What a month!! It was full of so many activities and emotions! It's definitely one for the record books!!
The kids had a half day at the beginning of December and we are able to have Quinn over. She is a friend of Lincoln and Annika's from Kindergarten. We had been trying to get together with Quinn for 6 weeks but various quarantines for my kids and Quinn kept postponing our play date. These three have so much fun together.
December 3rd will go down in infamy for our family! Rebecah and Joseph had mild colds most of the week. I didn't think much of Rebecah's mild symptoms and knew she would be tested for Covid at school and I would get those results. My kids are in a pool of students that have asymptomatic Covid testing at school. There aren't very many students in the pool so Lincoln and Annika are tested every other week. The results took much longer than usual to come back. By Friday I was starting to get nervous that Rebecah DID have Covid. To my surprise Annika tested positive for Covid in addition to Rebecah. I just sat at the computer in shock seeing Annika's positive Covid result on the screen. She had no symptoms. My Friday afternoon was one of phone calls, school pick ups and Covid scheduling and testing for the rest of the family. Joseph, Eden, Rebecah and Annika ended up positive for Covid while Kimball, Lincoln and I ended up negative. Annika and Eden were both asymptomatic the entire time. That's the short story...
Eden and I were tested Friday afternoon. My negative test result came Monday morning. I was so nervous to open my results, but SO relieved when I was negative. That meant I could leave the house to pick up work from school and buy groceries. Joseph's positive test and Kimball's negative test came later on Monday. Eden's test didn't come back positive until Wednesday, but I started her in quarantine with everyone else Monday night. I figured if I didn't have her results yet I would play it safe. I had Lincoln retested on Sunday just to make sure he was still negative. He had seemed pale and overly tired over the weekend so I wanted to play it safe. He had been with the positive kids since I assumed he was positive. His test from Sunday ended up being lost in transit. We found this out on Thursday, FOUR days later. I wasn't pleased. I spent so much of my week on the phone with contact tracers and trying to track down Covid test results. I was able to get Lincoln in for Rapid testing at Walgreens after pleading my case to them. He came up negative again so he was no longer with the positive cases, but still couldn't leave the house.
Covid wasn't fun, but it could have been SO MUCH WORSE! The 4 younger kids had their first vaccine 2 weeks prior and I really think that shot gave them just enough of an immunity boost that they didn't catch it or had no/mild symptoms. Thank goodness for the vaccine. I believe it is a miracle and will save lives. We have tried to be so careful the entire pandemic avoiding large crowds, etc.
If you are interested, this is what our quarantine looked like. We were advised by the health department to isolate the positive cases and to give them their own bathroom so that is what we did. All of the positive cases could hang out together in 3 designated bedrooms and they shared a bathroom. Masks were encouraged, but optional if you were in one of the rooms with the door shut. I was the busy one because I had to make everyone individual plates of food and provide room service to the quarantiners. I would quickly eat my meal and then serve dessert and then collect all of the dishes at the end. I wore a mask all of the time unless I was in my bedroom with the door shut. I may have been a little extreme, but I didn't want to be positive and not know it and prepare food for those who were negative and infect them. I tested myself three other times during the quarantine before I would go out in public to make sure I was still negative. I also washed my hands A LOT!
Here are our Quarantine pictures:
I slept in Eden's room for a few nights before we knew she was positive. She put her new Meme on my bed one morning.
Everyone saying "hi" from the top of the stairs. It got really hard not seeing my family very much. We would elbow bump or I would wear a double mask and give very brief hugs. We would also facetime when the kids needed longer interactions with me. I missed their hugs!!
Our friends were so good to us. Our friends the Dolsons and also Quinn's family each brought us candy on two separate occasions to let us know we were loved. We had unknowingly exposed both of these families to Covid and they just took it in stride!
Joseph's set up in Lincoln and Eden's room. Joseph would practice his violin and cello each day and work on other computer projects, play with the kids, etc. He said he didn't feel bored during Covid. Lincoln slept in Annika's room part of the week and once we knew he was still negative he moved to my room.
One highlight was that I was able to attend Kimball's Christmas orchestra concert.
He plays the bass so well!
Family scriptures was either long-distance down the hall as pictured, or sitting apart from each other in the family room or over FaceTime.
Room service!
Kimball was asked to speak in Stake Conference. He gave a good message and thanks to Zoom, those in quarantine didn't miss it!
Eden was the last person to exit quarantine. Everyone was so happy when they could make the walk down the stairs back to the land of the normal.
Quarantine ended just in time for Rebecah's Christmas band concert!
Besties: Gianna, Rebecah and Melanie.
Rebecah scored a big roll in the musical. She is a "wife" in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. She is in almost every scene and so excited for practices to start after Christmas break. All three of these girls will be wives together!
Getting the kids fully-vaccinated and getting my booster were the best Christmas presents we could give them/me this month! I hope we won't see anymore Covid in our house, but if we do, hopefully the vaccine will lessen the symptoms. The kids said their arms were more sore with the second shot. My arm hurt a lot less with the booster than with my first two shots!
A neighbor gave Lincoln this shirt and he loved wearing it the week leading up to Christmas!
I thought this was a really sweet drawing and summary that Lincoln wrote during church. I love his heavenly host of angels!
I decided to buy a second Christmas tree and devote it to remembering Christ. I bought ornaments with 25 different names for Jesus. I also have a few other religious ornaments on the tree. I love it and it brought such a wonderful feeling of peace in my heart after a very crazy month.
Preschool play date. We invited the girls in Eden's class over. We had a lot of fun!
Working on Christmas activity books from a friend.
Christmas Festivities 2021
Gingerbread houses. FYI...don't buy gingerbread kits a year in advance, because they mold. We did use the candy from the kits and graham crackers for the houses. The big kids each made a house, but they were just out of the shower and didn't want to be in the pictures.
Lincoln's mouth is blue from the candy!
My Christmas Eve dinner helpers.
Nativity
Christmas Eve presents from Grandma Bev.
Joseph has become friends with Pastor Mark Swanson from the Emmanuel Evangelical Lutheran
church. Pastor Swanson invited us to their Christmas Eve service and it was so wonderful. We sang songs, there were readings from the Bible, and a sermon. Joseph even played his violin as one of the special musical numbers! It was a wonderful Christmas Eve service and I was glad we could attend. This may become a new tradition!
Our Christmas was a little different this year. Joseph had to switch his call weekend at work because of quarantine and the only person willing to switch with him was the person scheduled to work Christmas weekend. Not really fair, but we won't get into that. Joseph had to work at 6 am Christmas morning. He originally thought he would be home mid-morning so we decided to wait to open the presents. The kids got up about 7:15. I was on the treadmill so they just joined me in my room until I finished exercising and showering. I was mean to make them wait, I know, but we weren't in a rush. They opened presents from Santa and then we had a leisurely breakfast and Christmas Devotional. We also finished watching the full-length movie, The Nativity Story. The movie ended about 10:30 and Joseph let me know that there were surgeries scheduled for the day and he wouldn't be home any time soon so we went ahead and opened presents. The kids were SO good about waiting and had been so patient so we decided to open presents.
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Joseph finally made it home about 5:00 in the evening. We had pie together as a family. He had eaten Chinese for his Christmas dinner at work and we had eaten a few hours earlier. Then Joseph and I opened our presents.
Aside from Joseph being gone all day I can honestly say that it was one of my best Christmases. It was so nice to have Christ be the center of our morning with the devotional and movie instead of the rush of opening presents first thing in the morning. We may start this habit as a new tradition.
For New Year's Eve we went to Disney on Ice. The kids hit the 2 week post-vaccine full immunity on NYE so it was a great way to celebrate. The little ones loved watching the performers. The girls liked the princess and Frozen acts and Lincoln loved the Toy Story and Mickey acts.
After Disney on Ice we had a nice evening watching shows together. Joseph had to work overnight and I don't think any of us stayed up to ring in the new year!
