Spring 2021 - Part I

Allison's "Wormily"

After spring break the kids got back to their school routines. Though hybrid was not ideal, it was many times better than being full time virtual. It was nice to have Tyler back in the classroom, even if it was only 12 hours each week. Allison was in person even less, twice a week for 90 minutes, so I got plenty of time at home with her too.

Here are some adorable videos of Allison making up her own songs - 1st one about Minnie, then one about Mickey, then one about both of them. It's fun to watch how she picks up on music. Most of the time it's been repetitive humming or endless "E E E"s, but now she's creating little melodies. Her song about Mickey and Minnie has a little vocal line that progresses harmonically and even ends with a satisfying cadence.

The bottom right video was some sweetness I walked in on. I'd just woken up and came into Allison's room to find Tyler singing Allison the "Over in the Desert" book we'd picked up from the library. The kids like the song "Over in the Meadow" they've learned from Tyler's virtual music lessons, so we checked out several library books that use the same tune. 

One of Allison's zoom projects was to make a bird feeder, which she's posing with in the top left picture. In the other two pictures she's taking a walk with me to get her glasses fixed at Walmart. It's about a mile roundtrip, which is a bit much for her, but she pushed through it. She was actually the one that suggested walking there. It was so sweet! She sees me going on walks regularly and said "I want to go on a walk like mommy! When I grow up and become a mommy I'll go on big walks too!"

Here's Allison in the bath (she always wants to add color tabs to it) and playing the cello. Katy Kemple in the ward had done a musical number in church, and she was sweet enough to let Allison play on her cello for a little bit after the Sacrament meeting was over. 

Here's Tyler with his rainbow frogs and various other art projects, some done on his own and others done for school.

Here's a picture from one of Oscar's many evening runs.

Oscar did a 5 K and Tyler and Allison ran the Kids' dash at Magnuson Park. Allison enjoyed it so much she asked if she could run it again! We played on the playground while Oscar ran his race. 

I was feeling a little run down that morning because I'd had my first Covid shot a day and a half earlier. The Comcast office in Everett had a vaccine clinic on Wednesday and Thursday, but we didn't know about it, weren't eligible for the vaccine until Thursday, and it was all booked up by the time we found out about it. However a coworker told Oscar that they'd had extra doses on Wednesday after finishing up all the appointments, so she recommended showing up Thursday as a walk-in. I was thrilled we were able to get our shots the very first day we were eligible, and that it was so close to our house. Every other nearby Covid clinic I could find was totally booked. 

I was less thrilled with how strongly I reacted to the vaccine. It's fairly common (about 40%) to have a strong reaction to your second shot, but I had it to the first shot, which I hadn't expected (likelihood is only about 7%). I got the vaccine at 3:20pm on Thursday and initially felt nothing but a sore arm. By 10:00am the next day I could tell I was more tired than usual and had a noticeable but not painful headache. By 12:30pm being outside waiting for Allison's bus in perfect 72 degree weather felt like I was experiencing heat exhaustion, and when I came back inside I needed to change into warmer clothes and wear a Snuggie. The chills, aches, and pains hit hard, I couldn't function enough even just to watch TV, and I spent the next several hours in bed. I was more or less useless, tired, and achy until the next morning. Saturday was mostly recovered but more tired than usual, Sunday I was all better except my injection site armpit was still sore enough that I couldn't do jumping jacks, and Monday I was back to my usual self.

I had zero luck googling what to expect on the 2nd shot if your immune response was strong to the first, but I did find an article suggesting I might have unknowingly had Covid. There were a few days at the end of our October Utah trip where I had a sore throat, chills, aches, and pains for about a day and a cough for about a week. I intended to get tested if I didn't improve, but I was considerably better by the next day, I didn't have any shortness of breath, and no one else in the family got sick, so I didn't feel the need to get tested and assumed it was just a cold. That's my best guess since it's the only time the entire year that I felt genuinely ill. That week was mostly spent at Oscar's parents' house doing remote school while they were out of town, but we also spent several days outside at Cornbelly's Farm and Lagoon. Maybe since I was outside I only contracted a small viral load, just enough to give me slight chills and a cough...? 

3 weeks later my second shot wasn't nearly as bad. I got it on May 6th at 2:15pm. I experienced a much lesser version of my first response. My arm was tender around the injection site, but not nearly as sore as it was before. Symptoms also came on several hours earlier than the first time. I got chills, aches, and pains around 5:30am the next morning and had to change into my sweats. I fell back asleep and the chills were gone when I woke up. I still felt weak but noticeably better. After some ibuprofen I felt functional but still tired. I felt about the same only 15 hours after my 2nd shot as I did a day and a half after the first one. 

Allison is not always the most well behaved child in Sacrament meeting, but it's nice to know she's still picking up on at least a little bit of what happens there. We helped clean the building one Saturday morning, then I decided to run through my hymns for the next day on the organ. Allison entertained herself by going up to the pulpit repeatedly pretending to be a new family in the ward (she cycled through multiple family members introducing themselves). She then gave a little testimony about how much she loves Jesus, and she said a prayer. I'd stopped playing because it was so sweet to just watch her, to which she replied "mommy you can play now. I said my prayer already." 

Allison also thoroughly agrees with Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf that "church sleep is among the healthiest of all sleeps." She often falls asleep on us in Sacrament meeting.

With the weather warming up we made sure to get in plenty of park time.

Auntie Malia gave the kids new beds as a belated Christmas gift. I knew the one I wanted for Tyler could be found at Ikea, but it took awhile before I could make it down there on a day that they had it in stock. I drove down and got it (fortunately a man in the parking lot helped me load it into the Mazda), and Oscar put it together, which was quite a bit of work for him.

My 2nd Covid shot coincided with the time period I would normally work for Mother's Day, but I recovered quickly enough to still be able to work for two days. I just happened to be doing a delivery near the chapel when the Chennault Beach branch was handing out Mother's Day gifts, so I drove by and picked up a gift and balloon for me while I continued doing my own deliveries. One of my deliveries was so close that I could take a picture of the house before it from the driveway I was parked at (top right pictures). Oscar made yummy steak, potatoes, and asparagus dinners for Mother's Day and his birthday. Smoked asparagus is the bomb!

Allison made this alphabet letter snake putting it all in alphabetical order by herself and punching all the letters into the frames. I love watching her put a lot of time and effort into a big project.

Oscar tried to season his steak with a rubber duck! In all fairness to him it does look a lot like our salt shaker when you're just looking out the corner of your eye.

Cute cats!

On May 21st Tyler turned 8. The primary dropped over this fun sign and we took him to Olive Garden for an early dinner after school. I sent him off to school with his party hat on and they let him keep it on throughout the day. We didn't finish his chocolate lasagna at dinner, so we sang to him over the cake leftovers a few days later. We had also sung to him at Olive Garden, but we couldn't have a candle on his cake and they couldn't sing to him like they usually would pre-Covid.

The day after Tyler's birthday Oscar ran a 10K in Sammamish, and since it was forecast to be a sunny warm day after about 9am, I took the kids to Lake Sammamish state park for a beach day. The sun did eventually come out, but not until 2:30pm. It was cloudy and cold until then, so we hung out on the playground instead. Allison ended up getting herself invited to a birthday party simply by being cute and sweetly asking the birthday kids' mom questions. They totally took us in and let us enjoy the festivities with them. It felt so great to be celebrating a birthday after the past 15 months of avoiding gatherings. We had a lot of fun and Allison zonked right out on the drive back. 

Here are the kids doing Story trek at the park.

Tyler said he couldn't climb to the top of this because it was too high for him. Allison immediately showed him it wasn't too high for her, so of course he figured it out after she did.

Here's Tyler making his own game for his PE class.

And here's Tyler and Oscar twinning for the day!