These are the Days!: January 2021

Saturday, January 2, 2021

Christmas Interviews Letter 2020

Merry Christmas everyone!

We asked the kids a few questions about our family, 2020, and hope. Here are some of their responses.

What were some high points of our 2020?:

Macy: We got to travel to some places even though it’s corona. Right now we have the opportunity to go to in person school, and none of us have gotten coronavirus.

Cooper: When we went to Yellowstone and when I played quarterback on the [flag] football team. We were garbage, but it was still fun. Moab.

Rosie: Going camping. Going to the park. Going to the mountains.

Luke: Summer break. Holidays. Seeing the Bear Lake Monster. [We didn’t go there. Or see the monster.] Canoes. Kayaks.

Boston: Going back to school, getting lots of girls’ numbers, good stuff. Straight A’s so far.

What’s it like living in a house with three teenagers? [I usually forget Macy’s 11.]

Macy: Sometimes the boys can be big drama queens. But they are also fun to play games with and stuff. They can get quite annoying. Especially about who gets in the shower first. Usually has to be me.

Cooper: We can play harder games because teenagers are smarter and not annoyed by dumb stuff. It gets annoying sometimes.

Boston: We always fight about who’s getting in the shower first. Macy and Cooper [and Boston] stay up super late and talk. Both of them are very squeaky. Cooper and Macy never put their towels back on their hooks in the bathroom.

Luke: Feeling like you’re the youngest person on earth. Getting tackled a lot and spanked. I’m a little bit scared of Boston.:) Cooper likes football and basketball and sports. Every day he tries to get me to play football with him. Macy always spanks me FOR NO REASON! She thinks my bum is a drum.

Rosie: Boston runs faster than any kid. Cooper likes to go to sleep. Macy and Luke play games and littlest pet shops with me.

How have you changed or grown this year? What are some goals we accomplished?

Boston: Becoming a little bit more of a peacemaker. More mature. I got my driver’s permit and haven’t crashed yet. Cooper is more annoying. Rosie is cuter. Dad’s got more --skip dad for a second. Leslie has changed on her mission in the better way. She’s, like, more outgoing which is weird because she was already super talkative before. Mom has had a lot more cooking experience because we’ve had to stay home. Luke got taller. Macy has been flipping [literally] even more. Me and Dad have been bonding a lot.

Macy: Luke got baptized this year, which is a big deal. He’s gotten a lot smarter, like last year he couldn’t read very well, but this year he can read big words like amphibian and predator.

Rosie has also gotten a lot smarter and uses pretty big words.

Cooper: One of my goals was to work on woodwork, building stuff. I helped make a ramp and the shelves in the shed. Boston is bigger. Leslie is smarter. Luke is bigger and smarter. Boston’s not smarter. Macy wants to get her way on a lot more stuff. Rosie has gotten cuter and chubbier. Dad has gotten more into basketball because he’s going to be coaching my basketball team, also because of the sports card fiasco. Do you know what fiasco means? No.

Luke: We all had a birthday so far, so we all got older. Rosie got a new bed.

What about Rosie makes you laugh?

Luke: When she says yellow she says lellow. When she says purple she says people.

How have Dad and Mom stayed busy?

Macy: Mom is here with Rosie. Rosie herself can take up a lot of time because she’s just like that. There’s been lots of cooking and food going on. That’s one of the reasons I like 2020--all the good food we had. Dad is at work [second year of Remarkable Home Loans].

Tell us about Leslie.

Luke: She’s been on a mission for 9 months. She taught a buncha people. And she’s in West Virginia. Wait, is she in West Virginia? Where is she? [Kentucky. Has not yet served in WV].

Macy: She was already cheerful before she left, but every single email is very happy and positive to read. Even though she lives in a sketchy, scary place, she still thinks it’s awesome. She seems to be having an awesome time on her mission.

What gives you hope? What do you hope for?

Cooper: I’m hoping that we can go on a cruise when/if Boston graduates [in 3 years]. I hope that I can go on a hunting or backpacking trip.

Macy: I’m excited to have corona be done and not have to wear masks all the time. For Leslie to come home and to go to Montana because that’s what I love every year.

Boston: Vaccines so we can get back to normal. Hoping that temples open up soon because I’ve been wanting to go there for a while.

Luke: Hope that I keep the commandments.

Leslie: God's love! I get to see it and experience it in so many ways as a missionary (and as a result, I'll be better at noticing it after I'm home too.) I know that I am infinitely loved, and so is every single person I serve! His hand is in every life, and He is tirelessly working to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. I am grateful for the guiding influence of the Holy Ghost, a Savior through whom I can be made perfect, and a Heavenly Father watching over every step of my way. Even in the darkest, most hopeless situations I've seen, I have seen God gently preparing people for the glorious future He has in store for them. Why wouldn't I have hope?

We have hope because we know our Savior has overcome the world.

He helps us feel JOY.

We hope for a wonderful coming year for each of you.

Love,

Mark, Jackie, Leslie, Boston, Cooper, Macy, Luke, and Rosie

Final Quarter 2020

Let's look through the rearview at our last quarter of 2020.

Leslie has been serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Floyd Co., Kentucky. The little town where she lives is mostly abandoned because of flooding. I think the following picture is the town hall on stilts.

Leslie and her comp, Sister Wride.

The missionaries serving there had to all test for covid and quarantine because of an exposure at a ward function.

The care packages you send an "indoor missionary" are a little different than an "outdoor missionary".

A cool covered bridge.

This is the old creepy abandoned high school.

Her area is also the hub of the famous Hatfield-McCoy feud, so we had some fun learning about that. She did say that most people in the congregation where she serves are related in some way and it gets pretty complicated.

Speaking of creepy, we were able to do some traditional Halloween activities. Luke, Rosie and Macy went trick or treating.

Macy likes to paint Rosie's face. I kind of meant for a small butterfly to be on her cheek, but this is what we got. She loved it.

Crazy hair day at school.

Rosie kept saying she was either going to be a butterfly or a bat. We almost went with this combo.

Macy wanted to be a Purple Princess. She was all about create your own thing this last year of trick or treating for her.

Luke wanted to wear the coveted blue man suit.

Macy trick or treated with her friend Libby.

It was fun to see some of the Covid 19 adaptations. Our friend Neil here had a chute to slide the candy.

She loved the face paint so much that she tried to recreate it.

My chemo wig lives in the Halloween box (where it belongs.) Macy and Luke had some fun trying out a new look.

Luke also had his first season of basketball and did great. During this same time period he was also dealing with puking migraines, even more frequently than he did this summer. We were worried that it was his heart, but the cardiologist said no way. The neurologist says they are common for boys his age and most likely triggered by dehydration and certain foods (a trigger for him is strangely, too many blueberries). Since the neurologist appointment, and the prayers of all his cousins and other relatives, he has gone over a month now without a migraine, such a blessing!

Macy and Libby made a trick or treating route map. Yep, time to graduate.

So true!

Macy is looking a little too grown up and like Leslie in this picture.

I don't know, maybe the leaves in my neighborhood look like this every fall, but I thought these babies were extra appropriate for 2020. All the trees looked like this.

We had a lot of fun making a "Livin' on a Prayer" music video for Leslie. This is Boston's bad kisser pose, a tribute to Utah State.

Rosie loves him anyway.

I wanted to document Macy's bulletin board. She is such a good girl. It's like that story about digging into the unknown Young Woman's purse to try to guess who she was by examining what was important to her.

In November, while the weather still held, we decided on a re-do weekend getaway to Moab since our Fall Break trip to Yellowstone was so brutally cold. It was a lot of fun, other than the traffic jam into town; everyone else had the same idea, and with Covid the outdoor activities have been crowded.

This is why I make Rosie share a bed with Macy when we travel.

At The Windows area of Arches.

Notice the moon framed by this arch.

Rosie was pretty upset about the wind, but Mark got her to smile about it.

Our favorite Sand Dune Arch.

So happy to make it to Pasta Jays' for lunch (glorious!) after our dinner plans got messed up the following night from the traffic jam. The night before we had to eat late at Denny's instead, just walking from the hotel, and we were all kind of tired and mopey. Nevertheless, an older gentleman came up to us as he was leaving and told us what a beautiful family we had. Rosie made kind of a sourpuss face at him, and as he walked away, she insisted to us, "WE don't have a beautiful family!" We questioned her about this and gave her some alternate suggestions as to what kind of family we have. She came up with her own response and went back to eating her fries. "We have a CRAZY family!"

We also visited Dead Horse Point, my first time. It was pretty mind blowing. And I was only a little scared.

Thanksgiving was a hit. We splurged on some fancy foods to add variety since we were just by ourselves at home. (The raspberries were gone in about five minutes.)

Luke just wanted potatoes and gravy.

We ate too much.

Then it was Christmastime.

We did not cut our own tree, but my sister Brooke and my Mom did in Montana. Love this shot.

Cooper is almost ready for his phase two (probably more like phase 5 for him) of braces. He is in for a few implants as well once he hits young adult age. What a trooper. We might have three in braces at once.

Boston finished reading the Book of Mormon for the first time. He also decided that he was too old for bunkbeds and a bright blue bedroom, so we sold the beds, he assembled the new one, and did most of the extensive priming and painting of his room. Looks great!

Before.

Mark ended up needing to self-isolate for the week before Christmas, so the rest of us tried to have some fun without him.

Mark ended up testing negative. Three times. Long story, but the first test he took too soon, the second test was a rapid test to try to get out of quarantining a few days sooner, the third test was because he developed a really high fever literally the last hour of his quarantine, and the doctor didn't trust the rapid test results. It turned into pneumonia but he is finally doing much better after fevering for a week and getting a different kind of antibiotic. I honestly think it was all the laying around during the initial quarantine that turned a simple cold into something worse. Boo. My inlaws have been teasing me that I should be licking the doorknobs and getting my quarantine from the kids scheduled.

I believe this is what might be called, a Trump Card.

We did celebrate Remarkable Home Loans' second anniversary in the fall. Rosie appreciated the donuts.

She likes having lunch at the office as well.

This was a cool screenshot from our Stake Conference (several congregations) of where all the current missionaries are serving, mid pandemic. Leslie is the Kentucky dot.

She got creative preparing for Christmas indoors, including building a giant blanket fort to sleep in on Christmas Eve (despite the mice and despite being fairly ill all month).

Leslie got us Kentucky gear for Christmas.

Rosie loved her little backpack doll and named her Penny.

I took the kids to Logan while Mark was recuperating to see some of their Haynes cousins.

Rosie took the no-double-dipping rule a bit too seriously while the rest of us weren't watching.

Thought I'd take this picture of the shirt Leslie sent me in front of my featured map. (She has never served in WV, haha.)

Cooper got a street hockey set with lots of sticks. Come play!

Macy finished the blanket she has been making for Rosie for quite some time.

I just couldn't pass this shirt up. Comments were: Don't show Leslie! Did Dad buy that? and from Boston, "I think there might be some reverse psychology going on here." I've told him now that Leslie is out the door he is the most important jewel in my crown, and takes up most of my hard drive. Plus, I've been super proud of how much he has grown up this year.

It was fun that Leslie got to be on video call while we opened all the presents. She took her turn like everyone else. It was an extra blessing that she wasn't sick that day and also that the phone service didn't fail until we were done, because of an explosion in Tennessee.

Christmas Eve dinner of favorite things. This tradition started in 2008 or 2009 after a really brutal hit to Mark's job and our finances. We decided that because we had been broke all year we were going to finally splurge on some fun takeout foods, all at once. We got secret santa-ed the same night with some enormous bags of presents and it was a magical Christmas. This year we (and Santa) covered our own presents, but the takeout tradition is something the kids talk about and look forward to all year. Seemed like a fitting way to celebrate surviving and thriving in 2020.

Lots of excitement and blessings coming our way in 2021.

Here are a few video clips to enjoy.

Rosie tells "Snowmen at Night"

Sand Dune fun

Luke's turnover celebration.

Rosie's Trick or Treat exuberance.