Kaleb's 12th Birthday - Social Distancing 2.0

Well, as happens every year, Kaleb's birthday comes very shortly after Zachary's :)  So once he saw Zachary's birthday video, the cat was out of the bag and he knew that he would get one too.  He was quite anxious to see his, and was so excited and surprised to see some of the folks who sent in well wishes!  People are just so creative, we are always amazed!

We did a friend zoom call on Friday night on his birthday, and then the family one on Saturday so that more family members could actually be on the call.  It was fun to see everyone!

 It is hard to believe, where are the years going with our kiddos!?  We always have two cakes - one for family birthday and one for friends, and he chose a lemon strawberry one for his family one and it was delicious! 

We always measure the kids every year on their birthday for height.  This year Kaleb has grown a TON - he has always been about 1-2 inches shorter than Zachary at the equivalent age, but this year he caught all the way up to Zachary at age 12.  He was so excited, you can see how he was trying to stretch himself out as tall as possible in this picture! :)

 On Easter weekend (Kaleb's birthday weekend), we of course had the Friday birthday and then we watched the TBN version of Jesus' life on Sabbath - it was very well done.  On sunday, we did an indoor Easter egg hunt - Addison had quite a lot of fun putting the eggs together.  There were a certain number of eggs (15-16?) for each kid in specific colors, so they could only find their eggs.  They had a race, with Zachary and Addison finding their final eggs about the same time.  Their happy faces would say it was a success :)

About to start their hunt, with the "hider" in the background!

About to eat some of their eggs.  One of them had money, so they were excited about that! :)

Random pictures:

Not sure this looks comfortable to watch TV....but Zachary will let Addison do just about anything - what an amazing big brother!

One of Kaleb's gift was the Cat in the Cradle - so we had fun doing it

We had a surprise drop-in visit from the Bergherm men - we kept a lot of social distance, but they had fun talking from afar!

Zach - 14 Years Old in Quarantine!

Being a kid with a birthday during a quarantine just isn't the cats meow unfortunately.  What a bummer, but we made the best of it with decorations, an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, and amazing friends and family who sent in their well-wishes via video! What a special movie it was - see below - Zachary loved it!  Thanks to all who took the time to send in wishes for him!

We also did a zoom conference call with our family that Sabbath evening

....and another Zoom call with close friends the next day - so we were "close" enough that we were far away!   During our zoom friends call, we celebrated Kelli's birthday again, and the Cochrans had a great idea for Kelli to blow out "her" candles on the cake they had at their house (eating cake together in our respective houses!) by her blowing out the candles and "magically" they went out on their side.  It was super fun and cute!

And there she blows, with a little help from Kieran!

We also did a very special "Happy Birthday" face-to-face visit with Kelli. We went, yelled Happy Birthday, and then sang an off-key version!  We sat on the street while they sat on their porch and we had a lovely chat for a few minutes before heading on home.  Bringing a little cheer during social distancing! :)

We are hanging in there, the kids are doing amazing at their schoolwork.  Zachary is definitely showing his responsibility and if he wants to do part-time homeschool for high school, this shows he can definitely do it.  He is staying on track and getting everything taken care of!  Kaleb is doing fantastic as well, and Addison took a little "I don't want to do anything" detour but we got her back on the right path this week and she has been energized!  Here is her little desk set up - in the dining room where Amy works!

Other quarantine activities:

Playing soccer outdoors - even Addison was in on the action!

And playing "soccer" together indoors electronically

while the ladies made cookies!

All ready to go outside and work!

This "playhouse" outside of Addison's room has been here since Christmas, and she finally agreed to let it go so we took a picture of her inside it one last time before out it went!

We pray for you, that you stay healthy and well!

COVID-19 Quarantine 2020

There is a first time for everything, right?  Well when we got back from our ski trip, things rapidly changed in our lives as COVID-19 started to spread across the US and edicts were released for social distancing and ultimately quarantine.  This meant that effective that Monday there was also no school, which meant that Amy had to start working remotely!

Eventually most of the hospital desk workers were sent home, so Amy is no longer the only one working from home.  It has been an interesting transition - and for extroverts it is a little painful! :)

The kids have done pretty well with school - Zachary has the most load with a full morning of Teams/Zoom classes and then homework in the afternoon.  He parks himself in our bonus room where he has "freedom" from parental oversight :) and a comfortable place to sit.

Kaleb only has two classes a day, but lots of homework.  He does his schoolwork in our office and his bedroom.  So far both boys have done very well managing and being responsible for their schoolwork as it would be almost impossible for Amy to work full-time on conference calls all day and "homeschool" them plus Addison.

Addison has one Zoom class per day and then a lot of online learning opportunities.  She has been a challenge - she loves to do the online learning but does not like the zoom class (which possibly is because it is at 9A and we have not been as vigilant with bedtimes, so she is sleeping until 8:30 and may not be quite as awake as she should be).  We are learning what works and doesn't work and trying to adjust as we go.

Karis is still working full-time but we don't know how much longer - we will see.  So he has full patient contact, which does make Amy a little nervous but God has protected us thus far from getting it.

We have been very careful to follow the social quarantine measures, and haven't interacted with anyone (outside of Karis at work and trips to the store) since the edict went in place -- other than one special birthday surprise trip for a friend -- but we stayed about 30 feet away!

It has been a time in which we have enjoyed the ability to do more family time and make memories together - so while it is unprecedented for us, it has also had its blessings.  Amy has also had more time for quiet worship in the mornings out on the back deck, and has enjoyed the reflection time.  So the quarantine of 2020 hasn't been so bad all in all!

We thought that we'd share a little of what we've been up to in pictures along the way.  We pray that you are safe, and free from the virus!

Time capsule of activities for the quarantine:

Boating

Boat time - fishing on this particular day (no fish caught!)

Kneeboarding - show-off! :)

tubing is always a favorite!

Notice Amy is wearing a jacket - kids are the water but she's in a jacket! :)

Pooltime:

Watching Wildlife - cool hawk!

Lots of board games

Yard games

Working of course with Daddy!

And playing with Daddy! Wrestle time has come back to stay in the house!

 Going for walks together as a family

Her face is all messed up!

So close to being Dad's height!

 School time:

Household necessities - Amy cut Kaleb's hair (on the bottom part and bangs).  Not too bad, but definitely not professional!

Creative play:

She's a unicorn!

Doing mom's hair and make-up - a bit clownish when we were done!

Deer Valley 2020

As usual, we had the Spring CFO Conference for Amy in Deer Valley, Utah.  The Z family loves skiing, so we always look forward to it immensely.  We flew out on Saturday night and skied Sunday and Monday at Brighton.  This was the first time that we stayed at a hotel Sunday night near Brighton to save drive time - it worked out nicely for drive time (and we were lucky, we had two adjoining rooms that one was a handicapped room so it was very spacious!).  Addison took lessons both days at Brighton and then just skied the rest of the week, as she had already had 2 days of lessons at Winter Park back in January as well.

The Z children have taken after their father in a deep love for skiing!

About to head off to their lessons!

Our skiing group this year (minus Randy as he was at Park City this day skiing)

We got a picture at the end of the week with Randy, but then the adult Js weren't in the picture as they were out on their anniversary dinner celebration (congrats!)

This year, our friend Randy re-joined us - it had been since 2005 that he had come with us, and it was great fun to have him there again.  The kids thankfully are good enough skiers that they could all ski together without slowing him down so they had a blast all together!

College friends

We of course played lots of cribbage in the condo - fun to all hang out and make memories together!

Even the kids played with us!

And Uno Blast!

A tradition on the final night is to watch the Go-Pro videos, so that is always a highlight.

While we are always grateful for the opportunity to have a vacation skiing, this may qualify as the worst trip ever.  A friend (who shall remain nameless as she feels bad enough) joined the ladies to ski after lunch on our first day out at Brighton and nailed Amy on the first run.  Thankfully nothing was broken or torn, but Amy's muscles/ligaments were extremely sore after the fall.  She tried to ski on Monday but had another fall right before lunch (when your knee isn't 100%, turns become a little harder to navigate), in which she ended up having to take off her skies and walk part-way down the mountain as there was just no way that her knee would be able to handle any more turns and control the skies.   So she ended up not being able to ski until Thursday......and on Thursday Addison got the stomach bug (diarrhea and puking...no coronavirus thank goodness) so Amy didn't ski at all the rest of the week as she stayed in.  Amy did get a massage in the room on Tuesday though - which was delightful -- except the masseuse talked about "balancing energy" and "chakras" which kind of weirded Amy out at the end of the massage!  Amy was happy at that point for the massage to be done!  The last day our friend's son also had a terrible ski accident in which he flew up in the air and slammed down on his back and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance to be sure his spine was okay (which thankfully it was!).

The final morning, the kids usually have all switched over time zones and have a hard time getting themselves up out of bed -- even with the lights on, parents talking and packing etc! :)

A few random ski pictures - Zachary is old enough that he was skiing with his friend Cole most of the time - what happened to skiing with the parents!? :)  The other two skied with Karis the whole time, and even Addison was tackling the black mogul runs (and double blacks!)

Kaleb, about to drop into a black diamond run.  No thanks says Amy! :)