December Happenings

After I got back from my trip out west, I soaked up some time with these cutest girlies-

Got these big kids their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine-

Got some letters off to Santa-

And before I knew it, we were testing everyone and quarantining the best we could after Wes tested positive! 

When I was on my way home from Utah I got an email notifying parents of Wes' class that someone had tested positive, so it was on the back of my mind if I happened to notice any symptoms. When I checked Eve and Wes out of school to get their vaccines on Monday he had mentioned a sore throat and kind of sounded froggy and congested, but said his throat wasn't bothering him at that moment and I didn't really give it another thought. Well, Wednesday morning rolled around and Christine texted me that Ryan had woken up in the night with a fever and tested positive! Ryan and Wes are in the same class and Ryan had been at our house all Monday night hanging out. With the minor cold symptoms Wes had I decided to test him at 8:15 a.m. (bus comes at 8:35 a.m.) with the at home test I had gotten from Jillian, and sure enough! That positive line showed right up and we had our first official case of COVID on our hands. Thad was already at school and luckily he was able to stay at school the whole time, but elementary has different rules and Eve had to quarantine for a week and test negative before returning to school. So there was a lot of this going on...

At home tests with a proctor to get official results to send to the school for Thad to wrestle and Eve to tumble at her gym.

My house turned into a bomb with everyone around (flashback to dark pandemic times)-

And Thad was FaceTiming with Wes who we exiled to the bonus room to wait out his quarantine-

We were pretty committed to this quarantine because as long as Thad and Eve could stay negative they would be able to participate in their extra curricular activities. Also, if anyone else tested positive, Eve's week long quarantine would start over and she wouldn't be able to attend the last few days before Christmas break. Wes is a unique guy and didn't mind quarantine much. He likes his alone time in general and is also partial to screen time, so it wasn't the worse thing he could think of. 

Bishop Wernli dropped off a care package for Wes and played a little trick with a bag full of random items and Mae actually loves the prunes he got!

Luckily we had some decent weather and went on some walks a few of the days to get Wes some fresh air and a change of scenery-

This is how we watched a movie as a family...

Poor Wes had to sit on a hard stool with a mask on, but we weren't taking any risks!

I tried to teach Eve how to paint nails-

Not too bad for a first timer!

Liv continues to be the absolute cutest and the best partner to have while waiting for COVID test results

We never ran short on tests...

Having a large family makes people feel bad for you and they will give you as much as they can...haha! Between the kids' schools and Dad hitting up every student center on campus, we obtained over 30 tests in a couple weeks! We used a lot of them, but some had dried up, we gave some to friends, and one of those brown boxes of six ended up as a perfect white elephant gift at our postponed Christmas party. 

These girls stayed healthy-

Thad was able to wrestle at a big quad-school tournament-

(I love how he wears that red Utah Jazz hoodie and sticks out in a crowd!)

And Eve was able to tumble at her first ever Trampoline and Tumbling event-

I didn't get great pictures of her in action because I took video, but she did awesome at it all!

This was an in-house only meet so at the end everyone lined up and medaled each other and it was darling.

Quarantine seemed to drag on a bit, so we did what we could to pass the time-

And just when we thought we were through it, Thad tested positive for Influenza A! HAHA!!!! That year off our immune systems took really came back to haunt us--but to be honest, we were so happy it was the flu and not COVID! Eve only had one more day of quarantine when Thad tested, so it was a major relief. We quarantined him too, but were able to get some TamiFlu, so he was back at it pretty dang quick. He and Wes are very different people and he hated the couple of days he partly spent by himself...super glad it wasn't him with COVID.

Wes got to play in his last game before the break and just Thad and I went to watch. We arrived 45 minutes early because we thought it started at 10:30 instead of 11:00, so Thad warmed him up nice and good-

I sure love these best brothers that can drive each other crazy, but are the best of friends.