you should watch that Holderness video on YouTube so funny and true. It's been a long January and we're struggling with sickness and other crazy things around here.
First we managed to convince Lila to skip school on Friday January 19th to go skiing. We had a fun day! Marcus and I just did the run he likes off of Wild Cat a few times and we worked on parallel skiing. He said, "this is so much easier." I said yes it is, you just need to practice. So the plan is he and I to keep working on parallel skiing. The other four had a great time and ironically Lila was a little sad to leave, once we get her up she loves it but man getting her there can be hard.
Saturday, January 20th we kept working on the office, we finally have a plan for countertops and we're excited so we're back to making progress. That night Andrew had his second basketball game of the year. Steve and John (Andrew's friend Wes's Dad) were sub coaching. The game was crazy! The kids were really big Polynesian kids and it turns out they are a football team that wanted to try basketball during the off season and it showed in how they played. They were rough and one of the players even lowered his shoulder while dribbling down the court and slammed into one of our little guys and sent him flying 4feet and landing on his back. They racked up over 25 fouls and had 3 players foul out. The very last seconds of the game Andrew was passed the ball and he was wide open right in front of the hoop and he didn't do anything. Afterwords he said, "I was scared of getting run over or something and didn't even look at the hoop. I'm going to have nightmares about that game." And the poor kid did get up in the middle of the night. I told him it was all memories and some day we would laugh about the time they played the football team in basketball. I was kind of wishing I would have videoed a little bit of the game just to watch again later. Their latest game on February 3rd was so good. The whole team was meshing and passing and shooting. It was a really fun and good game to watch. I'm so grateful he has this opportunity.
Wednesday January 24th, Marcus started throwing up. It was so sad. He just went back to school for a couple of days after the flu then got sick again. After I got him showered and clean sheets, he went back to bed while I went and got my final crown on. He even missed his parent teacher conference. Steve and I were able to attend Andrew's parent teacher conference together. He is continuing to do well. The teacher even told us that the sub told her Andrew taught the whole math lesson the day before. I guess the sub didn't understand it and Andrew said I do and his peers even said he explained it in a way that made sense to them. I was also able to visit with Marcus's teacher for a quick minute since we missed our meeting and he is doing really well. His reading levels have shot up which is great. I'm so proud of both of the boys for their hard work. It was early out Wednesday and Thursday because of parent teacher conference and the weather looked really bad for Thursday so I borrowed a key to the church and had Andrew invite his basketball team to hangout and shoot some hoops. We bought pizza, gatorade, grapes, and oreos. They had fun and it was a good way to get out some energy.
Friday, January 26th, Steve and I drove down to Orem to have dinner with Doug and Joddy who were in town for her mom's 80th birthday party. It was a fun evening and a nice night to get away the two of us. Then Saturday Steve and I took Andrew skiing (the only one we could talk in to going, we're really reconsidering season passes next year). We had fun. It was a bluebird day with no wind.
Tuesday, January 30th when I picked Andrew up after Oympiad club he was in tears that his throat hurt so bad. He came home and took a nap and then woke up with a fever so Steve took him to urgent care (our doc isn't in on Wednesdays so we've gotten to know the Tuesday evening urgent care doctor really well) and when he came in he told Andrew he had good and bad news which did he want to hear first. Andrew chose the bad news and the doctor said, "you have strep." then Andrew said, "what's the good news?" Doc,"well you have strep so we can give you an antibiotic." He had us double his dosage the first time and he went to bed early. He was feeling better in the morning but you are supposed to wait 24hours so you are no longer contagious so he stayed home. Steve had just picked up a bike we bought off of Doug and Stephanie so we decided since the weather was lovely we would go for a bike ride on the new trail. It was fun. Andrew did really well on the nicer big bike.
Steve went to the doctor that afternoon because his throat was hurting and he was coughing and he was getting ready to go out of town for his annual guy ski trip to Sun Valley. Unfortunately the flu and strep test came back negative so it is probably another virus he just has to wait out. I also started having symptoms of a sinus infections which I've heard is how COVID is affecting people now so I COVID tested and it was negative. I was supposed to have a girls night Friday with some friends but with Steve and I not feeling so good and the boys just getting over stuff I decided to cancel. My sinus bug was not affecting my energy level too much and I don't know if it is the spring weather or me wanting to purge our house of all the yucky sickness that I did some serious deep cleaning this week. I received a shampoo vacuum for Christmas and I started with couches, stairs and the front room, then I did the whole upstairs, then the main room, and finally our master bedroom. With each area there was some cleaning as I moved things around and some things found a different home (at least three bags worth of stuff). Then I moved on to scrubbing walls, dusting the fans, and washing a few windows. It felt good and I'm hoping that cleanliness will help me feel better about being stuck inside for the rest of winter.
Friday, February 2nd, was NelRae Phelps birthday. I managed to snag a baptism appointment for 4 so Ellie and Lila went with Porter and NelRae to the temple and then to their house to have birthday dessert. It took me some convincing to get Lila on board with the plan. She was tired and feeling overwhelmed but she is glad she went.
Monday, February 5th Steve left with the guys for Sun Valley they were driving into a storm but were excited for the prospects of powder. They skied some deep powder and Steve's legs are tired today. He said his ear started hurting too so his cold probably lead to an ear infection. He left a message for the doctor he saw hoping to get an antibiotic.
That Monday night I took Lila to Layton High for her sophomore orientation and registration night. We've been looking into classes and talking about options. We're learning a new school since Ellie went to NUAMES but I'm glad Lila made a decision and I feel like it is the right choice for her. She is going to continue with Chinese (hoping the AP test in May goes well) and she has a good group of friends that will be going to that school. I'm also trying to convince her to tryout for the Dance Company since she is thinking of not dancing next year, it's just too time consuming and she recognizes that she can't dance until 10pm 2 nights a week and get up to catch the bus to high school at 7am but I am a little sad at the thought of her not dancing. We had fun walking around and seeing several friends from the neighborhood. Then we drove to NUAMES to watch Ellie speak as the NHS President at the NHS Induction meeting. She did really well with her remarks! Another proud mama moment.
Monday I also called Marcus's doctor to get him an antibiotic because he has had continuous snot since the flu. He started that and I think it's helping but he also started coughing. UGH! I'm just praying he can feel good for his birthday tomorrow. He said he was feeling a little better this morning but he still tried to convince me to let him stay home, "so he could spend some quality time with me." Pulling on my heart strings. I told him he had to go to school so he can go to activity days tonight, his first one and they are doing knife safety and carving soap. He is so excited! It started snowing right after I dropped the boys off at school and to be honest everyone was having a slow morning. I had to wake Andrew up at 8:15 and both of the girls at 9 after I dropped the boys off. I wish it would have been a weather related remote learning day we could all use a little down time because we have lived 739 days already this new year and most of them with some sort of sickness as you have just read.