February

Our anniversary was on February 4th.  15 years!  

He doesn't go out very much and asked me to go and buy the flowers for the day.  ;)

Our attempts at taking a picture. Jason feels like he can't just smile on command.

   

That weekend was the super bowl.  We usually go over to Kenner's, but with Covid we did our own little party.  Chicken, meatballs and a lemon meringue pie!

We began our 2nd hour church classes back at the end of October.  We use Zoom and the teachers do a good job.  We usually have about 30 sisters sign on.  In this picture there is me, Karlena Gonzalez, Melody Bennett (the teacher) and Muthu Alletto.

Chocolate covered bananas anyone?

Valentines Day fell on Sunday this year.  I bought some fruit and made some chocolate dipping sauce and we had fun!

We tried, strawberries, clementines, and bananas,

Flower Jason bought me for Valentine's Day.

                                          

                                               
                                        
My big right toe has been bothering me lately.  Don't know if it is arthritis or what.  

Covid vaccines have been happening now since January.  They began with the 70+ age group, teachers, medical workers and first responders.  Mid month they expanded the groups eligible for a vaccine to 65+.  

As of today, February 20, 2021 there have been:

366,034 cases of Covid

2,158,136 people have been tested

3,690,090 tests reported

14,421 hospitalizations

1842 deaths

598,434 vaccines administered

Jacob, Tyson Forbes, Henry Cutler, Avery & 
Wade Roper, Rich Cutler, Lucus Anderson, Bishop 
Watson, Holis Carlson, Harrision Halterman,
Ashton Bennett, ?, Ian Groscost, Seth Watson,
Noah Forbes

Last weekend of February the Young Men went down to Bishop Watson's cabin in Brian Head.  They arrived and hiked/snowshoed about a mile to the cabin.  That night some went outside to play.  Jacob stayed in because someone had taken his gloves by accident.  

Enjoying a little dinner

E

Vaccinations began in January for 70+.  Mid February it was lowered to 65+.  About that time this picture came out to let those of us from the 80's that our turn was next.  😅

A week before my birthday I went clothes shopping.
The brown pants on the left are what started it.  
Marcia had a pair and they were cute.  I went to try
and buy a pair and, in the process, found these $5 
t-shirts and the other pants.  Without being able to try
them on in store, I ended up going back and forth
6 times to get sizes and then return.  In the end I 
never got any.  Just didn't fit right.  

             

So Jacob asked to make cookies one Sunday
night.  I told him if he helped we could make
them.  He helped and they turned out 
delicious!

I love this picture of Jacob doing dishes!                           
And then the finished cookies!😋

                                     

January

    

New Year's Day!  I got home from walking and started cleaning up Christmas.  In putting some things away I found an old purse and was cleaning it out.  There was this old JCPenny gift card.  

The receipt was barely readable, but if figured out I had made a purchase with the card in 2001 from the Cottonwood mall (that mall was torn down in 2008).  There was a balance of $3.67.  I called the redemption number to check if the balance was still on it.  Nope.  😅

               

After getting Christmas put away and cleaning a bathroom, Jacob wanted to play with Jaxon at his house or ours.  We called and they invited us over to play games while Jacob played with Jaxon.  We all wore masks and had a fun time.  We played Banana Grams.  

First day back at school on Monday, the 4th.  The week before Christmas break Jacob and a partner had an assignment due.  They had to do an annotated bibliography and the original submission was a low grade.

Jacob made changes and resubmitted to the teacher and his partner (we don't know if he and the partner got credit for the changes made).  

It was returned with a slightly higher grade, but he needed to work on it again.  So the last Friday of school, before the break, Jacob made more changes and resubmitted it to just the teacher.  

On the 4th it came back regraded.  I was notified by email and went in to look at the grade.  I laughed at the title Jacob gave the final submission!  "ugh.  I spent so long on this docx."  That is hilarious!

I have always walked in the morning, but with Covid I have walked much more with Marcia and Sherrie.  These trees are such a mess!  They drop berries, but usually, by this time of year, they are not on the sidewalk anymore due to snow.  They get shoveled off.  

Not true this year.  No snow, no shoveling so we tread lightly!

We try to do a family walk on Sunday afternoons.  Usually it is just me and Jason, but sometimes we can talk Jacob into it.  

Under my bathroom sink I have 3 products I use on my hair...de-tangler, mouse, and hair spray.  I am always careful to not pick up the hair spray when I want to comb out my wet hair with the de-tangler.  One Sunday morning I was in a hurry and sprayed my wet hair with hair spray!  Had to dunk my head in the shower again to wash it out.  This was after my makeup was on.  Worked, but what a pain!

Sunrise while taking Jacob to school

Janette is in the San Francisco/Oakland mission. They do temple ground tours via Zoom and one night gave the tour to the family. 

                                                                                                                 

Every year when the Young Women turn 14 they can begin ministering.  Most choose to be partners with their mom.   This year we had a large group of girls who wanted to minister which meant I had to break up their mom's former companionship and put that sister with someone else.  Not all those sisters fit together so I decided to call all the companionships and ask how it was going.  It took about 2 weeks to get a hold of them and I did speak with about 90% of them.  That enabled me to move people around more easily and it also recommitted some of them to ministering.  

After calling to check on the companionships I then texted every companionship (even if nothing had changed) their assignment.  It was a lot of work, but worth it.  

I really like my calling most of the time.  I love the women in our ward, and while I'm not buddies with anyone, I enjoy interacting with them.  Everyone has an interesting story and is trying their best (most of the time).  😊

Jacob waiting for me to pick him up after school.
Love how he rigs everything to carry!

We went geo cashing with Catheys.  

In my opinion it was nice to be out, but

geo cashing is just OK.  😏 Addie kept finding the geo cashes.  She was good.

December

The first of December Heidi called and said that she was coming up to Malia's...would I like a visit with masks on.  I said yes, and they came by.  

It was so fun to visit with them for a couple of hours and it was so fun to visit with them.  Brady, Malia's little boy, is so cute and fun!  He loves to play.  

Malia has lived 5 blocks from me since February.  We had visited in February, but then Covid hit and we could no longer see each other.  Her husband, Jayson, worked at a hospital and, though he wore PPE (personal protective equipment), we just needed to be so careful due to Jason's health.  So we never saw them.  

Jayson applied to PT schools and was accepted to one back in N. Carolina starting in January.  So now they're gone.  Such a bummer!

A few days later we were replacing the bulbs in my front car lights.  Jacob went to sit in the front seat and he yelled to me, "Hey, Mom!  I found a secret compartment in your car."  I thought, there is no way.  

I went to look and sure enough, he had found a compartment I had never opened!  16 years owning the car and I had never tried it.  I guess I always thought it was a spark plug box or something like that.  😋

In Jacob's health class this semester he had to make a meal using the My Plate format for food.  With some help, he made some BBQ chicken and did a great job!

Here he is cooking the meat out in the cold.  

Dinner is served!

                                                

He needs to do the dishes more often to build
his strength!

He also had to do this dishes.  Yay!!

School the past few months has been Monday-Thursday in person and Friday online.  The last week of school, on Thursday, they did a lite amount of work and kids were excused.  But they still had Friday online.  I wondered what the teachers were going to do.  Most had it as a catch up day on any assignments kids needed to work on.  Jacob was done in a few hours.  

Aunt Vina made and sent us masks for Christmas

Every morning, or most, I walk with Marcia Johns and Sherrie Anderson.  During break there was one morning when they didn't walk with me so Jason and I got up at 6 a.m. to go walking.  

Went on a hike with Catheys before Christmas.  

Jacob's friend, Elias gave Jacob 2 gift certiciates

for Fortnite V-bucks.  He loved that!

Went with Chase Anderson's family to the 

Tree of Life in Draper Park.

              

We had a box of gifts for Garrett that Chris brought at Thanksgiving.  We took those to him and it was great to see him.  He looks good and it was fun to visit.  

As an activity we attempted to make and decorate sugar cookies.  I made the dough and frosting one night and we baked and frosted the second night.  The cookies looked like a pre-schooler had made them.  It was fine for a short time, but we gave the extra cookies and frosting to Jared and Stephanie's girls to finish.  

               

Christmas Eve.  We had our 2nd annual night with Cafe Rio.  I like because I don't need to cook.  But as I asked my siblings about their evenings, they had a finer spread.  I'm fine with what we did, but still miss the tradition I had growing up.  Christmas Eve...that was the big meal.  We would invite members of our ward over (usually families with kids our age) and the missionaries. I always had fun.  

It just doesn't work here.  At least not for us.  That makes me sad, but I accept it.  Just glad we have family to visit (in non Covid years).

Christmas morning!  Jacob made sure we were getting up at 6 a.m.  I would have preferred 6:30 or 7, but that's OK.  

Jacob opening his stocking.  A charging cord for his iPhone so he doesn't have to compete for the one we have. 

Mike and Ike's with $10 from Gr. & Gr. Wong.
                                    

Chocolate covered cinnamon bears for dad.

$20 and a note from Gr. Safsten
                                    

Wireless headphones for Jacob and Dad.

Sees candy, thermals, sweatshirt, socks, Yaktracs for me.

                                         

                        

Christmas afternoon we played Kahoots.  I sent a questionnaire to all the women in Jason's family with a bunch of questions.  They answered and I made the game up and everyone could vote on the right answer with their phones.  It was a lot of fun.  I thought I had taken a picture of us playing it on Zoom, but guess I didn't.  

In the 1990s I was working at Franklin Elementary.  On of our secretaries, Janice Young, did tole painting and made these for me over several years.  I love putting them up.  I think they are so cute and she is so talented!
                

                                      

                                                                                  

On Wednesday, the 30th we went back to the Dimple Dell gully with Cathey's.  We hiked down to the same place Jason, Jacob and I had gone before and then continued down the gulley. 

The kids loved walking on the ice!

Towards the end the water "dried" up and the kids were breaking the ice into big chunks.  

At the beginning of December Jason realized that he hadn't registered his 4Runner.  I registered my car back in July and had received the normal reminder card from the DMV.

By the time Jason realized it needed to be done, it was overdue.  He went to the DMV site and there they explained they were no longer sending cards.  

What I can't understand is why they would stop sending in the middle of the year and why they didn't mention this anywhere.  

So I sent a note to KSL about it and said it might be a good Public Service Reminder.  They showed it on the noon news.  :)

New Year's Eve.  It got off on the wrong foot due to a sister in our ward calling me just as I was pulling the pizza out of the oven. 

I had to run over to Smith's to pick her up and take her home.  I got there, she wasn't at the door and I had forgotten my phone at home.  I waited, went into the store, looked by the carts, went in farther and glanced down to customer service, but didn't see her.  

I went back home and called her.  She was there, but had walked over to customer service and I hadn't seen her.  So I drove back and picked her up.  I was not in a very Christian, Relief Society President mood.  I took her home and then went back home. 

With Covid it was, again, just the 3 of us.  I bought mini bottles and blow horns to celebrate.  Jacob opened his mini bottle and it fizzed up and over.  For some reason all of them did.

We played a few games and the winners got gift cards.  I went to bed around 10 and Jason and Jacob stayed up to finish the movie they were watching.  

It was an OK night.  

Reflecting on 2020, it was an OK year.  Things were different, Jason was home working most of the year, Jacob was at home a lot between school and not being able to get together with friends.  Lots of Zoom for church....nothing dramatic, but changed.  

The biggest things for me was lack of social contact.  I don't go out a ton, but I need other human interaction--besides my immediate family.  We spent time this summer with Jason's family in Jared and Stephanie's backyard and that helped a lot, but once school was back in session we couldn't isolate as much so we didn't go around family.  Jason could tell a difference when I was able to socialize a bit.  I could too.  :)

It will be interesting to see what changes stick.  One change I know of is school snow days.  Now that teachers have taught online (Jacob goes to school in person Monday-Thursday and online Fridays), if there is a snow day kids can just go online.  It won't affect the last day of school or other scheduled school holidays.  With church callings we'll probably see some meetings done with Zoom.    

On to 2021.