We are a few weeks into virtual school now and things are going okay. The kids have gotten use to the routines and doing their work at home. The teachers are doing an amazing job at teaching and giving interesting things to do. Andrew told me tomorrow he has a chemistry assignment to do some experiments at home. I guess we will see what that all entails. I don’t need to help them much, that is nice. They work independently and are keeping up with the things their teachers are asking of them. They all wish they were in regular school, but are making the best of the situation.
Neal is still working from home most days. Today he is in the office. He keeps busy with work. Last week he took a couple of days off and spent time at home. It was the end of their fiscal year and he decided that was okay to take some time off. I keep busy with the regular stuff around the house. It is a bit different having everyone home all day. I try to keep quiet and not be a distraction to their work. That also means I am listening to a lot of audio books through my ear buds. I enjoy the things I can listen to. I am working on my knitting. When I was in Utah this summer my mom and sister Susan showed me how to knit. Mom gave me some knitting needles and I have been practicing on some old yard. This week I started working on a wash cloth out of new nicer yarn. It is a slow process, but hopefully I can get the knack of it soon. Then I can try figuring out other stitches.
We all went to the dentist this month for check ups and cleanings. No cavities, that is good for all six of us to get that report. Andrew is still in braces and wishes they would say he is done. But, they are trying to get his bite just right and will check him again in October.
As a family we went out to the west side of the city to the Petroglyphs National Monument and walked around. It was nice to do something together away from home and I enjoyed a walk through a canyon looking for petroglyphs. Neal and Andrew went camping one week end. They went back packing into the San Pedros area and Andrew brought his fishing things. He caught multiple fish and they enjoyed some quiet time in the mountains.
We had the missionaries over for dinner. It was the first time in a long time. The missionaries now have approval to eat at members home, if they can eat outside. It was a beautiful evening and we enjoyed having our dinner outside with them. We enjoyed visiting and watching the sun set. It was good to have them with our family.
We also had some friends invite us over to eat with them. It was nice to see them and visit with them in their home. Caleb had fun playing with his friend Rafael and the others enjoyed being there too. I am glad they invited us over. It has been hard not to be social for six months and we all need those interactions. I was happy to hear yesterday that we will go back church meetings every week in person, just for sacrament meeting for now. It will be so good to get back to normal activities.
The kids have started having more church activities with their friends. Andrew had fun playing pickle ball with his group this week. Last week Ruth enjoyed visiting with her friends at the church. Spencer’s group is in the planning stages for things. He also likes to go bike riding with Jonathan. Caleb has enjoyed visiting with his friends. Seth and Caleb get together about once a week at each others homes and have a lot of fun playing together. We also went to a park one afternoon with the Aragon family and enjoyed playing there. I enjoyed going to a book club meeting, the first in person one in months, and ended up talking to some of my friends until 11:00 that evening. It is so nice to be around other people. I know that the virus is still out there and that people are still sick, but we can be careful and wise and try hard to stay well. We can’t isolate ourselves forever.
Ruth worked hard and got her BYU application finished in three weeks. It was so nice that all the people she requested recommendations from were prompt in responding. She worked hard on her essays and had Neal and I review them for her. She had a lot of good things to say. She is so excited about attending BYU, I really hope she gets accepted. We will have to wait until February to find out though. Yesterday we did a virtual tour with two nice BYU students via zoom. That was a fun thing too. She is working on scholarship applications now. She has turned in an application for BYU-I and plans on applying to UVU and UofU. Ruth took the SAT at the end of August. I was glad that this testing date didn’t get canceled, like it did last March. This week she got her scores, she got 1490! That is an amazing score. I am proud of her.
Last week Ruth had a friend take some pictures of her for her senior year. I tagged along and gave moral support. It was fun to watch the photo shoot. It is great to see Ruth growing up and seeing her wonderful personality and know that she will accomplish great things in her life.
