Back in Isolation

Well.. here it is in November and we are back in isolation. No big government shut downs this time... Actually we are in isolation because we finally contracted the Covid-19 virus. Steven first became ill about a week and a half ago. He thought it was just a regular cold, but after I came down with it a few days later, I decided I needed to go get tested. Well, got my results back this morning, and I indeed have the "rona" as it is so affectionately called these days. Steven was tested this morning, but since he is pretty much on the mend, his test came back negative. However, after discussing it over with the doctors there they determined he likely had it also and had just waited too long to get tested given that I tested positive and I caught whatever he had a few days after he first felt sick. He is marked as a probable case so hopefully we won't have to isolate again in the near future.

So in light of catching up from our summer, here it goes.

We were able to enjoy and celebrate Easter together with Church at home (which has been the normal still to this day--more on that later). Enjoy some photos of us in our Easter Sunday Best. Fun Fact: I bought this dress before the lockdowns with the intent to wear it for church on Easter Sunday. I still got to wear it... just not to church like I had imagined.

Easter Sunday

April General Conference Sunday

Easter Sunday

Sunday Brunch

We have actually very much enjoyed getting to do church at home. It makes our Sunday's very restful and peaceful--just the kind of day we always want our Sunday's to be like. We get to sleep in a little and have even had some beautiful brunch on the new deck in our backyard and enjoy the warm spring sunshine. Our ward started up live sacrament meetings right after General Conference in October, but they do broadcast our meeting locally so those that need to stay in isolation can still watch our Sunday services (minus sacrament--we are still able to do that on our own at home). We were able to enjoy General Conference in April together and even dressed up for the solemn assembly where President Nelson announced the new restoration proclamation. 

I was happy to be able to still celebrate a couple of my young women from church that graduated this spring. Since their ceremonies were cancelled I thought it would be nice to give them and their families a way to "brag" that they have a graduate, so I bought some signs that a local company were selling for the occasion and dropped them off at their houses with a bouquet of flowers and a letter for the graduate. Both girls texted me after they had been dropped off and were so happy to be recognized for their accomplishments :) Warmed my heart to serve them in that way.

I mentioned the new deck previously, so I suppose I should explain. It wouldn't have been right of us to forego any home improvement project during quarantine this spring, right? So we refinished the deck. What was supposed to be a quick strip, sand, re-paint turned into a pretty sizable renovation project. Once we got to repairing a few soft areas in our deck, we realized that the stringers on the stairs of the deck were completely rotting out and desperately needed to be replaced. Thankfully, Lowes was still open this spring so we were able to get some new lumber and completely rebuilt the stairs and re-configured the entire lattice area while we were at it as well. Like I said, it turned into quite a large project, but we are quite satisfied with the way that it turned out and feel quite accomplished that we were able to do it completely ourselves. Enjoy some before, during, and after photos of our deck:

Steven's parents also had some cows that needed to be butchered this spring, so to make room for some more beef for our freezer, I ended up cooking a whole turkey I had in there from last Thanksgiving. So we had our own Thanksgiving feast in the middle of April!

A couple of our best friends from Kansas also came out to visit at the end of June. Their little sister was getting married and so they came up for a whole week and stayed with us. It was so much fun to get to have friends come visit! Our other friends were able to come up as well and we spent a whole weekend together visiting, letting the kiddos play together, and enjoying each other's company. It was so nice to have something to look forward to in all the quarantine mess and to be able to spend some time with friends for a change!!

Speaking of friends, I was able to still keep up with my girl friends with a socially distanced girl's night! We all brought our own mexican food (our go to for girls nights!) and ate while sitting in the back of our cars while we visited. It was nice to see my friends in person for a bit--even if we couldn't share a bowl of salsa together.

Another fun thing we did this spring was buy a motorcycle! Steven had his heart set on getting one since long before we got married. And this spring, we stumbled across his dream bike (for my dream price!) and made the purchase. We have spent the summer enjoying the motorcycle together by going on rides on Sunday afternoons. We also even took the bike for an overnight trip to Jackson Hole/Thayne, WY for our anniversary trip this August. We had so much fun on the road together all summer and I can't wait for many more fun trips and memories made on that bike together!

I also picked up a new little hobby during quarantine. I learned how to needle felt! I am not very good yet but I did make up a couple little figurines of my dogs.

We also had a pretty successful summer with our raspberry bushes and even got enough in one harvest to make a jar of homemade jam! Yum!

For the 4th of July we escaped the crazy fireworks madness that was going on in our neighborhood (the big firework show that usually happens in our city was cancelled due to the virus so more people than ever were setting off their own!) so that the dogs could get a break from the noise and went to visit Steven's family (they live in the middle of no-where so the only fireworks around were the ones we set off ourselves). We had a blast with the whole family--picnics outside, fun games of chicken pants (see the pictures--essentially launching small rubber chickens at people and they have to catch them inside these hilarious over-sized pairs of pants), and home sacrament meetings with the entire family. 

I had a pretty fun summer with work things this year. I had an amazing group of women that worked with me in our new in-house production sewing facility. We got to be pretty close friends and even managed to snag a quick photo together before 2 of their last days before one left to school and the other moved out of state. 

I am still mostly working from home (when I'm healthy at least). I have a production team that I manage that is still at the office and when I'm not sick I pop in frequently to work with them and make sure that things there are still going well. Of course I couldn't get through working at home without my cute furry co-workers to keep me company throughout the day. Lots of fun things happening with work--can't wait to share what I've been working on when they are all released!

Since I have been working at home so much, it inspired me to pull my sewing room/office together and decorate and set it up the way I have always wanted. I really loved the way it turned out--it's not magazine worthy by any means, but it's organized and functional with a little more personality and I love it!

As summer was coming to a close, we were able to go visit our families one more time before school started and the potential of getting sick and bringing it to our parents was high. We went to visit Steven's family first for a weekend and then went to visit my family the next for Labor Day. We camped out in the backyard at my parents house and enjoyed playing with the nieces and nephews and visiting with everyone. It was a blast!

Both of the dogs got professionally groomed as well right about the time school started and Steven has now returned back to teaching in person at school. It's been a weird school year, to say the least. He constantly has kids emailing him for their work while they have to isolate due to a family member getting Covid. The school even had to shut down at the end of September/beginning of October because so many of the staff members came down with the virus--there just weren't enough substitute teachers to go around! We managed to stay healthy all through that and just now are having to deal with the virus. 

My office actually has officially closed down again today due to so many employees contracting the virus right now. I definitely am not the only one that is out due to Covid and to be overly cautious, management decided it would be best to just have everyone that has been coming into the office to stay home for the next 2 weeks. Only certain personnel are allowed at the office until things settle back down. Thankfully, most of the team has already been working exclusively at home (except for my in-house production team, of which has been able to stay at work for now considering most of them have recently recovered from the virus).

We were able to celebrate a little for Steven's birthday this week even though we have been in quarantine. I made him a German Chocolate cake from scratch and I had previously picked up his gifts--an Apple watch, a new backpack for work and some funky socks to wear to work as well. 

I also wanted to share a few more photos from our summer fall. Enjoy!

I canned and froze peaches this fall!

Celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary this summer!

We also took the motorcycle up to the hills at the beginning of fall for some cute couple photos.

Fixed this cute dress up to make it more wearable for me!

We have been on so many walks this spring/summer!

A gift from the PFA at Steven's school for teacher appreciation day (during quarantine)

I have made SO many masks this year--this is just a handful I made for my nieces and nephews to wear to school. I don't even know how many I've made now. Far too many to count.

Finally replaced the tiny mirror in the basement bathroom with something a little bigger

I also hosted a "virtual girls camp" for my young women at church this summer since our traditional camp got cancelled. These were the boxes I put together to deliver to their homes in preparation for camp. They were able to participate on Zoom and had activities and treats each day of "camp"

Steven went on a 30-mile hike in Yellowstone with one of his best friends from work. I can't believe they did it all in one day! Here are some pictures of the sunrise I took when I was coming back down from the trail head after I dropped them off early that morning.

Steven and the dogs snuggling on the floor in my sewing room/office at home while I was working

Movie night snuggles with the doggies

Obi likes to keep me company while I work from home and reminds me to take breaks once in a while

Until next time!