February 12-19th Notes: In Which We Get Sick

Our simple Valentine's Table

Friday: We had a pretty normal school day. Kids finished math for the week, language arts, and so on. Everyone chose a topic to notebook about and made a page for their history notebooks. Emma was not feeling well, and a few other kids were starting to get some congestion. My husband has had some congestion this week, no other symptoms, so we figured it was just a cold. Then my husband called right before dinner because he's lost his sense of taste and smell. Yep. He tested positive for COVID. We're now all in quarantine while we watch this run its course. Several kids are a day or two behind daddy in symptoms, with the congestion and early stages already started. Apparently February is the month of crazy medical things for us. 

Saturday: Quarantine life is pretty quiet. We played games. Watched a movie. Rested. Played more games. You get the idea. I'm sure this week's blog will be fascination variations on this theme.

Sunday: Church today was wonderful via Zoom. We were able to hear from a young man who is leaving home to serve a mission for two years, sharing the gospel with others. After church we kept to our quiet routine. I had, thankfully, picked up a few things for Valentine's Day just before breaking my foot, so we decorated the table and spent time laughing and talking. 

Monday: Snow and cold outside left us inside staying warm. Well, actually, the weather looked more like this: snow, nothing, rain, hail, rain, snow, snow, snow. We took the day off school for President's Day - or just because we can. Several older kids and I played our first ever games of Pandemic. It was really fun, but definitely a game for older kids. The irony is not lost on me as we are dealing with the current pandemic. We have 6 sick right now, most of us mild symptoms. 

Other random things that kept people entertained today:

•  Battleship
• Coding our robot Cosmo
• Laser tag battles
• Piano practice and someone composing new music
• Cooking and chores, of course.
• Reading lots of books
• Lego building
• Scripture study
• Video chatting with our college daughter
• Writing a book review (me)

Tuesday: Jason and Emma, who were the first with symptoms, and the worst, finally started feeling a little tiny bit better today. A few of us are still getting worse, but this gives me hope that this illness won't last for weeks on end! Our day was basically a repeat of Monday, lots of games, lots of rest, lots of reading. We are taking this entire week off of school, but that doesn't keep the kids from learning. They all have their own favorite things to do and learn about in their free time. 

Wednesday: We realized some of our pipes were frozen. It only happens in especially frigid weather, and such it is today. The pipes? The ones to our washer. We set up a heater to reach the area in the basement and a few hours later things were thawed out. Thankfully, we do laundry daily to keep up on things, because with this many people we have a load a day ready to wash pretty easily. 

Thursday: Some people are well on their way to recovery, others are not. It's the usual large family with illness, it drags out a bit between the entire family. Those of us who have lost their sense of taste/smell are not terribly interested in eating. As part of our Come Follow Me/family scripture study this week, today we watched A Day for the Eternities. This is a video you can watch at the Whitmer Farm church history site in New York.  

Friday: We are still in our quiet quarantine. People are starting to get along less. It feels like we are juggling kids in the house trying to get everyone a little space from everyone else. It would be nice if the weather was warmer and we could at least spend some time in the back yard. Daddy teamed up with Mason and they set up an obstacle course for Botley. Botley is a robot you can program (totally screen free, which is awesome!) to tackle different tasks. They worked through the obstacle course step by step, coding Botley. (Mason got Botley 2.0 for his birthday last month.) 

We got a few magazines in the mail today, which was a fun distraction for the kids. Our March issues of The Friend, For the Strength of Youth, and The Liahona came. These call all be read free online or on the Gospel Library app, but we also love getting print copies in the mail. 

Well, I'm going to go rest some more until dinner time. Have a lovely weekend friends!