All the Things

General Conference:  General Conference was amazing.  I knew it would be and was not disappointed. There is always such uplifting and wonderful messages.  This year for the Saturday evening session all 11 and up were invited.  So we got to do all 10 hours of church together.  We had some good meals and enjoyed being together.

Blake has been working on a tie.  We made them side by side so I could demonstrate and then he followed.  He finished it in time for Conference Sunday morning.  He did his and I did Dave's. It was a neat experience to do the Hosannah Shout in our basement with just the 4 of us. 

Blake working on his tie.

Worldwide Fast: During conference, Pres Nelson called for a worldwide fast to be held on April 10, Good Friday.  He asked that we fast for the pandemic to be controlled, caregivers protected, economy to heal, and live to be normalized. We had had a fast just the week before, but we felt this one was to be different and that we need to take it serious.  Not that we usually don't but like I said it just felt so important,  when the prophet asks in General Conference for you to fast, you make sure you do it. We decided as a family when we thought would work best for us.  Lunch to lunch Thursday to Friday, or Friday to Saturday etc. In the end we chose dinner Thursday to dinner Friday. It was a beautiful fast to break.  Dave kept Blake busy by doing farm work and Leah ran over to do a drive by birthday parade for a friend.  Then we all sat down together and ate a delicious meal. I know God can do all things, and am sure that things will start to improve soon, if it be His will.

Keeping Sane:  Dave and I don't feel like our life is to much different.  Neither of us like to be social much and he rarely has down time anyways, but for the kids it certainly is. I do miss going to their sporting events and watching. Leah says she feels this is very bittersweet.  She is getting this extra time to spend with her family with no distractions before she leaves home, but also she is missing seeing her friends that she may not see for a couple of years to do missions and schooling. Blake is keeping busy by helping Dave lots and building things.  He was craving tacos the other day and so looked up how to make shells.

Doing some schoolword. :)

They are on Easter break now and so we will do some spring cleaning and if the weather is nicer go for walks outside.  

Easter: We had a lovely Easter.  Dave had gotten the kids a few treats.  We always do the fun hunt on the Saturday before. My mom had invited us for Easter dinner, but we decided since Dave is still working (thank goodness, everyday we are still thankful for another day of work) we didn't want to be the cause of spread.  We are just staying home.  I missed the family and ham.  Fingers crossed we can celebrate again soon.  We had a nice meal and had a great discussion on the Atonement.  I love that my kids are old enough to really get into discussing things with us and it will often turn out to be much longer then we had anticipated.  For church at home this week we were able to have the sacrament again as well.

Cora: Cora is amazed at how busy they still are. She said that in England the ward averages about 50 attending and 600 less active.  Those 600 are her responsibility to call and check up on.  She said Sunday is a crazy busy for them.  She loves her daily runs to the beach.  Her companion right now is from Denmark and was telling her that the whole country is a beach. She can drive from one end to the other in 20 mins.  Cora told her that it took her 20 mins just to get to high school. 

Her companion can drive, so they can get groceries on PDays.  Still no word on where Cora's passport and drivers license is. She is anxious to get out and meet the people in her ward in person, but is not bored or going insane yet. 

She is over two zones, which covers all of Wales and she wants to travel around and see it.  She got transferred to Wales one week before quarantine and in that week she was running around cleaning out sisters flats that were going home suddenly with borders closing and what not.  She said as an STL she has a lot wider range of where she can go for PDays and is excited to see it all and meet all the people.  She loves street contacting and teaching in people's homes.

Work: As mentioned above so far Dave is still going to work.  On the 20th they will go to more modified hours and hopefully be able to stay at that until this is done. He is concerned about his wage going down with less hours and not being able to get the compensation most are because of the farm.  However we are not really stressed as we feel prepared and are hopeful it won't last long.  Many many prayers are said daily.  So many are out of work, we are thankful for what we do have and that our kids are healthy.  That we have wide open spaces to get out in and projects to keep everyone sane. And we are enjoying the beautiful world we live in.

Happy 18th Leah

Leah turned 18 yesterday.  My kids are getting so old.  I have no idea how I got a 20 year old and an 18 year old.  It is crazy.  Leah's birthday usually falls on or very close to conference weekend.  What a great way to spend a birthday, listening to a prophet of God.  Since we are in the middle of this pandemic still, I was worried about how lonely her birthday would be.  I had managed to get her a couple little gifts before we were not able to shop anymore and as requested Dave was able to pick her up a DQ cookie dough cake.   Friday she was supposed to go down and do a social distancing circle of cars with her friends to celebrate her and another friend's birthday.  But it started to snow and was cold, so she didn't feel like joining them.  Besides as is Leah's life story, she had homework to do.  (Can we still call it homework if all school work is done at home now?) All in all Leah had a great birthday.

We tried to quietly cover her door with balloons.  I don't think it is possible to be quiet with plastic and balloons, we had a couple pop too.  But we managed to get it all up before she opened her door. 

She couldn't decide between spaghetti and Chicken Caesar salad.  We did both. Spaghetti Saturday, salad Sunday.

During lunch we got a text from Jared saying the first calf had been born.  Leah decided since it was named on her birthday that she was going to name it.  The next day she went to check cows with Dave and to get a picture.  She has named it Jerky.

Blake gave her the best coupon book. He drew all these funny quick pictures that are hilarious to the two of them because of conversations they have had the last few weeks.  For example he asked her to play fortnite with him.  She did not want to but finally went down with him and the he played online with his friends as she texted her friends.  Great bonding moment. ;) None the less I thought it was a cute fun book for them to share.

The DQ cake!

The week before I had seen our local fire department say that if anyone had a birthday, they wanted to help celebrate.  I debated for a day or so, thinking 18 might be a little old for the fire department or we might be to far out of town.  Then I was like what the heck she can't do anything with friends.  So we got it all set up.  They called me when they were about a mile away.  I looked out the window and kind of laughed because we rarely have a car go by on our road and behind the fire trucks were 5 cars.  I was thinking those poor people, got stuck behind the birthday parade.  As they got closer they had the lights and sirens going.  They sang Happy Birthday through the megaphone and had balloons and signs.  It was awesome.  Then we started to recognize some of Leah's friends and our neighbors in the cars behind them.  The Fire Department had somehow contacted her friends and had them come along too.  It was so neat.  Leah was so pleased that so many friends and neighbors would drive out of their way, just to drive by her house. Some came 30-40 mins one way just to wave at her.

It was really cool.  She even got a card handed to her while trying to social distance.  Our fire department is awesome.  They went above and beyond to make it a special day for Leah.  We were very pleasantly surprised.

That night she wanted to watch The Greatest Showman, and of course we needed a little second piece of DQ cake.

Sidenote: I was teaching Blake to make a tie.  We did two side by side so he could follow along.  He made his and I made Dave's.  Turned out fairly well for first time.  His few mistakes we were able to hide and he learned the importance of properly cutting out material and not rushing through it.

Leah is a true delight in our family.  We feel so blessed that she got to come to us.  Next year our home will definitely be quieter and not as busy.  She has a very deep rooted testimony and will not be swayed.  Even when her friends try to get her to 'have a little fun and stop being a party pooper' she will not do anything that she feels is wrong.  She is a loving example to her high school friends and they all know her to be trustworthy and dependable.  She will not gossip and many kids will come to her with their problems and ask for help.  She is a good kind soul, but will not put up with your crap.  Leah has very high standards.  Some of her friends tease her that they can not wait to meet the man she finally deems worthy to date.  Many have tried. She has a fun, sarcastic, offbeat sense of humor.  Extremely hardworking and dedicated to her school work.  We are still working on the room cleaning. We are so proud of the woman she has become and are excited about the next steps in her live and can't wait to see what she does with it. We will miss her dearly.

Happy Birthday my beautiful girl.  Love you lots.