March | Quarantine Living


Here's a full album of this month's shenanigans. 



March Started off pretty normal...

March 4 | Happy Birthday Brittany!

It was the middle of the week so went out to treat her to a birthday dinner on her day off, Thursday. How come we went to Cheesecake Factory and it was fully packed- 2 hour wait...on a Thursday?! So we ended up at Olive Garden. Everyone was there (VJal, Penns, Our fam, Brit [duh], and GrandMamaa) so it was all goods!




The Corona Virus was top of the headline news at this time. We were mostly hearing about the cases in California, Washington, and New York. Utah was carefully monitoring the west coast situations since it is closer to us and a lot of people travel that way in/out of Utah. 

When we got word (at work) that Seattle had closed schools for two weeks, my bosses started working on plans for remote work *just in case*. We didn't anticipate having to implement the plan so quickly! We worked on it for about 2 weeks and then boom all the schools went into site closures and online school starting March 16th.
Luckily, we decided early to start stocking up our pantry and making sure we had what we needed. It was a good idea because right after we did, the Governor announced a soft closure for all k-12 public schools. People of course panic shopped and all of a sudden toilet paper and hand sanitize(and most cleaning supplies) were hard to find. 


 Mar 16 | Beginning of Quarantine Living
Schools were closed. Teachers were moving everything to an online format. 
The Church moved to a home based system. Everyone was trying to adjust to a new normal. 
March 18 | 5.7 Earthquake Hits Utah
This one happened around 7am. So no one in the house felt it except me and Mom lol. The epicenter for this earthquake was in Magna (about an hour north). That's where there was actual damage. Oh and poor Moroni on the SLC temple lost his trumpet!

  Utah hasn't had an earthquake for a minute, so this was definitely anxiety inducing for a lot of people, especially at the start of a lock down. Salt Lake area is still feeling aftershocks. 
Change became a constant and people are just finding ways to work through it day by day. I'll do a separate post on how I personally been coping. 

 For now..here's a few quarantine kine tings that have helped our family #quaranteam during this pandemic. 


Mar 22 | Happiest 10th Birthday Leila
Birthday Post HERE


Mar 25 | We're Going on a Bear Hunt

Our city posted on their social media pages a fun community building activity that families can do. It is based off of the book by Michael Rosen. You put a teddy bear in your window and sometime when your family goes for a drive or walk, you hunt for other bears. We took the kids out for a drive and found about 80 bears! I wish I took a pic, but the kids had fun while practicing social distancing yeeesss!





Mar 26 | Appreciation/Care Packages for Healthcare Personnel

Made two cards and appreciation packages, and dropped off at Timpanogos Hospital Children's ER and Orem Community Hospital ER. These are the two Emergency Facilities we've used in the past.



 Mar 27 | Vineyard Elementary Parade

All the teachers/staff at Vineyard Elementary drove around and did a drive by parade through the Vineyard neighborhoods, honking and waving to the kids. Aljay said they had signs on their cars that read "We Miss You!" and "Keep Reading!". I could hear the honking while working from home. Wish I could've snapped a pic. It was so cute hearing the kids come home so excited that they got a chance to see their teachers!


Mar 30 |  Drive By Missionary Homecoming

Our ward has three missionaries out serving. All three had to return home due to Covid 19. The first one to return home was Elder Tenney- Auckland, NZ (Samoan language) mission. I organized a drive by home coming where our ward members would do a drive by car parade and welcome the Elder home. I know it meant a lot to the Tenney family. I'm sure this is difficult for all missionaries.

We have two more missionaries that we'll do this for as well. They may get reassigned and get to go out again but we don't know how long it will be before that happens. So if we could at least give them a vote of encouragement, I hope it helps.
Overall...

 This has been such a long month

 It's March 30th as I am writing this and it just feels like it's March 49th. It's Monday - the start of the 3rd week of work/school from home. Last week I was like "OH YAY! General Conference is almost here!" and this week it feels like Saturday can't come soon enough!

It's all good though. We'll get through this.

General Conference is coming up and it's going to be unforgettable.






Comments

Sui-Jean Fuimaono said…
Love all the #Quaranteam activities!! <3
What an awesome way to continue ministering during this Lockdown xx
April 3, 2020 at 7:28 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2025 January

Image
Start the year off with two volleyball tournaments for Leila. The picture below is of her and Isa, the only 14-year-olds on their U16 team.  Fires are destroying parts of California, the Palisade area experiencing the worst of it. Texas and some of the southern states are experiencing some of the worst snow/ice conditions. TikTok is on the verge of being banned, President Trump is continuously passing executive orders that are sending people into panic.  Saleima made a list of the disasters and warned us that Jesus was on His way.  Sefa moved up to the Teachers quorum and was ordained by his Dad, Uncle Dennis, and Uncle Ben. He's growing so quickly and I love seeing his growth. They have a great group of young men. I love that they are old enough to plan activities, including attending the temple to do Baptism.  Sefa's also starting U15 7v7 pylons with coach Matt Manuma. He had made the decision to not be held back for football. It's a common practice here in Utah, a...
Read more

Being Prepared For These Times

Image
Auuuu that title sounds like I'm trying to write a General Conference talk or something hahaha. Probably still on the GC vibe from the beginning of the month lol. Anyways... So this pandemic that's going on, it's been something else! It has put the whole world on lock down. So many lives have been affected. I've written quite a bit in my journal, but I wanted to make sure to write about how the Lord has prepared our family specifically for this time. Looking back just in February and March, we can easily see how the Lord had orchestrated parts of our lives.  In February Aljay secured an art collector who commissioned several art pieces. His deposit was the cushion that brought a sense of financial security when we entered this lock-down life.  Towards the end of February, my bosses had heard about school closures in Seattle and decided that we should have a plan in place for our advisers to work remotely in case the schools had to close. We honestly didn...
Read more

2025 February

Image
Leila - Volleyball and more Volleyball  Leila had two tournaments in February. This club season has challenged her in a good way. She wants to play the outside hitter position but is playing on a 16s team (meaning older girls with more experience) and is sitting in the 3rd spot for out side hitting. To get to the 1 or 2 spot she needs more reps, more practice, and more individual coaching. We're seeing improvements each week, but are planning to set aside money for her to do more 1:1 coaching.  These tournaments are no joke. They are allllll day. 6am - 7pm sometimes. 1-day, 2-day, and sometimes 3-day tourneys. The mental stamina it takes as a parent ahahahahh is a real thing! Trying to say the right things to keep your athlete focused, motivated, and locked in is tough. There are so many things that are over stimulating or compounding: - the non stop sound of whistles and girl's cheering/screaming - the smell of swass in the building that increases as the tournament progresses...
Read more