Quick Decisions

I can't remember much of last week before Tuesday. On Tuesday the airlines cancelled our flights to the USA and by the Wednesday we had them rebooked for Sunday night. The house buzzed with summer preparations, finishing kindergarten, packing, moving Sam and Celeste into our house and general chaos.  The mostly empty flights were a breeze, everyone stretched out and slept a good portion of the long flight.

Now that we're here, Mary and Abe will continue to attend classes in the evenings and late nights until school is officially out on June 5th. We are in a quasi-quarantine situation- avoiding people but able to go outside and play or exercise. It feels so good to be outside! After almost 3 months of staying home and sometimes exercising solo we are all enjoying the mountain. I love walking with Dan and the children. I also love that the children are so tired when they go to bed- bonus, I only need to wait a few minutes for them to be asleep. 

We have a small renovation project in process at the cabin. The decks have been rotting away and I hope the new pavers are in soon. Demolition doesn't take very long. Tearing out the old decks took less than a day, and now its taking days of hard labor to level and grade, pour new footings, lay new ground cover and pavers. There's a bit of an analogy here. 

Funny things overheard:

Maeser, "I don't have any more long sleeve pants."

Moses stargazing at 3am, "The moon stays in Singapore. It doesn't come to our cabin."

And this conversation was on my birthday.

On that morning Moses and Ransom played (illegally) at Julie's. They hadn't seen each other in two months during social distancing and circuit breaker. Julie filmed Ransom as Moses walked up to the door and they were both ecstatic.

"You're back! Did you have fun at Ransom's house?"

"Yes! His familwy learned him stuff."

"Oh, really? What did he learn."

Moses, "Legos... How to pway nice. Can I go back?"

His famiwy learned him stuff. What? I love this! What have I learned from my family in during this period of time? Is my growth as obvious as Ransom's, I doubt it, but I hope it's there nonetheless. What an opportunity this is.

We've settled into our cabin and put things in their places. After not being here for two years, it seems like home and yet seems like a lot of things are misplaced- obviously because we rented it out to strangers. Most of the time, changes are insignificant, but I did notice that guests had carved initials into trees. That made me a little sad. Overall, we have loved loved being here and can't wait to see family.

MAY-be

Spencer and Caitlin welcomed a new baby into their home this week. Caitlin and Brooklyn are oding very well. Seeing tiny babies reminds me that my tinies aren't so small anymore.

All 5 of them are in the pool, Moses is such a good swimmer and DIVER! When did I hit the sweet spot of not worrying about my children in the pool! If that isn't an indication of growing out of the baby phase, I don't know what is.

We are experiencing social distancing at it's finest:

• Our kitchen is a food science lab. All kinds of recipes and new versions of food. LC and KETO are popular. Dallin's additions are delicious. I think he has yet to fail one of his experiments. He put bran muffin batter in the waffle maker yesterday. Who knew "bran muffins as waffles" should have been discovered decades ago.
• Swimming every afternoon. We are one of the few that get sun and exercise all in one wet packaged deal.
• We hit school hard every morning and aim to finish by lunchtime. Abe and Mary usually finish by 2 and 3 respectively. (3 weeks left OR 13 days OR 2 weekends... take your pick.)
• As I write, our flights have been cancelled for UT... working on contingency plans.

COVID-19 reading:

Dan- War and Peace, Our Oriental Origins and Age of Napoleon

Amy- The Power of Stillness, Influence

Mary- Harry Potter (Audible Version, she's wears head phones whenever she isn't in class. To deter the additional social distancing, we require her to be folding laundry or washing dishes when listening.)

Abe- The Great Brain Series

Maeser- Wings of Fire, Skinny Bones

Scout- Elephant and Piggie

Moses- Animal Encyclopedia

LC Base Waffle made into an MLT (Mutton, Lettuce and Tomato)

What circuit breaker looks like.

Selfies by Scout

May 11, 2020

This week's updates:

The power of bribery. Momo is earning Orbies (water beads) whenever he successfully uses the bathroom. 

"Mom, I'm done. Mooooomm!"

"Hey, Bud."

"Mom, I went invisible pooh. Can I have Orbies?"

"You can have invisible Orbies."

*I imagine I'm funny, but gets Dan credit for the comeback.

Graduated from KETO to a full blown sourdough bakery. Having a sourdough starter means a lot of baking and a lot of eating. We've tried sourdough waffles, biscuits, cobbler, pancakes, liege waffles and bread. Next batch, pizza.

19 more days of school!

OR 3 weekends until school's out!

Lots of chess games with cousins and grandpa in Utah/Switzerland. We're on a losing streak. 

Le Pétit Chef (Dallin) has introduced homemade ricotta and hand turned pasta to our table. I'm so thankful he has impeccable taste and has invested a lot of time and resources into his culinary art.

Scout to Moses when fighting over a toy, "Moses, you have to say purple unicorn!" As if he knew all the obscure rules of the game.

Highlights

Dan and I finished our KETO fast on Thursday. Dan, Dallin and I all got food poisoning on Friday.

"My tomingo is outside!" Ok, I'll get it... after giving up my search. I returned empty handed. "That's ok, I'll go get it." Returns with Scout's Pink Flamingo.

Sunday baking- Dan made sourdough bread, Abe and Dan have been working with the starter from Caitlin and Spencer. It's delicious. Sour dough waffles or bread have been on the menu daily. We made homemade cookies and ate them with American Tillimook Ice Cream (This quarantine brings the oddest things to the grocery shelves.) 

It was lovely to see everyone sitting in their living rooms for our Virtual Fast and Testimony Meeting through Zoom. It was also amazing that for the one testimony meeting that we can mute our children they sat very reverently and listened.

Maeser threw up immediately after breaking his fast on Sunday afternoon. Not sure if it was a low blood sugar thing or the fact that he inhaled two chicken enchiladas.

iphone Alarm Schedule Tuesday:

1- 8:00 Scout Zoom

2- 8:00 Abe PE

3- 8:30 Abe Chinese

4- 8:30 Maeser Chinese

5- 9:00 Maeser Zoom

6- 9:30 Abe Zoom

7- 10:30 Scout Chinese

8- 12:30 Scout Breakout

9- No idea, I turned off my phone.

This is an improvement to last week's schedule as I just learned you can label your alarms... prior to this, an alarm would go off and I couldn't remember what it was ringing for! 

Moses is struggling to get to the toilet in time, not sure if its because he's too busy playing or that we tried to teach him to clean himself (he's 4) and he's not a fan. Unfortunately for both of us, I've used bribery, praise, anger and shame to try and help him remember to stop playing and go. When we were playing match-it, he jumped up and ran to the bathroom yelling, "Mom, I have to go to the potty and it's pooh and I want you to wipe me!" A few minutes later while I'm helping him he declared, "I'm proud of me!"

"I need more practice eating ice cream." -Maeser

Mary signed up for her last year of classes in middle school, while Abe signed up for his first year of middle school. Abe, "I'm not interested in any of those electives. Please just sign me up for another language or math."

Spencer passed his board review!

Moses, "Mom, does your 'komputer know everything?" 

Moses walking with hands clasped behind his back, "I washed my hands with soap."

"Great, can I smell them."

"Actually, I forgot soap."