Interrupting Quarantines

I wanted to update this blog and you would think I could have done it by now.  I have only chronicled up to September of last year. But instead we are interrupting this regularly scheduled procrastination session to let you know about all the current happenings.

WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC AND THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES IS QUARANTINED! (NOT TO MENTION MOST OF THE WORLD!)

So whew, yeah- it's crazy out there.  It's not the zombie apocalypse yet, thank goodness, but we did see a guy taking a walk with his family carrying a rather large wrench!  Toilet paper- gone (we have enough to get us through the end of the year, however, because we are LDS.  Come on, we prepare!) Hand sanitizer- gone (we have lots of little bottles from Christmas when we bought out Bath and Body works), Clorox wipes- gone (we have a few stashed away), at one point meat, eggs and bread were gone too, Vitamin C- can't find it under $30 a small bottle, bleach- gone, hydrogen peroxide- gone, rubbing alcohol- gone, N95 mask that we need in the hospital- severe shortage, ventilators in the hospital- supply is strained, anything we need in the hospitals- severely strained.  People be crazy!

The culprit- a little virus that goes by the name of Covid-19.  I had my first known (that I know) positive case on Sunday.  He is currently in the ICU on a ventilator.  Hopefully my mask and goggles and gloves did their jobs.  The peak of the infection is supposed to hit in 2 weeks time so I am sure there will be more to come.

My team one day.  You can't tell who anyone is because we are all in blue scrubs and have masks on.    It gets pretty confusing some days.  There is a doctor, 2 techs, our secretary and 6 nurses in this picture.  We have been training the floor nurses in case we need them to come down and start helping in the ED.  The two that came down this day did super well!

Since the culprit is highly contagious everyone has been told to stay at home unless they are "essential personnel."  I am essential.  Rob stays at home and works from here.  All stores and restaurants are closed except grocery stores and take-out or drive-thrus.  Schools are closed and will not reopen for the rest of the year.  The boys will start online school in a couple weeks.  This week is officially spring break.  The poor seniors won't get a graduation ceremony or Prom or anything.  Church is at home.  We have had some really good discussions.  

Sam's girlfriend, Yvette, has been joining us for our church at home.  This is her drawing of Jacob 5.

The church was preparing us for this time for the last half a year when they went to 2 hour church and wanted us to have our own discussions at home with the Come Follow Me program.  

Life has slowed wayyyy down. 

Some of things we have been doing to pass the time:

After living in one place for almost 4 years, I was getting agitated with all the mess and the piles of stuff we don't use.  Until now, I have to go through that every 3 years as we move.  So we have been moving slowly through a deep clean of the house.  Currently we have these two closets done, the boys closets and chest of drawers, the baseboards, vents, yard, and game closet cleaned out.

We have done a little bit of homework.  The boys are going through an easy Sudoku puzzle in this picture for their math.

I made a mask, for just in case.  It's not nearly as beautiful as all the ones being made by tons of people to hand out to EMS, grocery store workers, Postal workers, etc.

I helped a local business.  They had to bring all their inventory home, so now they can only sell online.  It was a win-win situation, especially since they delivered straight to my door!

Lots of relaxing time is going on.  Doesn't this water look eerie?  It turned that color from one of the bath bombs Emma gave me for Christmas.

We take a walk every day.  We call it "our constitution."  The dog is especially grateful after a long winter when I refused to take a walk. Long being a relative term, because this is the desert so December through February.

We made a golf target with an amazon box and played each other to 200 points.  The biggest hole at the far end was negative 10 points, so Rob was winning, but then ended up not.

Yvette and Joseph won instead.

We also played a game of greed that night.  Sam won- we never did finish that game.

Max still has piano lessons- just virtually.

We try to go play tennis most days too.   And then there is the mind numbing hours we are on our phones and playing games on the playstation.  There is plenty of that happening!  And the amount of times someone wants to eat!  Why do they eat soooo  much food?  Rob always wants it cooked too.  Can't we just eat a salad or a peanut butter sandwich?  Nope.  Exercise, exercise, exercise.  It's the only thing that is going to save me.  Good thing we have a treadmill and weights, since all the gyms are closed!

Some of my favorite things right now: 

My gym- when it's open.  Love Chuze gym and their team training.  

Don't Miss This on Youtube and dontmissthisstudy on Instagram.  Love the way they teach and the points they bring out in the Book of Mormon

comefollowmestudy on instagram.  Great thought for the day 

Bedsideroundz and eddyjoemd and zdoggmd on instagram.  I learn something medical most days from these three.  

the Babylon Bee- best satyrical website ever.

codebluememes on instagram.  Nursing humor at it's best.  You won't get most of these or appreciate them at all if you aren't a nurse.

Mental Floss on the web or on instagram.  Fun facts.  I used to love their magazine when they put one out. 

My new car.  I love it!

It's a John Cooper Works Mini Countrymen.  It actually has tons of room in the back for the boys and it has 300 horse power.  I have already gotten my first ticket in it.  It's so zippy and fun!

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (We actually just finished it.)

Schitt's Creek on Netflix.  I kept getting it recommended to me, but I wouldn't watch it, because of the name.  I finally broke down and tried it.  I love it.  There is some language and sexual content that a lot of my friends and family wouldn't enjoy, but I think it's witty and fun and heart warming at times.

Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist on Hulu.   Super heart warming, fun and great singing to boot!

Words with Friends 2 and Boggle on my phone.  Look me up if you want to play.

The rest of the Summer

And the rest of the summer...

We had Emma a little longer and loved having her down with us.  We played games

 Who's the Dalmuti now?

 Celebrated Sam's birthday

 And made some fun Independence day cookies before she had to leave again. 

We got toilet papered

 And Max went to scout camp

 Joe became legal!

 Don't worry-he didn't just get Hostess cupcakes for his birthday.  I also made him this cool death by chocolate cake which was super yummy!

 And we celebrated Angus's birthday!

 And that's all folks!  

Now it's time to get back to school!

Max 7th, Joe 10th

 Sam 13th- College- for this one!  In the summer they made all the freshman come down and do an overnighter.  They showed them around campus and had talks and presentations.  They set them up with a councilor that talked to them about what they wanted to major in and then set them up with the classes and the schedules they would need to keep for the years ahead to get that degree.  They also had Sam do some testing and got him enrolled with the honors college.  He skipped ahead in math and went to the honors Chemistry.  

Emma was finishing up her 16th year- 13 hours away, so no picture of her!

They are all getting so big!!

Essentials of Christmas

Essential parts of our Christmas season:

1. Two trees- one with Mom and Dad's wedding ornaments and carefully picked out ornaments that match and another with homemade, silly and fun gifted ornaments.  Can you tell which one this is?

 2.  Celebration of St. Nicholas day.  He comes on the night of the 5th and fills your shoe with wonderful stuff.  

3.  Yummy treats- super essential!

 This one was made by a nurse in my ED.  Super cute and yummy

 This one was made by me!  This was my first year of success with old fashioned fudge.  I got some awesome pointers from our fabulous cook, Carolyn, and it finally worked out.  Who knew the secret was to not stir it?

4.  Cuteness in all it's many forms.  Poor puppy!

5. The reading of and acting out of the First Nativity.  Emma is usually Mary and Joseph is usually Joseph, but it has varied.  Our sheep has run off at this point.

6. Christmas morning round up.  They must all sit on the stairs and look pretty in the morning until I get a picture and start the video camera.  Yes it is always me, so you will never see me in the Christmas morning round up.  Aren't they so cute, even as big as they are?

Chicken Man to the Rescue!

Remember that demijohn I whined about and finally got.  Yep- it broke. 

 So what do you do when your demijohn from Italy breaks?  You go back to Italy and get another one, because it's only 7 hours away.  This time Emma came with me as well as a neighbor and her daughter- she actually drove.  We only hit a couple of pottery stores.  I found a few more dishes to go with the lace pattern ones, so that I could get a complete set.  We also got Emma some cute chicken salt and pepper shakers.  But our main objective was the Chicken man furniture store.  To get furniture? Of course not.  Do you remember why we came in the first place.  The chicken man had lots of these!

Chicken Man to the Rescue!  I bought 3 just to be safe.  I was moving soon, after all!

We also stopped by Verona and saw beautiful things, 

including the ever famous, but definitely fake, Juliet's Balcony. 

Emma bought shorts from the local Italian Fusball club and we got some pretty stones to make into jewelry.

 It was a fun mother-daughter whirlwind trip!

On our way back we stopped at an Austrian McDonald's!

Klondike Derby Time

One of the most fun things this ward does is participate in the Klondike derby in Kandersteg,
Switzerland.

Lots of families come down with the scouts and we all hang out while the scouts participate in all kinds of snow, survival and scouting exercises.  The boys took second this year.

We ended up in 2 different houses, because there just wasn't room enough for everyone that wanted to come.  We did all have dinner together and play games together at least once, however.  Every night we had kind of a potluck.  At least we ended up sharing our food with lots of scouts- as we were in the house with the scouts.  Luckily, I brought tons, since I figured that might happen.

When we pulled into town the first night, we were a little depressed.  There wasn't any snow!  It ended up snowing that night and the entire next day.  The scouts had 3 teams and 3 sleds that they used throughout the day.

We went out and watched for a little while.  We watched them have to find a baby in the snow and treat it's injuries.  The group before them had the baby all wrapped up in an emergency blanket and someone had taken off their coat and wrapped it around it.  Our boys, used a scarf to tie the baby to a shovel- as a backboard- and didn't do anything else in the way of hypothermia.  They ended up getting the same points.  Hmmm.  When the other group was done, they placed the baby back where it belonged.  Ours threw the baby with the shovel.

We also went walking downtown.  We had a wonderful talk with a lady all about languages and the festival that started that weekend.  They went around in old fashioned clothing and used old fashioned skates and sleds during the festival.
Sunday, we had a nice devotional and then went with a bunch of other to the ski hill to sled.  European sledding is crazy- steep, long with some hairpin turns.  Wipe outs are normal.  They recommend you wear a helmet.  We declined. You take the gondola up to the top of the hill and then you walk and sled and walk and sled until you get to the steep part that takes you all the way to the bottom.

Because of the new fallen snow, the powder showered us like crazy as we went down on the first run, freezing us to death.  We got some more gear and wrapped up tighter for the next run.  Just as we hit the steep hill part, there was a big back up of scouts in a tour group.  Some of them obviously weren't used to how steep it would be and somehow someone stopped in the middle of one of the steepest parts.  How you do that, I will never know.  But it caused our group to pile up on top of him.  One of the runners was up and I slammed right into it with my left leg.  That hurt a lot.  I ended up getting back on to my sled and made it to the bottom.  By then it was time for lunch, so we walked to our van and sat down to eat.  I decided to look at the leg.  Rob said, "no, don't look at it!"  I did anyways.  As soon as I pulled up my ski pants, I saw the blood seeping through.  Sure enough- I needed stitches.

We taped it together as well as we could.  I was determined to do more runs.  Sledding is just as expensive as skiing there, since you use the same lift.  But as soon as I got up, I almost fainted.  I tried several times to sit and then get up again and each time I almost fainted or threw up.  Finally, I let them take me back to the cabin.  We stopped at the scout hut and the doctor- one of the Laundstuhl doctors took a look.  He told me that I needed 4 stitches or if I didn't mind a scar- steri strips.  He was just leaving for a scout outing and wouldn't be back until 4:30 pm, so I chose the steri strips.  He gave me the supplies and I did it myself.  After that, I had to lie down for a good hour.  Joseph stopped sledding the same time as me.  He had gone off the side of a cliff once and over the sides of hills a couple of times.  Max and Sam quit soon after.  Sam never dresses warm enough, no matter how much we try to get him to.

Emma was the only one that got the whole 6 runs in with Rob.  It takes about an hour to complete each run, so you really can only get 6 done in a day.
We also celebrated Emma's and my birthday while we were there.  Emma is 19-1.

On the way home we stopped in Zurich for some fresh Lindt chocolate at the chocolate factory.

We enjoyed our trip, despite the injuries and cold.

Switzerland is a beautiful place!  We enjoyed our adopted son for the weekend, too.