Blogger uploaded this whole month backwards! I can't figure out why it did that. So know these are a little out of order but all in April.
March was kind of up air on how crazy this was going to be but April hit full stop. No church, school, sports. Kids weren't supposed to go to the store. They had special early hours for people high risk. Most states only allowed business like dr and grocery stores to open. In Utah we weren't that shutdown thankfully. You could only go out to eat if you went drive though. But many places don't have a drive though window. Like Texas Roadhouse where our friend Beau manages. They started doing lots of curbside pick up and allowed you to order uncooked stakes to bring home and cook for your family. I loved seeing how businesses leaned to adapt so they didn't have to shut their doors. Some still had to close and are out of business now.
The hardest part was all the unknown. I thought for sure schools would open back up in April. Then they didn't open at all for the rest of the school year. I thought for sure we would be back to church. Nope. By the end of April we started getting out and about a little more though. It was driving me crazy.
Remember these are backwards. I've tried a few times and it won't put them in right.
We went a long time without seeing family. Except on the computer. By the end of April my parents came up to see us for the first time. It was around Brett's birthday. My dad went fishing with the boys.
My ward had me go around and take pictures of the families on their front porch. Many photographers did a front porch project where they did that for families and I just stayed back from them to be safe. Bishop McEvoy and Heather drove me around in the razor.
We spent our time doing odd jobs around the house. Like cleaning out the rain gutters.
My poor Grandma. She is stuck in her place and we are not allowed to visit her. So we go to her window and talk to her on the phone. At least she can see us and we can see her.
My neighbor brought us the best treats EVER.
We played a lot of Mario kart. There wasn't much else to do fun.
Well except the boys did take the 4wheeler and dirt bike rides up Providence canyon.
East especially likes it.
Everyone was doing chalk drawings for people when they go on walks. I tried to do that with my boys and they drew the terminator and predator. East and I traced all the kids and then we colored what they looked like.
It was so weird to see empty parking lots everywhere.
Leveling out the yard
We liked to fish because you can do that away from people.
We did a Palmer family zoom call to see everyone. Sannette said it was her concert and she sang to all of us.
I love when the tulips are in bloom at the temple. I was 100% planning on doing Brett's baptism pictures at the temple when they were in bloom. The gates were always closed so I had to take a photo with the gates shut. Fitting since we cannot go inside anyway.
East was so happy to have his brothers home.
He picked me a flower.
A little backstory here. In April we were told it was going to be the heigh of the pandemic. In our area we still only had a handful of cases a day though. Bryan got a call from our stake president asking him to help the missionaries move from their apartment. Bryan called Ethan McEvoy to go help him. After they loaded up all of their stuff and had it in his truck he asked them why they were moving. The one said it was because a missionary in the other companionship they lived with tested positive for Covid. Bryan turned around and said are you kidding me? Shouldn't you have told us that before we moved all of your stuff? He was so mad. I got a phone call from Bryan telling me to get in the garage. He wanted help getting him clean clothes because he felt his needed to be washed because he was exposed to Covid. I was freaking out. I mean we didn't know what this virus would do. The news made it sound like we were all about to die. I wondered if we caught it would it harm one of us? Then on the lesser scale if I am in full quarantine what about the wedding I was supposed to shoot that week and how will I get milk from the store?
We let our stake president know and he called the mission president who called the area authority. Now you should know we didn't tell anyone about this except a few close family members because if we did end up getting sick we didn't want the bad press to go against the church. We want to make sure it didn't get out where we got it. Bryan did tell me he expended a call from the prophet if he got sick though. haha. He really was joking I promise.
We found out later that day that the kid was only tested that day for it and wasn't positive. Which was good. And we found out a few days later his test was negative and we were in the clear. But honestly this scared me a lot. I kind of feel apart emotionally about it because I was worried what that would mean to my family. Bryan did have to work from home for that time but lucky for us he could do that and still get paid. A lot of people lost their jobs or just couldn't work. I know my photo business pretty much died all but a couple of weddings. And the wedding had like 8 people there including me!
I was so happy we were in the clear because that meant we could drive over to Sannette birthday party! NO ONE loves birthdays more than this girl. I would dare say on the earth no one loves them more. She loves hers and everyone elses. It's a big deal and the fact we couldn't be at her house to watch her blow out her candles was absolutely heartbreaking. So we drove up to their house to sing to her. I got her some balloons (she loves her high school so they were her mountain crest colors) and she was out side to cheer that we were there. IT was raining though but she didn't care. Then Jenny asked us to get out and have a dance party with there. That is what she had been talking about for weeks was having a dance party. Ironically she wanted to sing Taylor Swifts "we are never ever ever getting back together" song. Fitting since we missed seeing each other. I should note it was also Bradens birthday! He has always been so good to share his birthday with her.
EASTER!
What a Easter it was. Remember these are out of order- but I insisted on getting a whole family picture for easter.
We colored Eggs
The Easter Bunny came.
We did our annual man Easter photo the night before
On Easter Sunday I was in the living room and some of the boys were playing with their new kites out in the yard. Ty runs in screaming and freaking out. He stepped on a t-post that was by one of Bryan's trees and sliced the bottom of his foot really bad. He got blood everywhere.
So we debated on what to do. We could tell It was deep but I was nervous to bring him into the dr with Covid. I called instacare and wanted to see what they said and we decided where it was on his foot we better make sure it was cleaned out and ok so it would close up. Normally we go in the waiting room but they had us wait outside. A nurse came over and brought us in the back door where they took our temperature. We had to put on a mask (a thing to come in daily life) and we waited in a exam room. We honestly were the only ones there and the dr stayed with him most of the time. I think they were bored because everyone was too scared to go in to the dr.
Poor Ty was so scared. He was really nervous about getting stitches. But after he was like that really wasn't that bad. He got I think 6 stitches.
The Saturday before Easter we had our own easter hunt since we couldn't do Grandma Palmers. We pretty much decided that us and our neighbors would quarantine together because she didn't go anywhere and neither did we. So our boys played a lot together. I bought way too much candy and was happy to share so they came and did the candy hunt with us.
I'm so grateful for my yard. Little boys being stuck at home all the time IS THE WORST. I can't even describe how much they need to get their wiggles out. So we spent a ton of time in our yard.
Since you couldn't go get your hair cut very easily a lot of people went without or tired a home haircut. Lucky for us Bryan already did that with my boys.
We loved general conference! They didn't have any audience and only had a few speakers sitting there. It was the 200 anniversary of the first vision. Which was really cool because Ty was almost exactly the same age as Joseph Smith this year when he had the vision. Crazy to think a boy that young had that. Amazing.
April fools day we woke up to a lot of snow. So the boys made a Corona snowman.
