Shelter in Place

This week, Matt has been gone in Korea for a year. We always thought this would be an exciting time because he was supposed to be coming home in 2 weeks, but the Coronavirus pandemic has basically shut down the entire world, leaving us with no idea when he'll be allowed to come home.

For the sake of keeping a family history, here's a quick background: the virus outbreak started in China and reached South Korea pretty quickly. We didn't expect it to come to the U.S. or cover the globe, but in the last 2 or 3 months it has. Across the world, people are 'sheltering in place' and only leaving the house for essentials. Everyone who can is working from home. Those who leave the house usually wear a surgical mask. All non-essential businesses are closed, including public schools. The streets are eerily empty - never thought we'd see that in the Bay Area!

The Army's response has been to stop all PCS's, which leaves us (and many, many others) in limbo. My apartment contract here in Walnut Creek is up at the end of this month, and we have a cute house (our first house!) lined up in Virginia just waiting for us (currently paying double rent so that's fun). But without the Army's approval to move, we won't be going anywhere.

It's a weird time. I'm trying to stay positive and focus on what's going right: while the Bay Area has been under 'shelter in place' orders for a full month, we're lucky to live near my parents. Every day we go back and forth between their house and our apartment, and they've been a huge help with Lydia and Luke. And we're also so, so lucky to be healthy and have income right now. Matt's and my jobs are both secure.

The theme for these times seems to be UNCERTAINTY. No one knows when the shelter in place orders will be lifted and lots of people are uncertain about whether they'll be keeping their jobs.

But life goes on and I have a million pictures of life lately that I've been waiting to share until we had plans to talk about. But since we have no idea when plans will come together, here's an update about our life during quarantine and an extra-long deployment!

Preschool

Lydia's preschool closed in March for the quarantine. Here are pictures from her last few weeks there! We'll miss this preschool and her friends and wonderful teachers so, so much! It's been the biggest blessing this year. Lyd really blossomed there.

Princesses and knights dress up

Chinese New Year 

Sunbeams!

Lydia started Sunbeams! It's part of our church's incredible youth program called Primary. The 3-4 year old class is called Sunbeams. She'll be in Primary until she's 12! I LOVE that she'll have the same system and curriculum no matter where we live. It's truly a worldwide church and we love it!  Of course she only went for about 6 weeks before the quarantine started, but she loved it while it lasted (especially because her church BFF Lia was in her class). She can't wait to go back, eventually.

Our 'sunbeam' pouting on the first day at drop off

Valentine's Day

It feels like forever ago! It was weird not having Matt around but we made the most of it by babysitting my friend's little girl so they could have a date night. Lydia and Emmy played all evening and ate chocolate covered strawberries and watched Spirit Riding Free. Sarah came over too!

Preschool had a Valentine's Day party where all the kiddos exchanged books (each gave and got 1 book) instead of candy and paper valentine's. Don't you love that idea?

From Matt

Dad driving Lyd to school on V-Day and giving exchanging Valentine's with her!

Making Valentines for Grandma, Grandpa and Daddy

Play Dates and Parties

The in-person pictures are from before the shelter in place orders. Now all our socializing is done through video chat.

This picture cracks me up! Lydia gleefully stealing birthday cake, the guy trying to stop her, and the mom giving major side-eye. 😂

Preschool Zoom meet up

Work 'happy hour' on Zoom!

And of course we FaceTime with Matt every day. Here he is showing us a picture he printed and framed of us. 😭❤️

Mom's 65th birthday!

We had a big party planned for Mom's 65th, but it obviously had to be cancelled once the pandemic hit. Instead, we invited her friends to do a 'drive-by' birthday parade through her driveway, to celebrate while 'socially distancing'! Her friends decorated their cars, honked horns, threw cards out the windows and blasted music. It was so fun! We gave her toilet paper as her gift and she genuinely loved it (it's hard to find TP these days - people line up before stores open to buy it and they're limited to one per person. Sarah and I teamed up to get some for her early one morning). Life is crazy right now but I'm glad that meant we got to be all together for Mom's milestone birthday.

General Conference

This was a really special General Conference as we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Restoration of the Fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a new Proclamation, a solemn assembly and a Hosanna Shout, and a new church symbol, all while the conference was filmed in an empty room (just the speakers instead of 20,000+ people as usual) because of the pandemic restrictions. Last October they promised this would be an unforgettable conference, and it definitely was!

Lydia and I played a game where every time she heard the name Jesus Christ during conference she got a candy. She was a good listener and ended up with A LOT of candy! 

You can watch each of the sessions of General Conference HERE, and I recommend it! GC always inspires, encourages, and uplifts me, and I'm sure it will be the same for you!

Quarantine Life

I don't know how I would get through this quarantine (on top of Matt's extended deployment!!) without my parents. They have been beyond helpful every day. I definitely would have lost my mind by now without them. 

My mom makes fabulous dinners for all of us every night and we eat together as a family with Mom, Dad, Lyd, Luke, and Sarah. We play in their back yard and watch Magnum PI with my dad and my mom takes Lydia on walks almost every day. If only Matt was here (or at least if we knew when he'd be coming back) it would actually be pretty nice! I do miss church and preschool seeing friends a lot though.

Since we can't leave the house except to go to my parents', on a once-per-week grocery store trip, or on trail walks, Lydia and I have been doing lots of baking, reading, playing/coloring, and watching TV. I work when the kiddos nap or when my mom has Lydia (they walk or go to her house).

Work

My work hasn't slowed down at all - actually it's picked up! My team and I built a digital infection prevention program as a response to the COVID-19 outbreak called Infection Protection that companies can offer to their employees as part of their worksite wellness program. We're all really proud of it and how quickly we got it done and available to customers. I'll be presenting it to the entire company on Zoom in a couple of weeks. I love my job!

Let's wrap up this post with an update on Luke at 5 months (last month) and 6 months - he turns 6 months old today!!

Luke at 5 months: 18 lbs (68th percentile) with two teeth just starting to show! He found his toes and can roll from front to back.

Luke at 6 months

He had a major sleep regression over the last couple months, but is finally back on track and starting to sleep through the night again (with one wake-up consistently at 3:30am for a feeding) plus 2-3 naps during the day. We did Taking Cara Babies (yes I sleep trained him by myself without Matt around and no nighttime help! It was exhausting!) and it made a big difference. He still nurses exclusively and refuses a bottle and baby food. Luke LOVES it when people talk to him and look him in the eye. He just lights up and smiles and giggles! He belly laughs every day, especially when people tickle him and roll him around and generally rough house with him. :) We still can't get over how round his head is and we love it. He is a joy and we love him so much!

We're anxious to know when Matt can come home from Korea - this pandemic has turned our plans upside down (like so many people right now.) I frazzled and exhausted. We miss him and want to be back together as a family. But when this is all over there are some really great things about right now that we'll miss too.