Monthly: January & February 2022

New Year's Day was one to remember. It started out nice and quiet with homemade biscuits and gravy and the Harry Potter 20th Reunion and ended with Jen testing positive for Covid. All of us that were together on NYE had to go into quarantine. Eventually Mom tested positive, but had no symptoms, and Grant did too. He and Jen had the sniffles, but it was mild and short-lived. We were thankful none of the other grandparents caught it!

We had been looking forward to spending the rest of our Christmas break with family since they had all been away for the first half... but that didn't happen. At least we had squeaked in a few activities beforehand. It was a very quiet holiday, but very relaxing - I think I read 4 books in 2 weeks. 

 

Carolina went tubing with a friend from school and loved it! We were able to enjoy more snow than last year, which was great! But we had some verrrry cold days - which was not so much great, especially since it meant students had to be inside during all recesses. And with students having just returned from visiting family and friends, and then being all cooped up inside due to the weather, the Covid swept through. I don't think I had a single day where my whole class was present in January or February. January attendance was very low, for students and staff. Staff out numbers made for a rather miserable return to school, but we soldiered on. 

And then, only one week into the semester, Liam woke up with half a voice - but he felt fine. However, the next day his voice was no better so we decided to give him a test, and two lines showed up. So back into quarantine we went. Man was I ticked - having to keep the kids home from school in September due to Covid exposure had really hurt Liam's grades the whole first semester, and now he was missing another week at the beginning of this one. 

A few days later, Todd showed symptoms and also received a positive test. Liam got through it fine, it really just seemed like a cold, but it was far rougher on Todd - there were a couple of days where he considered going to the hospital and did call his doctor. Carolina and I never showed symptoms, so we masked up and kept going to school/work - particularly because it was a very bad time for me to try to get a sub!! I tested at least 3-4 times throughout their illness, but I never was positive for it - we didn't try to quarantine within our home, just figuring we would all get it and get it over with. Perhaps that booster did it's job for me (Todd never got his)? And we still think Carolina had antibodies from likely having Covid in September - maybe that's why she and I didn't get sick? Who knows?

Carolina made these one day, out of her hair ties - and I thought they were so cute and funny, also very representative of the emotional rollercoaster we were on.

 

Praise the Lord - all of our family recovered! And then we got together again (a bit tentatively) to celebrate Liam turning THIRTEEN!!! 

He wanted to have a friend sleepover but with Covid still sweeping through, it didn't quite work out the way he had hoped - he just ended up having a handful of celebrations. 

This kid has always been a ray of sunshine - and so far, teen hood hasn't dimmed that. He still wants to be with his family, play board games, snuggle his mom. He just also wants to text his friends, and play video games, and stay up late. His big gift this year was a new-to-him laptop so that he could play Minecraft with friends. His voice is changing, his face is breaking out, and he's taller than both of his grandma's and about to pass me too! I hate it and I love it. Older kids really are so much fun.

Online church continued - it still felt weird to be in the sanctuary in a big group of people, so we would either go to early service - which is very small, or come home for online church after Sunday school. We are still adjusting to the "return to normalcy".

I just thought this was pretty - from my bathroom.

Valentine's Day! The kids ate Papa Johns heart pizza, and the adults ate gourmet pizzas and relaxed - nothing too fancy.

February felt loooooong. At school we still dealt with being short staffed a lot and having to cover extra duties and deal with the lack of busses - but things were definitely improved by the end of the month. Then of course, the stomach flu went around and any number of other illnesses that had been waiting their turn. I had to bring Carolina home early one day because it caught up with her, but *knock on wood* I still haven't caught any germs yet...