Quarantine, Conference Time!

Ahhh, quarantine life.  How are all of you doing the quarantine?  I find the weeks and days running together with little variance.  But we are healthy and well.  COVID-19 is going strong and getting worse in our area.  We are looking forward to general conference.  Every week with the kids we do a Rose, Bud, Thorn with them.  We find out what they loved the past week (Rose), what they are looking forward to (Bud), and what was disappointing (Thorn).  Several of our kids mentioned General Conference as their bud which was so fun!  I'm glad they look forward to the Church's general conference that happens twice a year.

Shanna got this picture of herself so she could draw someone praying.  Very clever!

Here is the drawing Shanna did of Joseph Smith's First Vision.  I love how she incorporated the ax in the picture.  This is the 200th year since Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in the Sacred Grove near Palmyra, New York.  General Conference will be focused on this theme.

The kids have been writing a fair amount of letters during the quarantine.  And they can confidently address a letter as well!

More indexing fun....Though Shanna spells her middle name differently.

Clark has gone on a few drives by himself or with Cal, or with Cal and Elden.  I think it's cute. They mainly go up to the overlook in Massanutten at the end of Del Webb.

And of course one needs a mustache and goatee!

I never knew Corona was a last name!  I was also reading an article about a town in Nevada, West Wendover.  Their poor mayor....his last name is Corona!

The day finally came, General Conference! What a treat during the COVID craziness! It was very weird seeing General Conference broadcasted from a small auditorium, with just a few people and with the First Presidency sitting 6 feet apart from each other.

President Nelson gave an opening address and said this:
"Little did I know, when I promised you at the October 2019 general conference that this April conference would be “memorable” and “unforgettable,” that speaking to a visible congregation of fewer than 10 people would make this conference so memorable and unforgettable for me!"

We loved being home by ourselves for the whole conference.  It's fun being with extended family as well.  But I think we enjoyed this more and will continue to do this in the future.

It was a terrific conference!  Two youth speakers spoke at a special Saturday night session, there were some video clips of President Nelson at the Sacred Grove area, a special proclamation about the restoration of the gospel was shared, we did a Hosana Shout Sunday morning and several temples were announced including one in Shanghi, China!!!

Shanna has been sending packages and letters to her good friend Cortlyn. Cortlyn sent Shanna a package and she was very excited to receive it!

Every Monday night after general conference we have a special treat (normally the kids get to pick their own) and we each talk about three things that we enjoyed from conference. Since we were under quarantine I made homemade ice cream and hot fudge.

Love this "salsa"!

Time to share our conference thoughts!

Lee has been busy with lots of projects around here.  I should be doing some projects as well but am putting them off...  Lee and the kids took down the playset and hauled it away.

Yep, Shanna is still taller than me!

The kids are sad that Flabby died.  Who is Flabby?  I don't know.

Lee has been enjoying several bike rides.  He decided to take off another week after spring break.  He didn't have any pictures for spring break as we were going to go on a cruise (surprising the kids!), but of course that got cancelled.  Then the week after spring break he decided to be closed the next week as well.  He saw a couple of emergency patients.  He could have been open the whole time and didn't have restrictions to have his office closed.  But we were worried about people giving Lee the virus and Lee spreading it to patients and to us. It was nice having Lee home. 

Elden did some weeding at Lee's office and enjoyed finding a snake.

The kids had fun playing badminton.  We got this set from someone, but sadly it wasn't in good shape.

We played a couple of games of Monopoly.  Intense to say the least!  Lee and I are reading Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.  Quoting from his book, Cal, after writing about the great benefits from playing board games makes this point. "Playing games also provides permission for what we call supercharged socializing--interactions with higher intensity levels than are common in polite society."  I chuckled out loud when I read this.  Totally my family! My kids hum, make repetitive noises, yell and talk VERY loudly during games.

I thought this was hilarious:


I thought this one was funny too:


In some of our other closets we added a second shelf and made the lower existing shelf deeper.  I was cleaning out our coat closet (I feel like it needs a good cleaning in the fall and spring!) and wanted to do the same thing in this closet!

Second shelf.  Deeper bottom shelf. PERFECT!

Finished project!  I am not sure what we will store on the second shelf, possibly food storage.  I'm glad we have one now and I was able to get ALL the paint cans off the closet floor! 

That's one way to eat ramen... We go through food and toilet paper a lot faster now with us being home all day, together. 

A few times my kids have gotten the free lunches at school.  I made them go the last ten minutes during the pickup time because we don't need the food.  We haven't gone for a couple weeks now because I am leery of other people touching the food!  I am sure they are very cautious, but still.... The kids had fun the few times they picked up food.  I hope everyone is healthy and well!