Middle of March 2020 - Covid, Navy's birthday

 So mid-March is when the Covid-19 / Coronavirus became so widespread that things just shut down.  We heard more and more about it, and things in bigger cities/other states starting shutting down (schools, libraries, concerts, etc), but honestly, it's still slightly surreal when it's your own schools and libraries, churches, that are cancelled.  I remember we had a RS birthday party planned, and the very day of, we learned we weren't allowed to gather in groups anymore, so we were trying to get the info out that it was cancelled.  Then we hurried and went to the Hyrum library because I was sure it was going to get closed too and so we got like a huge box full of books, and sure enough, the next day it was closed. 

I don't remember the date that our school was closed, but we picked up a chrome book and some supplies and started doing our home virtual classrooms.  Here are pictures of the kids doing school.

BYU encouraged their students to go home, so after a while I went and picked up Jethro.  Good thing too, he badly needed a haircut.  :)  He had to continue his classes virtually as well, which sucks.  It's just never as good as in-person.

Goodbye to Emma, who went home to Pittsburgh.

Walking up to the top of our road.

We also got free school lunches the rest of the school year.

Chickies arrived!

The GOOD thing about virtual school is that all of our teachers were super wonderful about it and didn't make it tricky or require lots of time that the kids had to be online in virtual classes.  It was mainly just, here's your work, do it.  (As opposed to some people's schools/teachers where there was so much be on at this time, don't let other kids be in the same room, blah blah blah.  It drove so many of my sisters and friends absolutely CRAZY.)  So, as I was saying, the good thing was that my kids got done all their stuff super fast so we had so much more free time.  Hazel did lots and lots of watercolor painting and practicing.  And we started going on so many hikes and just things that we really couldn't do (at least not nearly as much of) if the kids had been in school.

Hazel sadly missed her first school dance, the Sadie Hawkins, that she was planning with her friend Samantha and Anni.

We did some music making with Jethro.

You can watch the video to hear us sing.

Hazel and Ethne did a little Forest Play School for a few kids in our ward.  We didn't cancel it because the kids that came from our ward weren't too concerned about Covid.

Brett saw a little child falling from the sky, so he caught her.

Walking the Benson Marina loop that we always go to now.

Navy turned FOUR!!

Grandma came and they matched!

I adored how her cake turned out!

Aunt Amy's birthday is the day after Navy's, so they both got celebrated.