Living on the Edge

The international missionaries started coming home early in herds.

Aaron, our neighbor, was pretty close to being done with his mission in Chile.
Miche decked the outside of their home so cute for him.

He had to be quarantined inside for 2 weeks so here is a picture 

of the neighbors welcoming him home from the kitchen window!

I felt like we were at the zoo for a second.

The next week we heard Craig was getting sent home after a whooping
 2 weeks in Honduras. 

He was a on a 2 week quarantine as well so 

parade #4 it was!

That lasted a whole day before we were out front of my parents house

eating Neds Krazy Sub and Craig right in the mix.

We are such rebels, lol!

While the kids played we talked about the latest big tv hit,
Tiger King on Netlfix.

If you know, you know!

And the children's side walk chalk art depict our current situation.

Sweet, Mrs. Griner. 

Deserves best school teacher award.

She drove to each one of her students houses and dropped off a special

treat. She truly was dying that she couldn't be in her classroom teaching her class.
Above and beyond I tell you!

Almost every single thing you could possibly do in doors and even outdoors

was closed. So ridiculous. Do they want us to sit inside our houses and rot? 

Welp, I guess we were living on the edge because I wan't having any of it!

Neither was Stephanie.

Glad to have a partner in crime!

We found that hieroglyphics trail head was still open!

Let me preface, I have never taken my children on a hike.

Ever.

It's not my thing.
 But desperate times calls  for desperate measures.

Luckily most of my kids are old enough to handle it.
Della... well.

She caught on pretty quick she doesn't enjoy hiking.

I ended up carrying her to the top.

AND back down to the car.

Good think it was an easy hike!

I got to volunteer at a blood drive at our stake center.

This mask lasted a whole selfie and then it was off!
I checked everyone in on a lap top when they walked in.

I was happy to see all the appointment slots were full for the day!

Even though normal tumbling classes were canceled for the year,

you could do private lessons.

We took advantage of some 1 on 1 time.

We planned a day to the river with Leah!

The parking lot may have been cautioned taped off

saying  NO ENTRANCE or river access due to covid.

Meh.

Hurry, crawl under kids!!

I swear, moms gone wild!

We found a big dirt pull off where we could park our cars.

Leah walked with the big kids while I dropped off Stephanie, Della, Tanner and

all our bags. 

I drove back, parked and walked down to where we camped for the day.

It was a glorious day in the sun!

And no crowds:)

We got a little nervous when we heard a loud humming noise coming from down stream.

Sure enough, it was a sheriff air boat!!

Agh! 

We pretended like we hadn't just trespassed. 

Going about our merry day.

They flew right by us without batting an eye.

Bless you river rangers!

Rusty found an old fishing line with a rusted hook.

He was fly fishing a good hour.

6 feet apart!

 

Lots More Birthdays!

One of our favorite next door neighbor friends, Amber,  had a birthday.

Kids were itching to get out of the house, so it was a great excuse to round up the troops 
and find a park to hang out at!

We picked up In-N-Out on our way to a new HUGE park out in San Tan.

We pulled up and had the place to ourselves!

We were also pleasantly surprised the splash pad water was on.
Most places didn't have water running.
And it was most appreciated because it was getting toasty out!

No swimming suits?
No problemo!

Della was even striped down to her undies. 

To top the day off we hit up Bahama Bucks on the way home!

Della looks up to Amber like a big sister.
She would follow her around all day if we let her.

Parades became all the rage for birthdays since there weren't that many options
to be around people on your special day!

This meme made me LOL!
We added our fair share of parade data to the statistics. 

Parade #1
Happy Birthday Grammy!

We all gathered in front of Jesse's house and 
caravanned over to surprise Grammy on her special day!

She was truly surprised and it was so fun to see her excitement. 

We got out and did a fun dance with streamers.

Parade #2
Happy FIRST Birthday Madeline!

This was after we drove by.
So much for social distancing! 
But good thing we did because while we were congregating on the front
lawn, we heard the ice cream truck!

We were kind of far down the street, but when he caught glimpse of us he 
 came bolting has fast as that little make shift truck could go!

 I don't think he had that much business in one sitting
for a long time!

 Parade #3
Happy Birthday Grandpa!

We did a fun b-day jiggity jig Stephanie choreographed. 

Birthday with an uninvited guest

Miss Lindi Lou had a birthday and turned SEVEN years old!

The uninvited party guest, cough corona virus, put a damper on
normal celebrations. 

Thankfully I did not have a big hoopla of a party lined out this year.

(We do every other year for parties).
With every store closing under the sun, it would have gotten canceled for sure!

Plus, I had no idea where parents stood as far as quarantining was concerned.

Some were extreme, some not so much.
Us, definitely not so much!

But we were planning to go do something fun for our big 7 year old.

How were we going to celebrate this girl?

She got a knock on the door early in the morning from Grandpa 
bearing a box of Bosa donuts!

Nothing says happy birthday more than donuts for breakfast!

It is always so hard staring at your presents all day, waiting for dad to get home 
from work so you can open them!

It was her lucky day, because aunt Stephanie invited her over for a
birthday TEA PARTY!!
Seriously, I could have cried.
She saved the day and made her feel SO SPECIAL!!

How cute are they?!

I asked how I could help.
Nope, I got it!
Stephanie even baked cupcakes for her.
I'm telling ya, Stephanie is Monica from Friends!

She came home feeling all fancy and fine from her tea party ready to open presents!

One more blow of  7 candles.

I hope she wished covid- 19 away!

 

Corona is the WORST!

With Spring break nearing to an end, and our future under some BIG uncertainty,

we went out to dinner early to celebrate Lindi's birthday!

She picked Organ Stop Pizza!
Normally we would cringe because her birthday is at the tail
of the snow bird season.

I don't know why that place is a magnet for crowds and old people?

But with talk of a deadly virus, the high riskers stayed in their mobil trailers, 
which made the restaurant half as busy as it normally is. Holla!

And a stop at DQ for dessert.
Bonus that is was bogo week!

Our freezer confirmed that:)

Then it happened.
School was officially cancelled. 

TEARS!!!

For 2 weeks. To stop the spread and help the curve.

Not just schools. Restaurants, gyms, hair salons, DENTIST
offices (most mind boggling one to me). Pretty much all non essential 

business. Either they were sent home to work, or shut down.
No sports for the kids.

Our filled to the brim days were suddenly canceled.
Zilch. Gone. Nada. 
Uh, now what do we do?

Arizona was put on a social distancing mandate.
Stay 6 ft away from others, and no more than 10 people in a group.

We were lucky, because other parts of the US were on worse lock downs.

It was like we were living in the twilight zone. 
Luckily Casey was able to keep working like normal. 

My brother in law, who is a dentist, had to shut down his office.

And was asked to DONATE all of his medical masks and gloves to the

"over run" hospitals. 

Umm, those cost a lot of money.

This is when it became more political to me.

I had a gut feeling this was going to be WAY longer than a 2 week hiatus. 

News around the world was that Italy and China had their citizens in

a literal lock down in their own homes.

Prisoners! 

Only one person could leave at a time to get essential items. 

I could not fathom that. 

As we were wrapping our brains around this pandemic that seemed to happen over

night, I think the only way to cope was by humor. 

Then the memes started pouring in.
Sadly, they are spot on!

While the schools scrambled to get together a plan for these poor kiddos,
I improvised as best as possible with printed off worksheets. 

Lets just say, home school is for the birds.

I think it got real for me when food was sparse on the grocery store shelves.
Every store looked ravished. 
Lines out the door to get into Costco, with literally NO toilet paper,
and other normal heavily stocked perishables.

It was as if we were living in the Hunger Games book. 

We went to Grammy's house to help her
with yard work.

Rusty and Dallin went to work with Casey.

Tinkering around out front.

Luckily we still had good weather in our favor.

The world was in the mode of shamming for being outside of your house,
or being around people.

Not us!
WE WERE NOT FEARFUL.
In fact, we were the complete opposite.
I could go on and on about this, but I wont.
For now:)

Stephanie, Leah and I were already losing our ever loving minds.
We would scour the internet looking for places that were still open.

In Come Follow Me, our lesson for the week was about the Allegory
of the Olive Tree.
I had always wanted to go out to Queen Creek
 olive mill to take a tour.
I called and sure enough, the were still open!!
They had to limit groups to only 10 because of the new rule.
We had 12, but since we were family they made an exception. 

I think it felt like going to Disneyland.
I will support any business fighting tooth and nail to stay open.
A normal activity felt so refreshing.

We ate lunch first.
I have never had such  delicious food!
Everything from the kids chicken fingers, to potato chips was 
made from scratch!
The atmosphere was so quaint and inviting as well.

Then we had our tour!
I think the kids normally would have been bored about olives,
but we had been talking quite a bit about them so it peeked their interest!

Plus, our guide was a hoot.
She was extra animated for the kids sake.

In fact, she reminded me of the girl on Mean Girls,

" I saw Cady Heron wearing army pants and flip flops, so I 
bought army pants and flip flops".

LOL! Bless her heart. 

We survived our first week of quarantine.

I think this is how the whole world was feeling about it.