Hello Sunshine!

We're still in the depths of home school - sadly with no end in sight. Kendal has gotten into a groove with school. She gets going on her own (mostly because she wants to begin her day emailing friends). She's also self motivated and goes through her lessons and subjects on her own. When / if she needs help she'll ask for guidance, but for the most part she's pretty self sufficient. We do have to motivate her to practice her piano and get her chores done after the fact. Peter has decent days and hard days with school. We have to push and prod him through each subject and lesson everyday. I know it's frustrating to do all of this, sit still, have what feels like endless lessons to do, and have school - friends - and a regular schedule taken away. I understand his attitude about it all, I just hope we can gain a more positive attitude about school, or the days go by quickly. Both kids love days that they get to video chat with their classes. Peter rambles on and wants to be silly with his classmates. Kendal loves talking to everyone and asking questions to everyone. The kids enjoy extra computer games (math games) after their school work is done, but I try to limit that since they're on the computer most of the day and they need outside time more. We don't hold out much hope that school will go back in session this school year, but it hasn't been ruled out just yet.

 

We've had Jemma less this past month. One of Sarah's two nursing jobs is shut down (surgery center) and the other dr's office has cut hours. Plus Terry is home a bit more because he can't see any patients just video conference with them. Alice and Jemma get along for the most part, but sharing certain toys can be hard sometimes. Jemma is now comfortable with Casey and enjoys the kids at home as well.

Living in an apartment during quarantine has added an extra element of stress and : (. Our downstairs neighbors already made life hard. . . they don't tolerate much from us or have patience with the kids. We had a smidge of hope when our neighbor switched to day shifts for a week, but he's back to night shifts - thus he sleeps during the day and we're supposed to be "quiet". Quiet and Quarantine may sound like they go together, they don't in this household. We're thankful for any sunny day we get so we can kick the kids outside and go for walks or to the school playground to play.

We dyed Easter eggs last Friday in preparation for Easter. It felt weird not doing the typical Easter hunts and family gatherings that we're used to. Casey's parents dropped by briefly to give us Easter goodies on Saturday morning; Mom D made us cookies and gave us some soda to enjoy this past week. She also gave us her sweet testimony of the Easter season. The weather wasn't great Saturday but we needed some time away. We gathered the kids, picked up stale fries and burgers from Arctic Circle and headed to Shoshone Falls. We ate in the car and watched the view from our seats. We briefly looked at the falls that were nice and full from the winter run off then we had the kids run the hills for a bit to burn some energy.

Easter morning the kids were up early looking for their baskets and eggs. They couldn't gather their eggs until they found their baskets. Alice's was under a blanket, Peter's was in the dress up, and Kendal's was in the cupboard above the fridge. Both Kendal and Peter took awhile to find their baskets. We knew we had all day at home so we let them sweat it out for awhile before we "helped" them find them. The Easter Bunny hid the eggs well and the kids searched for quite awhile. We had a nice easy morning and then got ready for the day. The kids each got a new book, swimsuit, and bubble bath for Easter. We had church later in the morning. It was a nice starting off Easter week with the Christ videos and going over his last week on earth, then on Sunday the significance of the resurrection. We were able to video chat with Casey's family in the early afternoon. Our audio gave us grief for a bit, but we were happy to see everyone nonetheless. We also got to skype my parents and Katherine.

The kids have enjoyed their bubble baths this past week!

I got to do a zoom activity with my Young Women this past Wednesday. Mostly I've been giving them challenges, ideas, lesson inspiration, and positive thoughts via messages. It was nice to see the girls and have a bit of fun doing a scavenger hunt and trivia games with them. Our Stake girls camp is officially canceled - another Covid side affect. We'll see what they end up doing instead and how our summer turns out church wise - especially with Peter's baptism in July.
We backed off a bit with school for Peter this past week, and decided he needed a project. So he and Casey are building a doll bed for the girls. Poor Alice smashed her finger hammering with the boys on Friday.
We knew yesterday was going to be a nice day so we wanted to get away again. We decided to do a hike to Pillar falls. It was a longer walk and a much steeper journey than anticipated, but the kids did great. We walked just over three miles going from the top of the canyon to the bottom and back again. I'm not going to lie, the last half mile felt like it was strait up and was hard on Casey and I. We made it though and enjoyed the time out with the kids. We ended up seeing Terry, Sarah and their crew for a few minutes at the top. We celebrated with a quick pizza pick up and ice cream for soda floats with the kids.

Today we had our home church in the morning. We had Kendal give a talk (aka read a story out of the Friend) and discussed this weeks lesson. After lunch we played tickets to ride while Alice napped. We went out this afternoon for a walk. Peter fell hard on his scooter so he and Casey went home to get patched up, and they came back and we few kites at the school. It was the first time we've gotten all three kites going well for a long while in the sky!! It was also the first time Alice flew a kite on her own. She even tried to take the kite on a walk.

We've enjoyed more movies with the kids lately. We've trying to watch movies the kids haven't seen. We've watched the new movie Onward (twice ; ), Shreak 1 and 2,  Sleeping Beauty, the Arisocats, Pocahontas, Fantasia, and an Elephant documentary. We've also let them have longer time on the wii once a week.
Lastly, Just a couple of porch pictures (a remembrance of the times and place we were at during Covid 19, - kind of like the porch pictures you see from the depression era.) Plus a few pictures for fun ; )