-sanitizer in the car. (Don't worry I didn't touch my phone with the gloves).  I have only been to the store one other time since then to get some paper for our printer.  I didn't wear gloves that time, but I did put hand sanitizer in the car to use after.  Josh has gone to Sam's Club a couple times, and he has brought me flowers to lighten our house.  :)

Virus
I mentioned that we might have had the virus.  We might have!  We don't know! The virus really started getting big the end of February/ beginning of March, however, there has been some research and claims that it traveled to the US much sooner.  Josh flew to California and back a lot in January.  He brought home, what we thought, was the flu. He got pretty darn sick with a horrible cough, fever, aches, etc.  He lost his voice, and could only work for an hour at a time before he had to lay down again because he was drained.  Trex and Zaylee also got sick.  Trexton, with a weaker immune system, got it worse than Zaylee.  He had me worried enough for me to call the nurse.  I have never called a nurse for any of my babies before.  Zaylee was just exhausted mostly.  I kept thinking I was going to wake up the next morning with the flu.  One night, my body was achy/crawly, and I thought... this is it!  I am going to be exhausted for the next week, but in the morning I felt fine.  My aches were gone, and the flu never came.  The two older kids never got sick.

Instagram photo when Trex was sick.

Church
There has only been a handful of times in my life when church has been cancelled.  One time was when there was severe weather.  Another time was during one of the big fires in Lake County, CA when we lived there.  None of those times has church been cancelled for so long, and never in my life have the Temples been closed. Church has been held at home with each individual family. It has made my calling as Primary President very easy, but my calling as mother, has taken on an even higher responsibility.  Each week we have our own church service by singing hymns and primary songs, having the Sacrament, some kind of talk, and Primary.  Then we watch the Book of Mormon videos.  The first couple weeks were rough.  We had some reverence issues because the kids thought it was like a game.  The last couple weeks have gotten much better.  Last weekend was fun because we had church at my sister's house in Wyoming with my entire family.  Another weekend we had church at my parent's house in St. George, so Grandma Teresa did Primary.

A couple weeks ago for our Primary the kids took turns being King Benjamin and teaching something he taught his people.

My Relief Society also started doing Zoom meetings.  I have only been to one so far, but it was so fun to see everyone.  That same day we had a Zoom Ward Council, which was also good to see and talk to others in my ward.

General Conference was so unique because it was not held in the conference center, the General authorities who were speaking sat 6 feet apart, and only the those who were speaking attended in the room where it was being broadcast from.  Not even all the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles attended each session in person.  The music was pre-recorded from previous conferences.  Despite the uniqueness of conference, the Spirit was amazing. I feel as though certain words were spoken just for me by President Eyring. I feel like the over all theme was to bring the gospel to others, and that everyone must hear the Gospel and make the choice to accept it or not. Also, that we will be blessed for accepting it and making the covenants we need to return to God.

The First Presidency presented a new Proclamation to the World about Joseph Smith and his first vision.  This year marks the 200th Anniversary of his first vision.  The church has also established a symbol to use as a representation on websites and such. At the end of the Sunday morning session, we did the Hosanna Shout.  It was special and a sacred experience.  I will also never forget the closing hymn, "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet."  It was sung by different choirs around the world, and then we all joined in at the end by singing the first verse again.  It truly was an unforgettable conference.

Home-school 
We had our good days and bad days for home-school.  The good days were the ones when I just ddidn't care, and the kids ended up not doing so much. ha ha (We had a few good ones where they actually got a lot of school work done with out fighting me too much). The very first thing we did the first week we were not in the school building was make a music video.  My sister and her kids made one and challenged us on it.  We should do another one because it was a lot of fun.

 Both kid's teachers made videos each day for the kids where they read a book or talked about something.  They both sent ideas and optional assignments.  I had the kids participate in a writing contest for PBS Las Vegas.  We should find out this summer who the winners of each grade level are.

When they were not doing their "boring" (as they called it) school work, they rode bikes for PE and created art and fun science projects that Avenly's teacher had shown them on her videos. They took and are still taking piano lessons from me for music. 

The school sometimes posted fun challenges on their Facebook page.  One of them was for the kids to make their own lunch.  Avenly made a yogurt fruit dish and Payson made his own crepes and ka-bobs.

 I know the teachers missed the kids, and the kids missed the teachers.  The school staff made a special video for all students: 
Some parents from Payson's class sent me videos of their kiddos for Ms. Utzinger, his teacher.  I compiled them into one video and sent it to her.  (I am not sharing in on here, since I don't have permission from each parent to publicly share it). I don't have a way of contacting Avenly's classmate parents, so her teacher, Mrs. Kravitz, didn't get one.  We did send her a special magnet in the mail.

We were all relieved when school ended.  We all needed the break.

Stay-at-home 
Staying at home has not been a huge change for our family, except for home school and church.  Josh already worked from home with the occasional travel.  He hasn't traveled during this whole thing.  I was already home with the two littles all day.  Honestly, it has been a blessing for our family to be together this much.  I feel like we have had more quality time together in the evenings playing board games because we don't have to rush to bed since we don't have to wake up early.  Everyone sleeps in a little later and we started school a little later.  I feel like my time has been pulled a billion ways between managing everything, but it has given our family a chance to really reflect on how strong we are in the Gospel and how strong we are as a family unite.  Has there been more fighting?  Probably (Funny story to come on that).  Has there been more food making? Yes! Has there been more playing together?  Definitely! Have we felt the Spirit in our home more?  I would like to think we have, even with the elevated yelling from me.  Being together and not getting distracted by "other" things has made our family stronger.  It has made me learn better patience, and it has made me realize what is most important.

Now for the funny story.  Payson and Avenly were spitting on each other.  I made them both go to their rooms.  Then I came downstairs, and forgot about their little spit fight.  A little while later Payson came downstairs with a nice little note apologizing to me and saying he loves me.

 He said Avenly was probably apologizing, too, since she was getting the markers and paper out, as well.  I go upstairs to see, and I found a different kind of note hanging on her door.

"mommy cannot cume in Anny room. mommy is rood."

It was actually pretty funny, and definitely shows the different personalities of my kids. 

Not Staying Home (oops)
Despite the stay at home order, we found many ways to get outside and take a break from our house while still maintaining social distancing and being safe.

Northern Arizona- (Click on link for more details and pictures) For Zaylee's birthday we went to Bearizona and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon before it was closed.  There were hand sanitizer stations, and the buildings were closed (except bathrooms and the building at Bearizona that showed us the Jaguar). There was a sign at the food truck that said stay 6 feet apart, and they brought us sack breakfasts at the hotel instead of having a buffet style continental breakfast.  We did bring Clorox wipes, and wiped our hotel room down when we got there.

Family Pictures- I bought the kids Easter outfits in the fall when they were on clearance.  I also wanted to get some pictures of the kids in the outfits.  Trexton grew/is still growing too fast.  So, we tried to find a nice hike somewhere to take pictures before Easter since I was worried he would grow out of his before Easter.  (For the record, he did- it was too small by Easter).  To find a hike with an open parking lot proved to be a challenge.  By this time, everything was shut down, including playgrounds.  We finally found a HOA trail in a neighborhood. Trex wasn't too interested in pictures, but we still got some cute ones.

Another Saturday Hike- Shoulder season is the best season in Vegas.  We have 60s and 70s and I love it.  There was no way we were going to waste a perfect day inside our house, so Josh found a trail, and guess what?!?!  The small dirt parking area was not blocked off.  We saw some other people, but it was so easy to maintain social distancing.  Getting outside is a necessary thing to do during this lock-down for sanity purposes. Grandma Molly happen to be visiting us this particular Saturday, so we loved having her go on the hike with us. 

St. George/Cabin Land- (click on link for more details and pictures)- Josh and I bought some land at the end of last year.  Someday, we hope to build a cabin on it.  Anyway, Josh had the brilliant idea to go to our land and have a camping like experience.  The land is up by Zion's National Park, so we spent some time in St. George as part of that.  There are a few things I want to note pertaining to the pandemic with this little adventure. 1. The traffic in St. George was the same as Las Vegas.  That tells you people in St. George were not "staying home."  People in Las Vegas were.  Either that or everyone was going to St. George from Las Vegas. 2. Not many people wore masks or maintained their 6 feet distance in the grocery store in St. George. 3. Zion's National Park was closed, but because of that we saw hundreds of deer.

Through Utah up to Etna, WY This was our first adventure after the Stay-at-home order was lifted, and we jut got back a week ago. There was still restrictions, and it was interesting to see every worker in every setting wearing a mask.  Social distancing is still being encouraged in every store with 6 foot distance stickers on the floors, restaurants seating groups far apart, and stores only letting 50 percent capacity customers into the store.  The interesting thing is- that the stores, do not wipe down the carts any more.  It seems they want customers to take their own health into their own hands now with the re-opening of life. 

Holidays
During the duration of this Stay-At-Home/Shelter in place order, there have been several holidays including St. Patrick's, Day, April Fools Day, Easter, Cinco De Mayo and Mother's Day.  We also celebrated Zaylee's Birthday (click for details/pictures) and Josh's Birthday.  We didn't have to worry about wearing green on St. Patrick's since my kids would get in trouble for pinching each other.  The kids tried to do fun pranks around the house for April Fool's Day. We got takeout Mexican food for Cinco De Mayo with homemade horchata.

I want to highlight Easter and Mother's Day since they were special and more unique during this quarantine time.

Easter- Easter was the same weekend that Molly came and we went on the hike.  It was so fun to have her at our house for Easter. Easter week we talked about the Savior's last week of life.  One day we dyed eggs. Saturday the Easter bunny came with a bucket full of candy and eggs, then we had cute bunny pancakes for breakfast. The kids did an Easter egg hung after Grandma and Daddy hid the eggs.  There were so many egg hunts all over Vegas that got cancelled because of social distancing, but the kids had fun with our own little hunt.  We made rice krispy treats with Easter cookie cutters made out of peeps.  Then we did our hike.  Saturday was a fun day. 

Easter Sunday was different than most because we had church at home.  The last couple of years, the mega street across the major street by where we live gets so busy during Easter that cars even park in our neighborhood because the huge parking lot is full.  This year- there were no cars parking in our neighborhood.  People did not go to church.  We still did our home church with Grandma, and we enjoyed talking about the Savior and watching "The Easter Story."  Something I have been realizing even more than before, is that I love food.  I love cooking in a clean kitchen, and I love desserts for special occasions.  I made a grand Easter dinner with homemade whole wheat rolls. It was a nice change for the hustle of Easter to have it at home.

Josh's Birthday- Normally we like to go out to eat for Josh's birthday.  Since the restaurants were still take-out or delivery only on his birthday, we ended up having homemade acai bowls for dinner, per Josh's request.  Then we had a homemade tres leches cake.

Mothers Day One of my favorite things I like to give myself every year for Mother's Day is a pedicure.  I don't get my pedicure done on Mother's Day, but I do like getting one done.  This year my kids gave me a pedicure since the studios were closed.  I also made it extra fun for them, by giving them pedicures, as well. 

Other 

Living through a pandemic and having a stay-at-home order isn't all bad.  We did some fun and unique things at home that we wouldn't normally do.

 

Vampire Red Hair I died my hair with semi-permanent vampire red hair dye.  I figured that the Temples were closed for awhile, so now was a good time to dye my hair.  It faded pretty quick, though, but here are a few pictures.

Wedding I attended a virtual wedding via video conferencing.

Family game time  We have spent a lot of family time together playing board games and having fun.

Attended Aaron's virtual graduation  We had planned to go to Aaron's graduation.  We still "went," just not in the same way we were planning. The school had the kids come ahead of time without the crowds. They videoed the ceremony, recorded virtual music performances, and played a live you-tube stream of it all. 

It has been an interesting year to say the least, and it will be interesting when we go to Orlando, FL and the theme parks, but I wouldn't change the family time we got for it.  There are usually blessings in trials when we look for them.