Old Rag

We had a fun few days of quarantine with Reed at our house.  Of course that included doing indexing!

It's fun seeing the different names.

Six days a week I make sure and go on a long jog.  Such pretty, blossoming trees.

Haley likes drawing these dragons and she's so fast at it!

Gotta love lots of game time during COVID-19!

Shanna loves getting my phone to snap selfies.

We finally went to Old Rag!  I wanted to go in April but figured why not go in March when we had the time (because everything was cancelled) and the weather was decent. And good thing because now I am writing this in May and the Shenandoah National Park is completely closed.

Old Rag is a popular hike, a 10 mile loop basically. And with lots of rock scrambles.  It was awesome! Enjoy all the photos!

LOTS of social distancing going on, right?!  On Monday or Tuesday after the hike they closed Old Rag because too many people were out.

You notice there weren't many pictures of Cal and Reed because they were ahead of us and then we never saw them till after we got back from the hike!

That night some of the kids slept outside.  I also found out that my friend Ann Best died that evening. She was the third death in a row in my ward that happened every 3 weeks. 

The next day, Sunday, I went to visit Ann's daughter, Jen, who is disabled.  It was great to see Jen, but also sad.  Her mom was her full-time caregiver.  Coronavirus or not, I was going to go see her.  Thankfully that Monday I was able to see Ann and Jen and talk with them both.  And that Friday I had chatted with Ann as well on the phone.  The next day she had a heart attack and died quickly.  We were all quite shocked as she seemed to be in fairly good health with several more years to live. Jen is now at her sister's house.  Someone in our ward had written a post about how we need to stay home and not visit people at risk--which was something this person heard about.  I wonder if that person was referring to Ann and Jen. Not sure. But if so, personally I am not sad at all that I was able to spend time with them before Ann passed away.

It seems like the kids have been doing funny things every week...maybe it's COVID-coping.  But this particular Sunday they were putting ice on their bellies and seeing how long they could leave it on their skin. It was a 2 liter of soda with frozen water in it.

What was really funny was Clark just sitting with it on his stomach for a LONG time.

And the ice challenge happened during Quirkle.

More sleeping outside!

We had an early celebration for Reed's birthday when Lois came to pick up Reed. I made cupcakes with Nesquik frosting.  I had to use a cream substitute because I couldn't find whipping cream at Food Lion.  It tasted fine chocolate flavored but was really weird on it's own.

Another weird thing my kids did for a couple days was to tie each other up and see how fast they could untie themselves.

Earlier that day Cal and Reed went to fill up wood for a lady.  Cal and Elden do this often and they like the extra money they earn.

Clark is trying to get a job at Food Lion.  I was proud of him for calling a couple of times to check up on his application and going to the store in person to talk to someone in management.  It was my idea, but he followed through!  Even the experience alone of applying for a job is so important!

Lee and I did a huge shopping trip, trying to not go to the grocery store for five weeks.  We ended up going a few times though, but it was always for other things and we figured while we are there, why not get stuff we want/need!

We've had a couple different meetings with the missionaries with them sharing a message with us.

I broke the plastic plug that fits in the lid on the blender.  Oops!  It fell into our chocolate spinach smoothie. Ugh...

More decluttering happened! I wanted to go through the entire girl's room and Shanna wanted to rearrange it.  I really like the new set-up.  It was great going through things yet again.  I've found with minimizing you do have to keep up on it and continually minimize!  We aren't minimalists, but we have gotten rid of/donated hundreds of items over the past 1 to 2 years.  I've done a monthly decluttering challenge 3 times now and will do a fourth one in April.  Whatever the date of the month is, that is how many items you get rid of.  So the 1st you get rid of 1 thing.  The 2nd you get rid of 2 things, the 3rd, 3 things and so on. Every month you get rid of 450+ items.  (Not counting February.)

Since the kids were home and the governor declared school cancelled I had the kids go through their school stuff with me and I put away their backpacks.  That felt great!

More indexing!

We started doing penpals with the primary which has been really fun!

Shanna and I hit up Family Dollar and we were surprised to see lots of toilet paper in stock!  It's still hard to find hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes.

I listened to this book and LOVED it.  I highly recommend it!  I bought copies for the Relief Society presidency to read and bought my own copy.

Hope you had a fabulous March!

St. Patrick's Day, Quarantined

And just like that everything shut down!  The last day of school I went to make copies like normal. I stopped at the Character counts board and snapped a picture of Elden's picture on the board.  Who knew it would be the last day of school AT school! So crazy. We found out that night that school would be canceled the next day and we never went back.  Because of the coronavirus coming to the US and the fast spreading of the virus, eventually the governor cancelled school for the rest of the year.  I hope that school will be back in session this fall!  The first month we basically had off--three weeks of no school and then the fourth week was spring break.

Yep all my kids are taller than me except Elden.  And I love it!

Some randomness of course!  Lee cut the holly bush way back and the kids had the pleasure of loading up the truck and taking the branches to the landfill.

The Saturday before St. Patrick's day we met up with the Heits in Harrisonburg.  I'm glad they could come down! We hit up Shirley's Popcorn.  They give out free popcorn every March for reading 6 hours.

Indexing!  We started having our kids index everyday since they have lots of free time!

Not an unusual site to see some shelves empty at the grocery store.  Reed and Cal made a Nesquik run.

Lee took some of the kids on a bike ride.

Oh, and during all of this craziness we made a quick trip to the temple in Raleigh before it closed.  On the way home we couldn't believe what we saw. Fuel for $1.59!!!

After the weekend Cal went up to the Heits and Blake and Rhett stayed here. Cal had fun making leprechaun traps with Reed.  

We invited our friends Dave and Missy over to have a St. Patrick's meal with us of corned beef and cabbage.  But because of social distancing they felt it was better if they didn't come.  Though Missy was super sweet and dropped off some soda bread and Irish Butter! It was a fun addition to our meal.  Hopefully this fall they can eat with us at our house.

Shanna made some cake pops for St. Patrick's Day.

My kids did a little craft with heating up bar soap in the microwave.  Then you can made a creature out of it?  I can't remember.  All I remember is the big mess!

Yum. Perfect rolls!

We got a little park time in before they shut them down.

The day after St. Patrick's, we headed up to Maryland to pick up Cal, drop off Blake and Rhett, and bring home Reed.

We had a fun visit and then I took off for home.  We don't do much for St. Patrick's Day but we do enjoy the traditional corned beef and cabbage meal!  My cousin Jonathen sent this picture to me.  My mission companion Millie visited her friend, Kristen, who works with Jonathen! Millie is on the left.  A couple years ago Millie and Kristen stayed at my house one night and we did a hike in Shenandoah National Park the next day. Hope all of you are having a healthy quarantine!