Bingo Date Night

Friday night was date night and we had fun going out with my sister Christy and her boyfriend Joe.  We meet at Goodnews Brewery in Defiance for bingo night.  It was a little strange for us to see people relaxed with covid precautions.  I feel like we are still staying pretty safe and not going to many things.  The places we do go we take as many precautions as we can.  People there that night seemed a little more relaxed then we were.  We would put our mask on when we could and we cleaned off our bingo droppers.  It was a cold snowy night but that didn't keep people home.  It was a full place and we had a lot of fun playing bingo.  We all came close to winning which would have been fun.  We enjoyed the pizza dinner and the company.  It has been a long time since we have been able to hang out with my sister so it was fun to chat while we played.  Also fun to be out with JJ, I always enjoy date night and playing bingo.    

 

Deacon's Quorum

Garrett turns twelve this year, we can't believe how fast he is growing up.  Last Sunday we did a zoom call with all the grandparents and JJ gave Garrett the Aaronic Priesthood.  It was special that they could all be with us virtually.  Sunday Garrett was able to pass the sacrament at church for the first time.  He was super nervous but he did a great job!  Since coming back to church the sacrament has changed.  You no longer hand the tray off and pass it down the row.  They use tongs and have to place bread in each individuals hand and not let the tongs touch peoples hands.  That is so tricky because the bread gets sticky and sometimes doesn't fall right into the persons hand.  Garrett had a few pieces fall on the floor which we assured him it was ok!  Now that he has done it once he isn't so nervous.  We told him to slow down and don't worry about dropping bread, if you do just give them another piece.  We are proud of Garrett and his worthiness to get the priesthood.  He is such a sweet boy and we sure love him!  

 

Saturday Sports

It has been a while since the kids have played any sports.  With Covid sports have been hit or miss lately.  I got an email about indoor soccer at the Renaud center and we signed the boys up.  It was done by the same coach that did Garrett's soccer in the fall.  It is some instruction and some scrimmage.  Our friends Ben and Becca also signed Vale up on Nolan's session so they play together.  They love it and were so excited to be with each other.  The coach plays a lot of fun learning games with the kids.  We said it was kind of like a school gym class.  We thought it was perfect since the boys don't really have gym class with virtual learning.  It is great for them to get moving and interacting with other kids.  They had a fun time and it was great to see them smiling as they played.  Lucy also returned to basketball.  We got her signed back up to play with the Northstars.  It was good for her to be back playing with her old team.  She played with the feeder Liberty team last year and we didn't love that experience.  It was fun to see Lucy have a comeback to playing after such a long break.  Since she broke her finger last year and then covid she hasn't played in almost a year.  She had such a big smile on her face as she made a layup and had some good passes.  I know after such a challenging year she was excited to play again.  It was a reminder to see her scar showing that she really has been through so much recently.  We are looking forward to watching and supporting the kids.  It has made our Saturday's busy but that is ok, we haven't been busy with these things in a long time.         

Jack

Our kids have wanted a dog for a very long time.  We have enjoyed putting this off by dog sitting for several families.  As Christmas approached the kids started asking more and more for a dog.  We told them that if they could fine a dog we could rescue we would get one.  There was no way we were going to spend a lot of money going through a breeder.  The Humane Society has some strict and strange changes with Covid.  If there was a dog we liked we could talk to someone over the phone about the dog and we would have to decide on that phone call if we wanted the dog.  If we wanted the dog we would have to purchase it on the spot and pick up curbside.  We didn't see that scenario working out for our family.  We wanted to be able to meet the dog and see how the dog interacted with our family.  Our neighbor is a foster home for a rescue and told us she would keep a look out for us.  She sent me a picture of a dog one night and told us he was a mix and had some hypoallergenic dog in him so he was very low shedding.  Since Garrett is allergic to dogs we knew we were taking a chance with a low shedding dog working out.  Our neighbor Carrie told us to fill out an application and she would make sure we would get on the top of the list.  The foster home that had Jack also had a few other puppies from the same home.  The foster home brought over the dogs for us to meet and we decided Jack was the sweetest dog.  We didn't think they were going to leave him with us that afternoon but they did.  Thankfully Carrie had a crate for us to have and we headed to the store for puppy supplies.  It was a rough few nights as he adjusted to our home.  He is only 12 weeks old so still a baby.  He loves to be by people and when he would cry at night he just wanted to be by us.  We want to make sure he gets crate trained and there was no way he was sleeping with any of us.  After two sleepless nights we moved his crate up to our loft.  He slept through the night that night.  It has been much better since then.  He is adjusting to our life here at home.  It is perfect that we are all home during the day so he always has someone with him.  He is doing well with potty training.  At first they told us he couldn't go outside since he hadn't had his vaccines.  When we called to schedule his next vet appointment they said since we don't have any other dogs and our yard is fenced we could take him out there.  He has done really well potty training and taking him outside is so much easier.  He loves to be outside!  He is so tiny right now and can fit through and under our fence.  He is the sweetest dog and loves to snuggle on your lap.  That was very important to us.  Our kids want to be able to snuggle up with the dog.  They love watching a movie and having him nap on the couch or snuggle up while they read.  Jack loves to follow the kids around and watch them play.  He often sleeps by the kids while they are doing their online schooling.  We have been very impressed by the kids helping out with the dog.  If he has an accident in the house they clean it up.  They know they are responsible for feeding and taking Jack out.  We are all loving Jack and it has been really fun having him in our family.  I know the kids are so happy to finally have a dog.  I hope they have such great memories of the joy sweet Jack will bring to our home.       

2 Month Post-Op

Lucy has hit the two month post-op mark in her recovery.  She is looking really good and feeling good too.  Her back is still healing and I can tell the stitches are still dissolving in some places.  I was able to speak with Andi our patient coordinator and get Lucy's next surgery all scheduled.  I also spoke with Dr. Siebert and got an idea of how everything will go. Our trip back up to Madison wont be nearly as long.  This surgery will be her first revision surgery.  They are all done with her back and wont do anything there.  They will be revising the skin on her face, rebuilding her nose and her lips.  We will only need to be up there for a few days.  He said he would find us a plastic surgeon here in St. Louis to take out her stitches and do her post-op appointment.  That will make our stay significantly shorter.  We are looking forward to it.  We hope all the insurance stress is easier this time around.  Hopefully all the hoops we jumped through laid some good ground work for things being smoother.  I am not sure I can handle the stress that put me through if it is another battle.  Ben and Becca took some new photos, these are our last post-op photos.  We will also use them as some pre-op photos for round two.     

Ice Skating

The youth in our ward kicked off the New Year with a fun ice skating activity.  Garrett turns 12 this May so he is now in the Deacons Quorum.  The kids are growing up so fast!  Garrett has never been ice skating before so he was a little nervous about his first youth activity being something new.  JJ went with them since he is over the Deacons so I was glad Garrett would have someone there to help him.  Garrett found out that he wasn't the only one that had never been skating.  Garrett got the hang of skating quickly and had a really fun time.  Lucy had a fun time too, she loves ice skating and was looking forward to going.  She had fun skating around with her friends.  I am glad they had such a fun time.  Garrett is excited to be in the youth program now and JJ is excited to be his leader. 

New Years

It is hard to imagine this long year is coming to an end.  Living through a pandemic sure makes time move in a different way.  It has been such a long year for so many people and for so many reasons.  For our family it has no doubt been a difficult year.  We like so many are ready to start a fresh new year and try to forget so much of what 2020 was and wasn't for so many reasons.  This whole year has brought stress into our lives like we have never experienced before.  We first faced challenges and uncertainties with our business.  Having to close the doors temporarily during the shut down was very scary.  While the office was closed we were able to spend time as a family like never before.  We played, relaxed and came together during that hard time.  It was very healing for our family and we made some great memories that I am so thankful we have.  We felt so blessed and grateful to receive the small business loan that saved our office.  I remember praying so hard for that and the tender mercies we saw during that time.  We don't ever want to forget our Heavenly Fathers hand in that situation.  Just as things with the office calmed down the diagnosis of sweet Lucy came.  This brought more new fear into our lives.  I remember crying for days and only finding comfort through a blessing JJ gave me.  The countless tender mercies, several fasts on her behalf, direct answers and revelation for our family will be something we will never forget.  There are many miracles we saw and experiences I have in my mind that will forever be with us.  They brought our family closer and we learned to lean on each other.  Her treatment this far has been successful and her healing remarkable.  We have hope that things will improve for her with time.  I know our Heavenly Father heard our prayers this year.  He was very aware of things our family needed and his timing in all of it is amazing.  So although many want to forget this year and put it behind them I don't.  I want to always remember these experiences that we hold dear.  I hope to grow from them and learn.  They have tried me in ways I didn't think I was strong enough to endure.  I know that no matter what 2021 holds for our family we can handle it, we can get through it together.  We are glad we were able to be together to celebrate New Years.  We made homemade pizza together and played our new USA Ticket to Ride game from the Wright family. Around 10 PM we went outside and did some sparklers.  We then started a movie and surprisingly we all stayed up until midnight.  That usually doesn't happen!  It was fun to wish each other a happy new year and climb into bed.                

Park Adventure

The day after Christmas we celebrated my Dad's birthday over zoom.  We all watched him open his gift and blow out his candle.  It was fun to visit with everyone again and hear about their Christmas.  We had our Christmas zoom with my family on Christmas Eve.  After our birthday zoom we headed to work some more on our local parks geocaching activity.  We had a few more parks to visit and try to find the container with the letter.  We decided to visit as many as we could and try to finish it.  We didn't have very good luck.  We visited five parks and only found the containers at two of the parks.  The last park we went to was the new Veterans Memorial park.  It was a cool park with a fun playground.  We let the kids play there for a little while until it got to dark.  We decided to use a gift card given to us for Christmas to go out to eat.  It was nice to sit down in a restaurant and eat together.  The waitress told us we were her only table today.  They had lots of carry out orders but we were the only ones to dine in.  It was a fun day and despite our bad luck with finding the hidden containers we enjoyed getting out.  We enjoyed a lot of relaxing over Christmas but getting out and enjoying some fresh air was nice.     

Christmas Day

Christmas morning we all were able to sleep in until 7:30, that is when we told the kids we would all go downstairs.  They were all so excited, especially Nolan couldn't wait to see what Santa brought him.  Santa brought the kids some pillows they can put in their beds to learn against and read, they also all got memo boards where they can change the letters to say different things.  We all got lots of candy and as usually Santa brought us an orange.  We looked through our stockings and then ate breakfast together.  Our neighbor Carrie brought us homemade cinnamon rolls to enjoy Christmas morning.  They were so good and it was nice to have little prep to do for Christmas breakfast.  We added some bacon, sausage, hash browns and Garrett made some orange Julius.  We started with gifts from the kids.  A little before Christmas I noticed the kids starting ton realize they wanted to have things to give each other.  It was sweet of them to want to give something they had to a sibling or use money of their own to buy something.  It is sweet to see their natural desire to give and see their minds thinking of how they can do that.  I decided to make a big chore list and let the kids earn some money so they could buy gifts for each other.  They worked hard doing chores and earning money.  We made a family trip to five below and let the kids to some shopping.  They picked out some great gifts for each member of the family.  Watching them pass out their gifts and watching each other open them was one of my favorite parts of Christmas morning. I was so glad we did that and felt bad that I hadn't thought they might want to have gifts of their own to give.  We took turns opening gifts and it was fun to see the kids excited about gifts we had thought hard about.  Lucy's main gift was a dribble up basketball.  She can sync it to her new ipad and do dribble drills with it.  With her back still healing she can't shoot hoops a bunch so this will be good for her to focus on her ball handling skills for a little while.  It is really cool and has a bunch of different drills and programs she can follow.  Garrett got a new kindle reader tablet that he can read on.  He read so much and was so excited about it.  We can easily send books from the library ap to his kindle.  He also got a new set of books he loves and wanted to own paper copies of.  Nolan got a new Garmin watch, he wants to be able to track his steps like the rest of us.  It is a kids version so he can earn points to play a game on the phone as he reaches goals.  He also got a new hot wheel track.  Garrett and Nolan got new big nerf guns, they were so excited about them.  Sadly Nolan's didn't work and we have to send it back and wait for a new one to come.  I got JJ a new suit and a new sports coat. I also got him a few new running things.  JJ got me a new coat and a new pair of sunglasses.  All the gifts were great and so thoughtful!  We had a fun and relaxing day enjoying our new gifts.  We watched movies, ate yummy Christmas treats, did puzzles and did a zoom call with JJs family.  It was a very nice relaxing day.  Right before bedtime Nolan let me pull out a loose tooth.  He has three teeth loose in his mouth.  We thought it was fun that Santa and the tooth fairy got to visit our house in such a short time period.  There is one nice thing about not being able to get together with family.  We were able to do things as a family at a nice slow pace.  There was no rushing off to family gatherings or trying to squeeze in to much.  We certainly missed so much about the holidays but tried to enjoyed the relaxing aspect of it.  We truly had a wonderful Christmas and were able to make some special memories!