27 December 2020

Our quarantine continued this week. Brandan woke up with a sore throat on Friday last week so he isolated in our bedroom until he could get the results from a Covid test. Having 2 people in our family isolating made our living arrangements more complicated. For example, this is a photo of our family doing Come Follow Me on Sunday, with Brandan and Sofi joining via zoom. 

With plenty of free time, Abe made chicken parmesan for dinner on Sunday night. 

The dish looked very gourmet and tasted extraordinarily good. We loved sitting down to eat during our quarantine because we could take our masks off.

Emma, Gibson and Helen decorated gingerbread houses. Emma's house was cute, colorful and modern.

Gibson made a gingerbread tent and campfire.

Helen mainly wanted a gingerbread house that tasted good. Her house was made of gluten free gingerbread and buttercream frosting. The frosting was too soft to hold the structure together, but Helen enjoyed eating her gingerbread house.

Winter break for the kids began on Monday. Helen, Gibson and Emma woke up early so they could continue watching The Legend of Korra. After a day of watching their show, we paused to play some games together in the evening. Brandan and Sofi were still isolating. Emma, Helen and Gibson met their goal and finished their show on Tuesday.

We got a string of good news on Monday and Tuesday. Emma tested negative for Covid and flew home on Tuesday. Brandan and Abe also received news that their Covid tests were negative. The rest of us didn't get tested, but with 3 negative tests in our household, we felt confidant that we could take our masks off while we were around each other. Sofi's isolation ended on Tuesday. We still had a few days of quarantine left as a family, but we were glad for fewer restrictions. This is a photo of Abe and Gib playing Minecraft together.

During our quarantine, Becky opened a Christmas present early in order to offer an additional activity (not everyone likes watching animated fantasy adventure shows for 8 hours in a day.) While this puzzle has fewer pieces than our usual style, the puzzle inside of the box doesn't exactly match the picture on the outside of box which adds a challenge. Once the puzzle is assembled, we will look for clues in the picture to solve a mystery that came with the puzzle.

Gibson got a certificate and ribbon in the mail for winning 3rd place with his school's scavenger hunt team. The scavenger hunt is annually hosted by SOU to teach research skills to middle school and high school students in Southern Oregon. This year's event was held online, like everything else. 

We've received some fun ornaments from friends that will be good souvenirs form 2020. This Oregon shaped ornament reminds us of all the time we've spent at home (and largely enjoyed the extra time with each other!)

This is a hand crocheted roll of toilet paper. Who can forget the toilet paper shortage of 2020?!

This cute gingerbread man with a face mask came with a poem, "Run, run, fast as I can... Covid can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man."

Christmas Eve celebrations started with a feast.

Then we had our nativity play. Mary and Joseph solemnly started out for Bethlehem.

The first innkeeper they encountered acted suspiciously, but still had no room.

Finally they found an innkeeper willing to let them stay in his stable.

Meanwhile, in the fields outside of town, an angel appeared to shepherds watching their flocks.

This shepherd was astonished. 

Here's a close up of the sheep.

A stuffed wombat wearing a wig also made a cute sheep.

The shepherd hurried to the manger to see the baby Jesus.

Next came a wise man, bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gibson was very busy with costume changes.

This is the photo we'll put in our nativity photo collection. It was a fun presentation, yet still captured the wonder of the Christmas story.

It was Sofi's turn to place baby Jesus in the manger.

Abe swaddled Gibson in a blanket, nice and cozy.

Next it was time for dessert.

We continued our tradition of sleeping under the Christmas tree. This could be a tradition we have outgrown. Most of us weren't very comfortable. We're getting too old to sleep on the floor.

After a restless night, we slept in Christmas morning. We started the day unwrapping presents.

Sofi gave Abe, Helen and Gibson giant sweatshirts, perfect for relaxing in (or for doing online school).

Then we had a breakfast feast of ebelskivers.

We spent the day quietly, talking to family far away, playing games together and watching movies. Abe and Gibson assembled the Hogwarts lego castle that the Hatches gave us.

We have a lot to look forward to-- our quarantine has ended. Sofi is staying for 2 more weeks and the kids still have a week of break left. Here's a final look at our advent tree to remind us of the true gifts of Christmas, including the hope, peace, joy and love we feel from Jesus Christ.

20 December 2020

Sofi started feeling sick last Saturday and went to Urgent Care Monday morning for a corona virus test. She got the results that it was positive on Tuesday afternoon. Since then, she has been isolating in the library and downstairs bathroom from the rest of us. Sofi's friend, Emma, came home with her, intending to stay a week before flying home for Christmas. Now the rest of our family is quarantining, staying home and wearing masks. We hope not to catch the corona virus ourselves and definitely do not want to pass it on to others outside of our family. Emma can't fly until she has finished her quarantine so she changed her return ticket until next week. This week ended up very differently than we expected. In this photo, Helen is working on homework, while Emma sits in the hallway and talks to Sofi in the library.

Emma is a pre-pharmacy major and helped Abe with his chemistry homework.

Ashton's mom, Tiffany, bought these boys matching shirts for Christmas. Since Abe couldn't join them for a photo, they face timed him and put a phone on top of a shirt for a group photo. From the left are Abe, Spencer, Malakai, Abe's head, Camden and Jake.

We decorated cookies on Wednesday while watching a Christmas movie.

Gibson decorated a koala cookie with silver sugar sprinkles.

Helen made a herd of elegant reindeer.

On several evenings the kids have joined with Emma and Sofi's friends back in Utah to play games on zoom.

We had groceries delivered from Fred Meyer on Saturday. This was our first time ordering groceries online and although we prefer to pick out our own items, we were thankful the option for delivery existed while we are quarantining.

Emma loves the show Avatar: The Last Airbender and invited our kids to watch it with her. They started watching the show on Monday and finished it Saturday morning. Then they immediately started the sequel, The Legend of Korra. Now they have a goal to finish this series before Emma leaves on Tuesday afternoon. It's an ambitious goal, but will give them a project to work on for the last few days of quarantine.

13 December 2020

The second trimester of school started on Monday. About a quarter of high school students failed their classes in the first trimester, mainly because students didn't show up to online classes, so the high school decided to mix up the schedule with the goal of greater student engagement. While we support helping kids succeed in school, the resulting schedule is even more complicated than the schedule last trimester. This new poster on our fridge has been essential to keeping all the classes straight.  

For family night on Monday, Helen drew this poster and the rest of us helped her color it. We wrote a note of appreciation on the back and took it to two of our wonderful neighbors.

We have a Christmas village set up in our library.

Bigfoot, the master of social distancing and Oregon's unofficial mascot, lurks in the greenery.

Unless he's stomping across the stores on Main Street. Moving Bigfoot has become a new Christmas pastime. So far, we haven't found him in the nativity.

Becky had finals this week in her Geometry and Analysis classes. Listening to Christmas music and drinking cocoa is not a bad way to study! She's finished with school now until January.

On Tuesday, Helen and Becky dropped up some cookies (individually packaged to meet covid guidelines) along with our thanks to the emergency department at the hospital. The hospital staff is exhausted-- physically, mentally and emotionally, and if we're honest about it, we're probably halfway through this pandemic. We still have a long way to go.

The boys finished the tables they started at Craterworks by attaching the white board tops. The pine they were using to build the table legs tends to split so the shop master is going to source different materials before they build any more.

Since it didn't take long to attach the tabletops, Nathan helped the boys find their own projects to work on. Gibson wanted to cut out a stencil to paint a design on the longboard he built this summer. He designed the pineapple on Adobe Illustrator and then used a laser cutter to cut the stencil out of foam board. This is a photo of the laser cutter at work cutting out his design.

The finished stencil is very precise with crisp lines.

Sofi is home for a month! We were all excited to see her, but Gibson had an especially big grin now that he is taller than Sofi. Sofi now has the honor of being the shortest sibling. Sofi's friend, Emma, is visiting as well and will be here until Friday.