Coronapocalypse

In the course of just a couple of weeks our world (literally) has been shaken, frightened, and turned upside down and there's no telling when any of us will be able to return to normal. Coronavirus (COVID 19) has now spread out of China and throughout the world while countries, including ours, belatedly try desperately to slow it's spread. Key words for the times are "flatten the curve" and "social distancing." People are panicking and buying up all the toilet paper, soap, hand sanitizer and things like meat, produce and milk. Stores are full of empty shelves, the stock market is crashing worse than it has in decades and the news is full of constant coronavirus updates. Here in TX schools are closed, bars and gyms are closed, and restaurants are offering drive through or delivery only and people are being encouraged to stay home as much as possible and all gatherings are limited to 10 people or less. In California a shelter-in-place order is in effect during which no one is allowed to leave their homes except to buy essential supplies, exercise outside or to care for others/work in essential jobs (ex: grocery store workers, medical professionals, firefighters, etc). Everything has been canceled: concerts, birthday parties, church, church activities, everything. Eric has been working from home and will continue to do so and just this past week my agency finally got on board and announced that all services and trainings will be done via telehealth/skype/gotomeeting. From a work perspective, it's been a very confusing mess. We have all had to call all of our families and explain the situation and then set up a complicated docusign process so that parents can consent for telehealth and then have remote IFSP meetings to change all the service plans to include telehealth or switch to case management only. I only have six kids on my caseload so far so from that perspective I have it much easier than my teammates but I am still trying to learn how to do my job under normal circumstances and now I'm trying to learn a whole new set of rules and documentations on top of that. And I'm stressed about the fact that I've never done telehealth before. I don't even really feel comfortable with face to face visits yet (I've only done like three of them!) and now I have to learn how to try to help and support my kids so they don't fall further behind while I can't even see or touch them in person. It's intimidating for sure. And on top of that is the childcare issue. Last week Levi and Emery's school was still open. Eric and I struggled with the decision on whether or not to send them every single day. We love their school headmistress (Ms Faye) and she is over 70  years old and thus at very high risk for complications or death from coronavirus. It just felt so unsafe to send my kids to her when they could be asymptomatic carriers. We ended up keeping them home on Thursday and then on Friday night we got the email that their school is now also closed. Which is a relief but also leaves us wondering how we are going to both work from home and also attend to Levi and Emery and their needs. It's a dilemma facing thousands throughout the country right now and as far as our family goes I don't think we have a solution yet. We may keep playing it day by day and week by week. But that's part of the challenge too. None of us know how long this will be going on. Most likely the answer is at least a few months. Which feels like forever when I'm staring down the barrel of it: staying home with my kids all day, every day. No library visits, no trampoline park, no play dates with friends, no play street museum, not even family dinner. I haven't felt comfortable taking them grocery shopping because they touch all the things so I've been leaving them with Eric and going along. Which means that aside from going for walks or to the park, our kids have been cooped up for days and they are starting to get a little wild. And I know that they are feeding off of my stress and concerns too. They don't understand coronavirus but they know that something is different and it's not a good different. I just can't picture how I'm going to survive emotionally in this situation. I don't do well cooped up. I'm realizing just how much of an extrovert I really am and how the thought of not seeing others outside my immediate family is making me slightly panicky.

Thankfully, to help distract myself, I got myself a big new diy project. Last Sunday Levi was watching mormon messages on youtube and the one about a piano restoration came on and it just sparked a desire in me. I've known since we bought our house that someday I wanted to put a piano in the front room but suddenly I felt this urge to do it right now! So I hopped on Facebook marketplace and lo and behold more than one old piano was offered for free! So I went and looked at a couple and found one that was in pretty good shape. And although it was breaking social distancing rules, Eric and I recruited Matthew and Eric's friend Paison and we went and picked up the piano yesterday. I worked on it most of the day yesterday and I am excited to keep going with it. It just has so much potential to look amazing. And it was FREE! I just love that part. And yes, it will probably take about $120 to get it tuned plus like $50 in supplies to fix it up but I think it's worth it to have our very own piano! Hopefully I will be able to find time to work on it without the kids crawling all over me and knocking over paint cans and just generally causing mayhem! Probably will only happen at night or on Saturdays. But it's nice to be able to have something to look forward to. I've always loved taking things that are old, worn out or outdating and making them beautiful and functional again.

Our new piano! I can't wait to fix it all up! 

Anyway, I feel like I tend to live even in normal times with a relatively high amount of tension and stress. I give myself deadlines, and schedules and "I should/I need to" lists. I don't like feeling in the dark or not having a plan. This is hard for me. My anger is close to the surface and I find myself just feeling generally down and anxious. And I'm feeling sad that I haven't got any friends here yet and now there's a huge barrier to making new friendships. It's all a bit overwhelming. And part of me knows that this is an opportunity to refocus on what's really important- to take time for family and to enhance my personal study. But... it's not like my duties in the home or at work have decreased- only my diversions and social supports have been limited. If anything my time is more limited than before because now with the kids' school closed more childcare duties fall to me! Even the ways I would typically serve others and forget myself- making cookies for others, watching their kids, etc are now not ok. I'm not sure how all this will go. But I do know that one way or another it will eventually pass. We will all get through it somehow. I've just got to turn off the news and the social media and turn my eyes to the Savior. If only that were as easy as it sounds!

Anyway, I was realizing there's a lot of pictures I still haven't put on here from our day to day life recently. In my mind they're broken into pre-corona and post-corona, but looking at them I guess you can't tell that much. Here they are:

Back before Thailand, Levi's class had an adorable Valentine's Party! They had snack and we did a craft and then the kids performed some dances for us which was FANTASTIC. It was so hilarious watching Levi do the chicken dance and the macarena! He really enjoyed it too. 

Levi and his best friend Jaxon sitting in line together. 

Levi and his teacher :)

Did I mention in the last blog post that before Thailand Papi helped me spruce up the half bath? He and I replaced the light fixture and the mirror which actually was a lot more work than intended because once we got the old light and mirror off we found large holes in the drywall! So we patched those and I learned how to retexture walls before painting! The bathroom is looking so much better! Now all it needs is a new faucet and then it will be done! 

The kids and I have been spending a lot of time at the park lately! Good thing there's a good one just a short walk away :) 

He is seriously the most handsome kid! 

Grandma got Emery some adorable hair bows! I love them. 

Levi is no longer capable of smiling normally and keeping his eyes open for photos so this is the best I could get of them together. Haha

Valerie and Emery have this cute thing they do where they imitate each other's facial expressions and it just gets crazier and crazier. I love it! 

Our last family dinner before coronavirus took over. 

I am so glad we got to celebrate Levi before we all had to social distance! 

 

I mean, how cute is this!! 

I'm also very glad TX got its primaries done before Coronavirus hit! It was my first time voting in person rather than by mail and it was kind of cool. Long lines though! I was surprised how long I had to wait considering that I went at what I thought would be a none busy time (2pm). 

Levi got what he asked for from grandma and grandpa for his birthday! A tool belt :)

At the playstreet museum before the craziness hit. Emery loves to wear the firefighter costume and to take care of the babies. She loves playing with baby dolls! It's so cute. 

Emery's hair is now long enough for a bun and it's so cute it kills me! 

I finished Levi's new LEGO table! I love how it turned out! 

The other day while I was out doing a grocery run, Emery got into my costume lipstick! Oh man it was EVERYWHERE and surprisingly difficult to remove. But she was so pleased with herself! 

We made cupcakes and decorated them for St Patrick's Day! 

Tried a new hairstyle for Emmie today and I love it! 

 

Emery found a fun new way to get books read to her! Just sit on dad's chest haha. 

THAILAND!!!

So Eric and I officially had our first Thailand adventure! I say first because I hope we get to go back someday. It was basically everything I would want in a vacation: the right balance of active things and relaxing, culture, good food and alone time away from the kids! We got to feed elephants, go ziplining, do a sunset stand up paddleboarding tour, see lots of temples, hang out on the beach and enjoy super cheap delicious food. We especially enjoyed drinking fruit smoothies and eating Roti (Thai crispy crepes with nutella or chocolate and banana and sweetened condensed milk...so good!) pretty much every day. All in all, I was honestly very surprised at how smoothly the trip went. The jet lag was not nearly as bad as I expected and we didn't have any minor disasters. Here are some other things that surprised me about our trip:

• Chiang Mai was very smokey! We didn't know this but apparently, our trip fell directly in the middle of Burning Season which is when farmers in the surrounding areas burn their fields to prepare for the next round of planting. Sooo it was smokey especially out in the mountains like on the day we were with the elephants.
• Chiang Mai is actually a relatively small city and Old Town where most of the old temples are is very walkable. I didn't realize how many temples there are all right close to each other. It was super convenient. 
• There is graffiti everywhere!
• Food was not very spicy. I was a little worried going in but honestly the whole time we were there we were never served ANYTHING that was too spicy for me! I don't know if they just looked at us and were like, "oh they look white lets tone down the spice" or what but it wasn't a problem even with street food.
• It was more touristy everywhere we went that I expected. I was surprised especially about how touristy Koh Lanta was because I had read that it is a little more off the beaten path and not so crowded but it still felt pretty busy and touristy to me. 
• We didn't have a problem with mosquitos at all! I was honestly super shocked by this one. We had prepared with mosquito repellant bracelets and bug spray but I felt like we barely needed them as I barely saw any mosquitos even down in the islands.
• On Koh Lanta everyone rents their own moped to get around. We rented one too for about $13 for two days. It was super convenient but the days we were down there it was very windy so that was uncomfortable on the moped (hello dust and sand being constantly blown in our eyes!). 

And now for pictures! I will break it down by days (for the most part) because there's a lot:

Day One: Explore Old Town on foot:

The mangoes in Thailand were delicious!

We found the church in Thailand and were able to attend Sacrament meeting. A nice missionary from Australia translated for us which was great! 

We LOVED our hotel: Amata Lanna Village. It was like the perfect little oasis inside of Chiang Mai. And the breakfast they served every day was DELICIOUS especially the mango sticky rice. 

Day Two: Elephants!

We got to feed the elephants bananas, pumpkin, watermelon, and cucumbers. Also we made them these sticky rice balls out of tamarind, banana, rice and I think some vitamins for them. 

We also got to walk with them down to the river and bathe them in the river. They were so chill and it was fun to be with them. 

Day Three: Ziplining!

The area around Chiang Mai was definitely in its fall season and a lot more brown and yellow in general and less tropical than I expected but still pretty. 

You can kind of tell in this picture how smokey the sky was. 

This was supposed to be a pretty waterfall but because we were there at the end of dry season there was pretty much no water in it. 

Day Four: Down to Ao Nang and Railay Beach for SUP:

Railay beach had the most amazing beautiful cliffs! 

But yes, it was crowded with tourists! 

You get to and from Railay beach via long-tail boat which was cool.

Sunset SUP tour! It was beautiful and fun- definitely a highlight of the trip.

It was easier than I expected to stand up and I never actually lost my balance but I was slow when standing so I knelt for most of the time.

Days Five and Six: Beach days in Koh Lanta

In Koh Lanta we mostly hung out on the beach. I also got a very relaxing $8 pedicure and foot massage and we got a couples massage which required me to strip to the waist down right there out in public on the beach! Haha I was little surprised but good thing I'm not too shy! I just rolled with it haha. 

The best sunsets!

We went down to Bamboo beach one of the days and we were just relaxing under these handy shelters when suddenly I heard mooing! There were two lost cows that just wandered through. So random. I felt bad for them because there was obviously nothing for them to eat down on the beach! I hope their owner found them! 

We found these fun little tidepools that had tons of bright green crabs in them! 

Day Seven: Back to Chiang Mai:

Apparently, this temple dates back to the 1500s! 

While we were gone the kids stayed with Carma and Travis and with Blake and Shannon. We tried to talk to Levi every night before he went to bed. We missed them a lot but the kids had fun with their cousins.

Maren and Emery really hit it off and had a blast being together!