The Kids' Thoughts So Far On Coronavirus

I wanted to document how the kids are currently feeling about all of this. I must admit, I was surprised about how sad they both are and how much they miss their friends. I knew they missed their friends of course, but we've been having fun at home and they're both handling it like champs. Layla and Marcus truly are best friends and while they have their normal sibling spats, they really get along well, care for each other, and have fun together. I think their relationship has helped them through this more than they can realize at their young ages. The gospel, our faith in Christ, and prayer has also helped us all feel peace and have peace in our home. I hope they come to realize all of this as they get older. My hope is that they will look back on this time with some fondness, despite the craziness of it all. Because it truly is crazy!

This weekend we set up a tent in the basement. It is the epitome of glamping! They have lanterns, Harvey's fake tree scratching post outside the tent window to make it feel like we're outside, and the sound of crickets chirping on the sound machine. We've been roasting marshmallows over the gas stove to make s'mores. The kids have slept in the tent two nights in a row now. Last night they convinced me to join them, and while I can hardly walk today because it hurt my poor hip so much to sleep on the floor, it was worth it to see how happy it made them. I love their little guts!

Now on to their thoughts on COVID-19:

Marcus:

I remember hearing that Coronavirus was dangerous and that it killed a lot of people.  I heard that school shut down. I was kind of scared that it was going to be around a lot, like fevers. They’re going to make medicine. I was hoping no one in my family would get it. I want everyone to stay in their houses, but maybe they can go outside if they stay away from everyone. “Maybe we need to shut things down,” is what the President said one day. Before that, I didn’t get any reports that my school was shut down, but one day it shut down and I didn’t bring anything home because no one knew that would happen, so we weren’t ready.

Now I like homeschool because we hardly have to do anything. I like being home from school because I didn’t have to ride the bus, so it doesn’t take up that much time of my day so I can play more. I don’t have any homework cuz I was at home the whole time, so we just did schoolwork, so it was just the same thing.

We have to get dressed at home still. States started shutting down. People got more worried, the stores got really empty, everybody was staying in their houses. Then the whole world got shut down. That’s kinda it.

So, I’m assuming we’re gonna have to live on Mars.

I feel like it’s going crazy bananas. And that everybody’s being crazy. Some people are risking their lives to go in the store a lot. Some states got super serious about it, like you have to have a special pass to go outside.

I’m feeling okay that I’m in my house so that I don’t get Coronavirus and I’m glad that we have sinks and soap to wash our hands in. I feel sad that I don’t get to play with my friends. I feel happy that I get to do lots of stuff like camp downstairs in a tent and roast marshmallows over the stove and I just wish I could play with my friends so that we could do all this stuff together and we don’t have to have everything virtual like karate.

We get to walk to the waterfall in Fruit Heights. I love that. I have way more time because school at home is so short and I don’t have to ride the bus. And we don’t have to have time to drive to karate, we just have to have time to turn on a computer with a button. 

Layla:

I first heard about COVID-19 when Mom was talking to Grandma Bott. I heard Mom say, “Oh, I didn’t know that. Good to know.” I thought, “What is happening?” because I couldn’t hear what Grandma Bott was saying. I was kind of scared, wondering if something bad was going to happen. Then Mom told me and Marcus about it. She said there’s a new virus going around, so we need to wash our hands and be careful and not put our fingers in our mouths, even though the virus is in China.

At school, we were talking in the bathroom about how we need to wash our hands, and Emily talked about the virus in China. Then it became this whole big thing and everybody knew about it. Then school got canceled!

I’m kind of happy school is out because I don’t have to go to school, but it also gets kind of crazy and I’m kind of annoyed because Marcus is crazy and I’m crazy and it’s all crazy. I’m glad that we set up the tent in the basement to go “camping” at home and we got Kindles to read books on. I’m also kind of scared because Coronavirus is in Davis County and we live in Davis County. And I’m also scared because I feel like if we get sick it will be even more crazy.

The last day of school was March 13^th. They said we might go back in two weeks, but now they are saying May 4^th. Now I got a packet from my teacher with all the papers I would have done if school was still in and I am doing them at home. I like that we can go at our own pace each day because some people learn quicker than others in our class and I kind of learn quicker so I don’t like waiting while the teacher explains and answers everybody’s questions because most of the time I don’t have any questions and I get it. Now I can do it at my own pace.

I’ve been emailing friends from class on Outlook. Most of the time the big groups that are emailing constantly are Emily, Kaylie, Maggie, Emma, and Adriella. Adriella started this big email chain with everyone she could email in the class and a few other people. It helps me feel connected to them while we can’t have any play dates.

I’m sad we can’t have any playdates. I want to be able to play with friends if we’re stuck at home. But, I have been emailing people from my class and FaceTiming Oakley because I can’t email her on outlook. It’s been fun to FaceTime Oakley and see what’s been going on at her house and show her what we’re doing here.

I’m really sad because my birthday will be virtual because of Coronavirus because we don’t want to risk getting anyone in our extended family sick. For some of the people, getting coronavirus would not be good because they could die. My birthday party with my friends was going to be a pool party at the rec center. I was going to invite 10 people from my class and Oakley. Now it will be postponed and I will have a virtual birthday party on my real birthday with family. I will just have to do the swim party later.

My overall feeling is happy and sad. Happy because we don’t have to go to school. But sad because we have to do school at home and my birthday party has to be postponed and because I can’t play with friends. I’m also happy because I can email and FaceTime my friends.

Mom says I’m handling it all like a champ, but in  my mind I’m going crazy. I want to play with friends and have a big birthday party close to my birthday.

And my play! My school play had to be postponed! We were going to do it in front of a videographer when all of this started and we couldn’t have an audience, but even that got postponed. I’m not sure when we’re going to do it in front of the audience and videographer. I hope it will be soon before I forget any of my songs or dances, but I probably won’t forget any of them.

I hope this will be over soon! I’m happy and I’m sad. I learned that social distancing can be important under certain circumstances. 😊 When I pray, most of the time, there’s some part in there about all of this being over. 

The Beginning of 2020

One word:

CORONAVIRUS.

Wowzers, it's amazing how much that one word has changed our world. The entire world.

The abbreviation is COVID-19. It's a virus that started in China late last year. It quickly spread to the rest of the world. We started hearing about it the end of January; China was forcing all of their citizens in certain areas to stay in their homes to mitigate the spread of the virus. It sounded crazy and surreal. Then a cruise ship had patients test positive and they were quarantined on the ship for 2 weeks before they could go home. More craziness. From there it rapidly spread until it affected all 50 states in our country.

Students have been out school for weeks. Businesses are closed. Grocery stores have many empty shelves. We are having church at home. All community events are canceled. The economy is in shambles. People are staying home in an effort to stop the spread.

The virus is mild for most people under the age of 40. 98% percent of the deaths are in people over the age of 60. There are still so many unknowns, but at it's core, COVID-19 causes breathing problems and leads to pneumonia and eventually death, especially in older people with underlying health conditions.

On top of that, we were awoken one morning this week to a 5.7 earthquake.

It all feels so surreal.

But every day, I am reminded of the good. I am reminded that despite conflicting rumors people are spreading out of fear and as a result of the media, there is one source I can always trust.

I have felt comforted, guided, and inspired in the weeks and months leading up to this crazy time. Several weeks ago, I felt the need to replenish our short-term food storage. Mitch has been led to make certain financial decisions for our savings accounts and stay current on our tithing. We truly feel that we could not be more prepared for this time. Between our personal inspiration and the guidance from our prophet, we feel blessed and ready.

Not to say that moments of fear don't creep in. Fear and confusion are always lying dormant, waiting to creep up when we let our guard down. Those are the moments when I have to close my eyes and say a silent prayer. I might need to count my blessings, remind myself that Heavenly Father is in charge and He loves His children, or give myself a good sanity check (especially after talking to people who are gullible and panicked).

It will all be okay. This will not last forever. Eventually the days of staying at home and not interacting with family, friends, and neighbors face-to-face will end and we will all give each other big hugs.

But for now, it is our responsibility to take care of one another through social distancing.

So, as I type, my hyper, cooped-up kiddos are video chatting with Oakley at her house since they can't play in person right now. Another thing I'm thankful for during these times: technology! Mitch is still able to go into work and follow the CDC guidline of "no gatherings larger than 10 people." I'm grateful he is still being paid. Many people are not receiving an income right now as businesses have had to close.

I have found this profound amount of down time to be refreshing. The kids and I can connect on a level that we haven't had time to do before. No schedules or places to be really makes us slow down and enjoy one another more (with a healthy dose of needing breaks from each other too :) ). Mitch and I have had opportunities to testify to the kids of the importance of heeding the words of the prophets because "if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear."

It's fascinating to me to watch different people's perspectives and attitudes lately. I have to remind myself that not everyone grew up like I did, going to church and understanding that some day Christ will return to Earth, and before He does, things will be hard. Everything that is going on has been prophesied of for thousands of years. We can read about it in the scriptures. It's all right there. But yet, so many people either don't know, or don't believe. So all of this is amazing and scary to them. Probably partly because they have not had a church leader guiding them to build a food storage, build financial safety, and to be ready for these times.

But to me, these times are amazing! It's exciting and fills me with peace. It's a reminder that God is in charge, that His Son will return to Earth, and that good will prevail over evil. It excites me to think of the work that is still left to be done and I yearn to be a part of it. I don't know when Christ will return to the Earth, but I know that what we are seeing in the world today is not a coincidence. My hope is that it will cause all of us to turn our hearts to Christ, to find peace through Him, and do what is necessary to be personally prepared temporally and spiritually. There is so much good in the world still--I have enjoyed seeing the many Christlike acts of love throughout the last several weeks. I choose to focus on the good, be part of the good, and see the good in others. That feels so much better during these uncertain times than focusing on the bad. It's harder to choose to be and see positive things, but it's definitely worth it.

I'm hoping I can update more in the next few weeks. Right now I need to get back to my kids. We're all a little stir crazy. But happy and in good spirits. We're happy to do this if it helps save some people from getting sick.

The Rest of 2019

Ahh, life gets busier all the time. It is filled with good things, hard things, funny things, and overall peace and happiness. We are truly blessed.

Right now it's the day after a wonderful Christmas. Mitch is doing a house project, the kids spent the entire morning building Legos together and are now laughing while playing a new video game, and I tackled a mound of laundry and read books in between. Each of us are happy with our activities, the house is full of Christmas cheer, and it is snowing outside. My favorite kind of day.

(I have a lot more pics of Christmas at the end of this post.)

We've had our share of not-so-good days lately. Stressful, sad, disheartening, worried days. But they always end and we're able to kneel and pray and feel the peace of our Savior return to our hearts and our home.

That is the gift I am most grateful for this Christmas season-the ability to face this world with assurance and peace, as well as the ability to see the good in the world. Because the good always outweighs the bad. Our Heavenly Father loves us and our Savior atoned for us. And remembering those things is what allows us to feel peace and even happiness in the midst of the hardest trials of our lives. Not that they are easy, but that there can be an underlying peace and eternal happiness despite all the crazy life can bring.

Having Mitch gone this year brought a level of stress I have never known. It lead to tears from all 4 of us at different points, exhaustion, and panic attacks for me with upcoming finals, a part-time job, the approaching holidays, and being a kind of single mom all at the same time. It was hard. But, there was a light at the end of the 9 month long tunnel, and we finally reached it! Mitch came home, I made it through finals, and we had a very merry Christmas indeed.

To make up for lost time together, we spent a few days in Arizona at Great Wolf Lodge. It's a giant, indoor water park. Our little fish children loved it. They both love to swim so much, and Marcus has really improved his swimming skills since living in Cali with a swimming pool this summer. It was great to have 3 days of uninterrupted family time after so many months of Mitch being gone.


Thanksgiving was wonderful. My grandma still makes the best dressing ever. Mmm, my mouth waters just thinking about it! The kids and I started a Thankful poster where each day we wrote something we were thankful for based on a list we hung next to the poster. It had things like "something outside you're thankful for," and "something you've accomplished recently that you're thankful for" so it made us think more outside the box.

We had fun for my birthday. Mitch had just gotten home a few days before. The kids and Mitch made me breakfast in bed, we went out for Indian food for dinner, and had Nothing Bundt Cake (my FAVORITE!) for dessert. We played games and they spoiled me with great gifts. I felt very loved.

Mitch is now DR. BOTT!!!!!!!!! He finished his Ph.D.! His degree is in systems engineering, but I must admit that I don't really know what that means, ha!  It took him 8 years to finish; he worked full-time  and continued to be the amazing husband and father that he always is during those 8 years, or I'm sure he could have finished faster. Regardless, I am so proud of him and we are both so happy he is done, haha! We are still awaiting his diploma in the mail and can't wait to display it!

To celebrate his huge accomplishment, I surprised Mitch with an experience to drive exotic race cars in California. He ended up driving a Porsche Caymen and a Lamborghini Huracan. He was utterly speechless after and said he couldn't process his thoughts fast enough to keep up with the speed of the car, haha! Pretty sure he was in heaven.


Mitch's parents treated us to a fancy dinner that weekend as well.

On a less grand scale, I finished my first semester of grad school with straight A's. Wahoo! I worked my butt off for those grades and I'm proud of myself. They say the first semester is the hardest, so if I can do that while having my husband away, then I'm sure the rest will seem relatively easy.

I also started a very part-time job at a title one elementary school. I am a behavior coach, so I take data on kids and compile it to help with diagnosis, as well as offer intervention strategies for teachers. I primarily work with students with diagnosed or undiagnosed ADHD and autism, but also compliance issues or learning disabilities. It's fascinating, heartbreaking, and fun all at the same time. It is a different world at a title one school and this one includes lots of poverty and gut-wrenching stories that will surely leave some people paying for their terrible actions after they die. I work directly with the school counselor, and she is wonderful. I feel very blessed to learn from her and I am grateful that she has kindly taken me under her wing. I love that I get to see/use the things I'm learning about in school each day at work.

Other noteworthy events:
There was a fire this fall on the mountain behind our house. It was frightening how fast it moved down the mountain! I had a feeling we wouldn't be evacuated since our home is on the other side of the mountain road, but several people on our ward were evacuated and it was scary. Then the added factor that the school buses wouldn't bring the kids home, plus I have two kids at two different schools, and you can guess that the logistics of that day were pretty crazy. Thankfully no homes were harmed by the fire and everyone was okay. Mitch and Marcus then went and helped clear trees from one of the houses the next week to make sure they're safe should another fire ever occur.

Marcus had strep throat. Have I mentioned on here how much that boy loathes having his throat swabbed? Not that anyone really loves that, but he puts up such a fight! This last time we had to have a male nurse hold Marcus down and in between Marcus's blood curdling screams, the second nurse was finally able to get a swab. It was positive for strep. Oh, and after we got home we noticed that Marcus had literally broken blood vessels under his eyes from straining so hard. Jeez, that boy! Good thing we love him--it was intense! The saddest part was that we missed out on boating, again, this year as a result. We were all so sad about that.

We started skiing this winter! All four of us completed the Learn and Earn program, which means we took 3 all day ski lessons and now we have season passes. Layla and I are pretty much on the same skill level, though I have no doubt that she will pass me up in only a few weeks, ha! Marcus has work to do to advance, but he's getting there and he likes it more now than he did after his first lesson--that one didn't go so well, honestly. In fact, Marcus said, "Skiing is just falling down, getting lost, and being cold!" Oh boy, good thing he's had fun since that first day! And Mitch is an advanced skier since he had skied a lot before. He LOVES having a season pass and is thrilled we've finally joined him. It's completely changed winter for me and made it a much more pleasant time of year. Even my S.A.D. symptoms have decreased.



Well, speaking of skiing, I need to go switch laundry so we have dry ski socks since we're heading up to the slopes this afternoon.

The kids both had parent teacher conferences where we got more stellar reviews. They are both "model students" and are doing so well. I am happy that Layla is thriving in the gifted program and Marcus loves learning French. They are both where they need to be and it makes my heart happy.

We also did our annual girls trip and saw The Sound of Music. It was great! Then we spent 12 hours shopping on Saturday!!! This included eating lunch, ice cream, and dinner and ended at 11:30 p.m. when we finally dropped into bed. It was quite the day, haha! We have too much fun on these girls trips, I think. :)

One night, when Mitch was out of town, I was not in the mood to make dinner or do anything extra after being a single parent all week, so we went to dinner at Applebee's. We also ordered a lava cake to share for dessert and the kids DEVOURED it.
Before:

And AFTER:

I had a memorable day this fall. It all started early on a Wednesday morning. I was extra tired because, as usual, Mitch was out of town. Also, I was up late the night before attending my grad program and the kids had been with a babysitter. That morning as we were eating breakfast, I smelled an awful smell. It only took a minute to realize it was cat poop and I quickly located it at the bottom of the stairs in the basement. On my way down to clean it up I said, "Harvey! If you ever do that again I'll take you to the animal shelter so fast your head will spin!" I was MAD. But when I got down there, I realized that the babysitter had closed the door to the unfinished part of the basement, which is where Harvey's litterbox is, so he couldn't get down there all night! Then I felt bad that he had held it as long as he did. Anyways, I got that cleaned up and the kids off to school and myself off to work. Later that day, Layla cleaned her fish tank and accidentally filled it back up with hot water, which killed her fish almost instantly. There were A LOT of tears. After comforting her and promising a new fish, I got to flush that one down the toilet. 30 minutes later, we're finally settled eating dinner when I see Harvey acting weird in the living room, only to find him playing with a DEAD BIRD he had brought in from outside! Grrrr! I had to clean up feathers and blood off the carpet. Gross! It was seriously the weirdest day full of dead/gross animals, though it's pretty funny now, I must admit.

We enjoyed General Conference this year. We made a chart saying what we would do each time we heard these words. It definitely put an interesting spin on it!

This is what Mitch and Marcus did while Layla and I were on our girls trip: went to church and wrested a lot.

Another weekend without Mitch we did puzzles and Marcus wrote an entire page of Pokemon cards that he wanted for Christmas.

Layla and Perry love teaching each other new tricks with their Cat's Cradles. Cute girls!

We went to a corn maze during Halloween time. 

For Halloween this year we had Ash from Pokemon and Hermoine from Harry Potter. Which also sums up Christmas: Marcus got mostly Pokemon cards and Layla got several Harry Potter Lego sets.

During the month of November, the kids and I delivered flyers to the neighbors saying that we were collecting coats to take to the Road Home. We kept a bin on our front porch and then donated them on Thanksgiving day. We ended up with over 30 coats!

Layla made this "parade float" for her 4th grade project on Carbon County, Utah. 

Oakley slept over for the entire weekend one weekend and these three had so much fun together--like always. Mitch and I love when Oakley is here because our kids get along so well when she's here. They combined all three of their beanie boos and it added up to a ridiculous amount of stuffed animals. Kind of disturbing how much money our two families have spent on these!

I found Marcus reading his very first chapter book like this the other day. Proud mom moment!

Marcus lost his first tooth skiing! He didn't even know it had fallen out.

Layla made these hats for Kitty and Bow Bow.

Mitch made me this ladder for our library.
He did such a good job!

Our White Elephant gifts from our friend's party.

Layla and I both got our hair cut the same way. Twinning is winning!

We had a Jerusalem dinner with unleavened bread and we dressed up as angels, a wise man, and a shepherd.

Christmas morning!