Coronavirus/Covid-19 Hits Texas and Our Little Family

March has been an interesting month of unexpected challenges and changes.  A disease that first appeared in China in December has made itself around the world and turned into a global pandemic.  Our Government leaders have asked us to stay home, avoid social contact with other people, and to take extra care in sanitizing our environments to help prevent the spread of this aggressive disease.  Everything has seemed to develop rather rapidly from my perspective.  What started out as a rather normal month has ended up with home schooling adventures, canceled play dates and game nights with friends, strange grocery shopping trips with milk rations and empty toilet paper isles, Sacrament meetings at home where Dustin blesses the Sacrament and Loyd passes it to our family around the kitchen table, birthday parties at home, and lots of facetime phone calls with cousins, friends and grandma to help break up the business of staying home.

As a family we are doing well.  We have plenty of food (especially brownies and popcorn!) and toilet paper. ;)  We have enjoyed lots of extra family board game nights and Netflix/Amazon Prime movie nights together in the front room.  The beautiful warm weather outside has meant we can play outside when we want and splash around in the water to cool off and get some wiggles out.  We're especially glad for the nice weather since Grandma Phillips sent us pictures from last week where they got 8 inches of March snowfall.  Brrr for the Utah cousins stuck in the same boat as us!

We've even managed to use some of our newly available social time to work on our home remodel.  We're not sure when we'll be able to finish it or put our home on the real estate market now so we can make the big move to Utah, but we're just going to keep moving forward in faith and take life as it comes.

School has been canceled at all CCISD facilities until at least April 10, but I bet they extend that date. The teachers, kids, and I are all busy learning how to move classwork onto the internet so the kids don't fall behind or miss out on too much school during the Social Distancing and Stay at Home orders.  Schooling all of the kids from home has been challenging and time consuming for me, but the kids and I are still on speaking terms so I count that as a win!

I have come to the realization that I have been training for social isolation and stay at home orders since I was a kid.  All there was to do in Morgan was go to the doctor, the pharmacy, grocery store, or check out the time and temperature at the bank.  So, being asked to stay home unless going to the doctor, the pharmacy, or the grocery store is just like a walk down memory lane for me.  :)

We're very grateful for Dustin's job and that he works from home.  So many have lost their income as they are asked to stay home for the health and safety of all.  We're thankful we can spend this time together as a family.  I'm so very thankful for a loving Savior, Jesus Christ, and the peace His Gospel brings.

These are interesting times filled with lots of new experiences and uncertain futures, but in the moment we are finding the good and the fun and the beautiful.  Here are just a few snapshots of things we've been doing since mid-March when Covid-19 began effecting our family.

Extra snuggle time with our little furry friends!  Xavier listening to little mouse whispers from Licorice Mouse

 Home School Distance Learning Central!

 Breaking out all the fun crafts and sensory play things to fill our days.

 Backyard water fun!  It's been in the mid to upper 80s so we've been cracking out the swim suits, sprinklers, and having a blast in the water outside!