AJ having fun with Easter bunny ears
This is Jenna at her piano lesson. 😊 You can see her piano teacher on Facetime propped up on the side of the piano so she can see the piano keys while Jenna plays. Korinne tried piano lessons again after Britton had to stop last summer because he no longer had time in his schedule, but she was ready to quit just as the quarantine started. When I gave Britton the option of taking over her piano lesson spot until his mission he jumped at the chance. He finally had time to practice again and was ready to put it to good use.
Korinne turned her attention to baking and made us many delicious things during the month of April. Here she is making some cinnamon rolls from scratch on a Tuesday afternoon.
Since thousands of missionaries all of the world were sent home to their home countries because of the pandemic our ward had a little welcome home car parade for the 6 missionaries that came home from our ward. This was our big outing of the week. The boys loved putting their heads out of the sunroof as we drove by each house to honk and wave at the missionaries.
AJ had Facetime appointments with his preschool teachers throughout the quarantine.
One day when the boys were particularly stir crazy I took them up to the canyon to play. A change in scenery was just what they needed. Being at home without friends for 6 weeks is a long time when you are 5 and 8 years old and are used to constantly playing with friends.
We had some beautiful sunsets during quarantine.
In April I pretty much only left the house once a week to go grocery shopping. Since I can't sleep in because my body is used to getting up at 4:00 a.m. every morning to teach classes, I went to the grocery store right as it opened on Saturday mornings to do the weekly shopping. It was eerie to be in the stores during the height of the quarantine. Everyone was in masks, no children were in the store, there were still a lot of items that were not readily available, like toilet paper, flour, pasta, or hand sanitizer. When it opened there was a line to get in the store and everyone was 6 ft apart. The stores were controlling how many people were in the store at once, etc. It was something none of us had ever experienced before so there was a different feeling as everyone tried to get what they needed to be able to stay at home for the next week.
Ready to go to the store early Saturday morning.
We got some yard projects done that we were never able to get to during busier springs. Our trees in the back were overgrown and needed an overall. We got ride of several full trailers of branches and the area looks so much better.
Easter was low key this year. Grandma P came over and set up an Easter egg hunt in our backyard and was very creative with the offerings. The kids enjoyed their bags of microwave popcorn, top ramen, chips and other delights.
Then it was trading time. All 5 kids participated in the Easter swap
The kids had fun filming some Tik Tok videos together during the quarantine. I can honestly say this is something we never would have done had it not been for the quarantine.
On the 17th of April a few police cars pulled up to the house with sirens on followed closely by the Administration of Ridgeline High School. They were there to inform Britton that he had been selected as Valedictorian of Ridgeline's class of 2020. My parents saw the police going to our house and immediately panicked thinking AJ had done something, but it was just the high school being creative about recognizing and honoring Seniors.
They gave us a sign to put in our front yard recognizing Britton's accomplishment.
Congrats Britton!
AJ showing off one of his many at home preschool projects.
On April 22nd Adam and I hit a major milestone. We celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary! For our date we got takeout from a restaurant and ate in in our car since nothing was open. I know, pretty wild and crazy.
I was absolutely shocked when later that night the kids surprised us with an anniversary dinner that was more reflective of such a major milestone.
The food was excellent and they even had created a playlist of all of "our songs" from back in the day. It was incredibly thoughtful and sweet and made it a really special day for us!
At the end of April Hill Air Force Base sent the "Angels" to do a fly-over for all of the hospitals in Utah to thank the health care workers for all of their hard work. We got a great view of the Angels flying into Cache Valley on their way to the hospital from our back deck. Seeing 5 jets fly in formation is not something you get to see everyday. It didn't last very long, but it was cool.
April 2020 was definitely one for the books. The older kids were great about getting all of their school work done and socializing with friends over zoom and Facetime. The boys struggled a bit with home school and the change of their normal routines, but we were able to survive and create some fun and unique memories from a very memorable time in the history of the world. I will end with more of the funny memes that were floating around social media during April.
Creative Senior Pictures