29 March 2020

Last Sunday we decorated the sidewalk in front of our house with sidewalk chalk.  Until the rain washed the chalk away, it was a fun way to reach out to our neighbors while keeping our distance.  Our postal carrier even took photos of our sidewalk.  Other neighbors have also left messages outside ranging from "Peace be unto you" to "Wash your hands!" 

We had such a good time that I am posting photos of all 15 sidewalk squares in front of our house.

We barely left our house this week, except for Brandan who worked a normal schedule.  The grocery store put tape lines on the ground to remind people to stay 6 feet away from each other.

The bulk food bins were empty to reduce the risk of transmitting disease.  The food that is normally in the bins is unwrapped. 

All of our city parks are closed which further limited our activities.  We can still go outside.  Oregon is just trying to discourage people from gathering together.

This week was our spring break.  With plenty of time and no place to go, Abe and Helen painted their bedrooms.  Abe shares a room with Gibson, but Gib did not participate in the painting.

Helen had lots of trim to mask off and paint around carefully.  Abe finished on Wednesday and Helen finished Saturday night.  We still need to move some furniture back in and hang some pictures.

They needed more activities than painting all week.  Abe and Helen have both been spending time cooking.  Abe made this apple pie.

Helen made homemade macaroni and cheese.

We subscribed to Netfilx, Disney+ and Hulu to give our kids more options of things to do at home.  Abe has been watching the TV show Stranger Things and Gibson has been watching Merlin.

Helen is watching Hart of Dixie.

Abe tried ordering a light online to replace a broken light on his car.  However, he got the driver's side light instead of the passenger side that he needed.  He'll send it back and try again.

Gibson tried learning how to turn clay on the pottery wheel.  It takes more than one afternoon to learn how.  If our stay-at-home guidelines continue, he should have plenty of time.

Gibson's birthday was Thursday!  He is 13 years old.  We had crepes for breakfast.  This is Gibson's masterpiece of nutella, raspberries and whipped cream. 

 And he had a giant ice cream sandwich for dessert.  Even though we had to cancel his friend party and stay home all day, Gib had a good day thanks to the kindness of family and friends.

Music lessons are moving ahead despite the virus.  This is a photo of Abe having a Skype lesson with his piano teacher, Michele, who you can see on his phone.  Abe propped his phone so Michele could see his hands as he played.  It's definitely not as good as a lesson in person, but it helps keep the kids practicing and is better than nothing.

 On Friday, we met two other families for a hike.  It's hard to keep kids 6 feet apart when they are together, but it was a great mental and physical health break for everyone, kids and adults.  All of these boys have March birthdays so it was a bit of a celebration.  Gib and Eddy's birthdays are on the 26th, Jason's is on the 11th and Sam's is on the 25th.

 Gibson sliced his leg on a fence screw so our hike ended with a visit to Brandan's office.  Brandan's clinic is reserved for people without respiratory symptoms right now and they discourage patients from coming in at all if they can avoid it.  People who have symptoms of Covid-19 are diverted to another clinic.  The clinic was very quiet when we arrived.  Brandan cleaned Gib's wound and patched him up with a few steri strips. 

22 March 2020

We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary on Tuesday.  Because of the restrictions due to the corona virus and common sense, our plans for celebrating kept contracting until we decided on a hike.  The best part of celebrating 25 years of marriage is remembering our marriage is eternal and we've only just begun! 

We hiked through a forest of manzanita trees.  We love the weirdly twisting trunks with purple bark.

Becky finished her winter term on Wednesday.  This is her poster for memorizing and sorting groups for abstract algebra.  To put this in perspective, the grey circle labeled "rings" represents a small amount of the possible mathematical groups.  The real numbers that we use everyday are contained in half of the purple oval in the center of the poster.  There is no end to math.

On Thursday, Becky set math aside for spring break and started catching up on other things.  We called the missionaries to see if they needed anything.  They said toilet paper and paper towels!  They had been to the grocery store several times since the crisis began and the shelves for toilet paper have always been empty.  We were fortunate to arrive at the store shortly after the shelves were restocked.  With the store limiting purchases to one paper product, we decided toilet paper was a higher priority than paper towels.

Helen's YW leader challenged the girls to memorize the new YW theme with their extra time.  Helen was inspired by another example to create a watercolor of the theme.

Here is her finished artwork.  She was going to hang it in her bathroom and use it to memorize the theme, but her YW leader asked to buy it from her.  So she's going to make herself another painting.

We are blessed to live in a rural area with easy access to the outdoors.  It's pretty easy to get outside and feel like we are still keeping our distance from other people.  On Friday we hiked Upper Tablerock.

We've had to cancel a lot of our plans for spring break, so we made some new ones.  We're going to repaint the kids' bedrooms.  Heres are some before photos.  This is Helen's room.  I asked her if she wanted to tidy up before I took the photo, but she felt that a messy before photo would make the after photos more impressive.

Here is Abe and Gibson's room.  

Here are the paint colors they have selected.  Helen is using the grey and green on the left.  The boys chose the blue on the right.

Abe prepped his room on Saturday, including filling nail holes.  Hopefully we can post the after photos next Sunday.

Brandan's family met together on Zoom Saturday morning.  Zoom is on online video conferencing app that is super easy to use and free.  Everyone can see and hear each other.  We loved catching up with all of Brandan's siblings.  Dan even joined the conversation from Spain.  Although most senior missionaries serving in Europe have been sent home, Dan and Martha are staying so Martha can serve the mission as a nurse.  However all of their work gathering family history records has stopped due to the virus. 

We went for another hike Saturday afternoon, this time to Lower Tablerock.  The pools of water on top of Tablerock were full of tadpoles.

 Here's the view from the top.

We enjoyed a picnic dinner on top before heading back home.  

15 March 2020

Our family went to the temple Friday night to do baptisms.  We felt so blessed to be able to go to the temple before it closed because of the corona virus.

We're adjusting to social distancing.  All of the kids' school and activities have been canceled.  Brandan still has work and Becky has school for another week.  Today we had our family sacrament meeting and Come Follow Me and then we went to a park for the afternoon.

Here are Abe and Gibson in the Japanese garden.

 Here's Helen at the entrance.

While away at the state DECA competition, Abe and 4 friends bought a beta fish together.  They named the fish Fuego Hulburtsalott Tringle and each of the friends take care of the fish for a week at a time.  Abe cleaned the fish bowl tonight.