Toothless Clark

During all this crazy pandemic-ness we can't gloss over the really good things. For one, Miss Char is talking up a storm. Most of it is unintelligible, but still, we'll take it. Another is that Mr. Clark lost his first tooth!

Look at that handsome mug. It wiggled and wiggled for weeks before popping out one night when Dana was brushing his teeth. There is a HUGE tooth coming in behind it already so I'm pretty sure the other middle one is going to vacate his mouth soon. The tooth fairy left four shiny quarters under his pillow and he bought a race car with them the next day (it was a funny exchange where you could see his confusion over why he had to give up his quarters to get the car...welcome to money son!). We are so excited for this new phase.

 Also, had to put in this photo of his class. It's especially tender now that I'm not sure he'll ever be with all of them again. He has loved his Moxee Kinder class and especially Mrs. Crook and Mrs. Schut. I personally will love these ladies and kiddos forever for making his first year of school magical!

Quarantine: Week 2 - Daddy Day

And....they closed the parks! Nooooooooo. Yup, this week the cases really spiked in Washington and the rest of the country so we (and almost every other state) are on total lockdown. That means we can leave the house only for groceries, medicine, or excercise (as long as we maintain social distancing). Since we saw pickup bball games of 20+ youth last week, it was no surprise they put the kybosh on the parks. They even tied up the swings like they are in jail:(

Plus, all of this non stop coronavirus talk has turned people rabid. The first week they raided every grocery store: hoarding TP and water, rice and other canned goods. Costco is the worst. One morning last week the line to get in was stretched around the building. They've had to start making a seniors only hour so the old people can get their stuff without getting infected. And this is a sign of everything they were out of the day we went. It's honestly nuts on a level I have never seen.

So what does this mean for our little Gailan family. We are BORED! But surving. Charlotte discovered the scriptures and Sunday lessons are actually going pretty well. Dana blesses the Sacrament and we sing songs and have a Come Follow Me Lesson. It's short but nice. We do our meetings via Zoom and yes, sometimes we forget they will be video meetings and so we show up in our ratty sweatshirt and mussed up hair instead of a shirt and tie but oh well:)

We decided Clark will use this time to get comfortable with his bike! He's pretty enthusiastic about it. Unfortunately, it's been crazy windy this week so his poor legs are tired.

Since we can't bowl for real anymore, I gave in and bought a kids bowling set. We have seen an uptick in fights but also in fun.

Char's music class got cancelled of course but I still tried to do one this week and it went pretty well. Clark knew about half the songs, which is funny.

 Charlotte ate a piece of bread.

Since Dana's office got closed too, he is now working from home. He set up his command central in our bedroom which makes it a little hard with noise control but it also means he gets to do lunch time wrestle mania.

And, why not, we decided to let Clark watch Star Wars. The old school ones. The good ones. He has a lot of questions but is really excited when Darth Vader arrives.

Every day is pretty much the same. We can get through this but man do I miss my ladies!

Coronavirus Quarantine: Week 1 - Here we go

Whelp, the world has gone certifiably crazy. Really fast, too. A few months back some new virus started up in China and then jumped right on over to Seattle. It's called Coronoavirus (and yes, the Corona beer people are LOVING the association, not!) or techincally Covid-19, No big deal, right. It's like the flu. Only, turns out, it's not so much. It has a higher kill rate, higher infection rate, mainly targets the immunocompromised and elderly and on and on. So, when cases skyrocketed in Seattle and a whole bunch of nursing home residents died our country went 100% full scale beserk.

On the 16th of March, school was offically suspended for ???. Honestly, we have no idea. Right now until the end of April but realistically probably we are done for the year. Which means Mr. Clark won't get to see his buddies again or finish his Kindergarten year. It's seriously feeling so surreal. All church meetings, sacrament, etc. have been cancelled. We can't even get into the building which means no workout group, no relief society. All gyms, pools, rec centers and the bounce house have been cancelled. We now are mandated to do something called "social distancing" which means staying more than 6 feet away from everyone except immediate family. It's so bizarre to see a friend and have to stop 6 feet away to talk. No handshakes. No hugs.

So....what did we do this strange week, just me and the kids at home?

We slept in. And took naps. And got very, very lazy on the couch.

The weather actually was fantastic for the middle of March so we went to the park A LOT! We were able to meet up with some friends two of the days and that helped with the isolation.

We workout most mornings to stay sane and Charlotte thinks my workout headband is very punk 80s.

And we went for a hike up Konnowack with Dad. Well, some of us hiked. Some of us are seriously lazy lately and got Dad to carry us.

Yes, folks, it has been a weird week. But, hey, as long as the good weather and parks survive, we can make it!

The Before...

So, this is a very weird time and there are gonna be some seriously weird posts coming up here but before the weird, there was this:

Our kids actually playing nicely together one night.

Charlotte also go lazy at the park one day and spent 20 minutes like this on the swings. It's literally the laziest park activity one can do. She also go a sound beginnings t-shirt and it's adorable. 

 We went to a BYU Vocal Point Concert in Tri-Cities with the Reiersen's and Ritchie's and it was, in a word, sublime. So much dancing. So many jazz hands. So much hearing loss by Dana because of the tweenie boppers screaming right beside him. The lights, the 80s jeans jackets, oh, perfection. I haven't laughed this hard is forever. They were also pretty dang good.

And on the last normal day for a long, long, loooooooong (more on that later) time, we went out to eat at El Portons and took Mr. Clark bowling for the first time. Of course, he rocked it! Charlotte tried to help me out and we both ended up in the bowling lane by accident:)

Sweet Sweet Love

February is the month of love and I loved soooo much this month!

First, a quick pic of Clark's photo board and the things he's been creating this last quarter. He's pretty cute. 

I love that after one long day, Miss Charlotte fell asleep on the way home...with her sock on her hand. Yup.

I love that she randomly (all on her own) discovered the trashy romance novels at the library and cracked one open for a nice long read.

I love the ladies in our ward. We held a retreat at church and stayed up waaaayy to late eating and laughing. We put together puzzles and played laser tag in the hallway and sang really awesome karaoke.

I love that her hair keeps getting BIGGER. When will it max out? Maybe never. 

I love that we got outside a lot this month because it was randomly warm. We went hiking with Cheyenne and Ezra and I made Char wear a huge coat.

And most afternoons we went to the park. Charlotte loves the swing and figured out how to do this weird tummy swing thing. One day she was pretty lethargic (sick? we aren't sure) and so she spent 20 minutes swinging like this, with as little effort as possible. Smart baby. 

I love that these Elsa pjs from Aunt Sarah don't fit at all and yet she saw me trying to pack them away and went full feral. So, now Elsa is in the rotation:)

I love watching these two play. They are silly, silly, silly.

And finally, I love this little purse that we brought back from Cancun that she carries around like a real purse.