Off-roading Adventure

Every year we do something special with the kids to celebrate the end of the school year. Since most businesses were still closed at the end of this school year, we had to be a little more creative. We decided to take the kids up to Midway and rent a 6 seater ATV. The weather was a bit cool that day, especially up in the mountains, but the scenery was amazing. Alyssa really wasn't excited about the afternoon, but we made her go anyways. Because she was being a grouchy teenager, and insisted on bringing her own sweatshirt, she ended up on the mountain without a sweatshirt. She regretted it almost immediately.

The boys looked so cute in their oversized helmets.

We stopped about halfway through our ride to have a snack. Alyssa wouldn't even get out of the razor. For some reason it terrified her to drive on the mountain trails.

Tyler and Ashley probably enjoyed it the most. Camden liked it too, but he was done after a couple of hours. I think the helmet just got heavy.

 The view was amazing up on top.(again, we could not get Alyssa to get out and enjoy it).

Ashley caught a grasshopper friend while we were stretching our legs. We made her leave it up on the mountain, though. She was willing, thanks to the life lesson she learned at Grandma's house when she had caught a lizard and took it to the airport with her.

We finished the trail loop and returned back to our car with about an hour to spare. We left Alyssa and Camden in the car and went back out to enjoy our last hour without the complaining. It was a lot of fun, except for the part where we took a wrong turn and the trail had a dead end. Danny had to turn the razor around on a very skinny trail and it almost tipped over at one point. That was a bit terrifying, but other than that and the obvious discomfort of Alyssa, it went well.

Camden's 5th Birthday

Camden got to celebrate his birthday this year during quarantine. So instead of going out to celebrate, we asked him what fun things he wanted to do around the house that day. He made a list that included things like "jump on the trampoline" and "play the Wii." His request for dinner was McDonalds, which we went through the drive thru to pick up and bring back to the house. We had to order all of his presents online, since we were trying to limit our trips to the store by this point. His favorite birthday present was a new Super Mario Bros character stuffed animal - Koopa Troopa(his favorite). Anyone vaguely familiar with the video game knows Koopa Troopa as a bad guy that looks like a turtle. Camden now has a pretty nice collection of Mario stuffed animals. His other favorite stuffed animal is the little dog on his shoulder whose name has changed 4 times since he got him from Alyssa.

His cake request was a Mario Cake. We attempted to make a rainbow road cake from MarioKart. Alyssa did almost all of it on her own, because my day was filled with fulfilling Camden's request and I ran out of time to decorate the cake. She did a good job, but we had to scrap our homemade characters and use Ashley's rubber characters, instead.

For the first time ever, we did a present scavenger hunt for one of our kids. Alyssa came up with the clues and we helped her hide the presents while Camden was picking up dinner with his daddy. He loved the scavenger hunt and it made present opening time take a little longer. It was a fun birthday. Camden is so excited to start kindergarten in the Fall(assuming school can even resume), He loves super Mario brothers, cars, the trampoline, swimming, and playing with Tyler. He is starting to read(our first to accomplish this before starting Kindergarten), can count to 100, and is adding and subtracting numbers(even double digits!). He says really silly phrases sometimes and makes all of us laugh. Our family wouldn't be complete without him.

Happenings in the Wheeler Home during COVID-19

This has been a crazy few months, to say the least. I don't even know how to sum it all up. Here are some of the pictures I have to document what life was like for us during quarantine.
Tyler lost his first tooth (and his second and his 3rd. The 3rd took a whole month to wiggle loose!)

 The kids love crepes. Especially when we make fun designs with them.

We had to work through online school. This is what Tyler and Ashley looked like while doing it. Alyssa sported a laptop and no headphones.

Tyler started borrowing stuffed animals from Ashley to sleep with at night. Sometimes he ended up with way too many. Can you find Tyler laying on his bed? his shirt is grey.

 Camden got really good at riding his balance bike. Now we just need to add the peddles.

We borrowed this book before the Library shut down. Camden needed a lot of help when he started reading it, but after a couple of weeks, I think he memorized it. It is now his favorite book.

 Tyler took advantage of no school and grew out a mohawk.

And Danny took advantage of no church to work on his beard. The girls in the family were not fans of this, but the boys loved it.

 Alyssa got some new scrunchies (just a few)

Alyssa and Camden became good friends during quarantine. He would often disappear and we would find him in Alyssa's room playing with her.

Sometimes Tyler would join in on the fun.

 I sewed 200 masks in about 8 days.

Tyler was Daddy's little helper whenever there was a project to be worked on. They planted trees...

 And repainted our playset.

 We geared up for the NFL Draft to support our favorite football team. This was an exciting night for Danny since it was the first live sporting event in a month.

I went on A LOT of walks with Ashley and Lula. During our walks we saw a lot of God's beautiful creations. The geese in our ponds had goslings.

There were a lot of pelican-type birds in the pond for a few weeks. This day, there were so many of them together in one place.

We found a mother cow and her calf probably within hours of the calf being born. It was still wet.

We saw a bunch of deer staring at us from this field as we walked past.

 And spring arrived and brought our tulips back for a few weeks.

 We also did some hikes. This was along the Bonneville Shoreline trail.

 And this was a hike up a mountain in Saratoga Springs. The view was amazing, but there was a lot of target practice going on around us which got a bit scary for us once of twice.

And finally, we participated in the Provo Virtual Scavenger Hunt...twice (as in, they did it 2 different times). It included hundreds of random things, but here were a few of our favorite pictures from it. 

"spell covid-19 out with items from your household"

 "Recreate the picture of Michael Phelps after the 2008 Olympics"

This one was something about getting a picture of someone flying

  "Get a picture of someone jumping off of a swing mid air"

After things started opening up again, we let Alyssa invite her friends over for a movie night in our backyard. This was to celebrate the last day of online school(and school for the year). They had fun, despite the strong presence of mosquitos. They even let Ashley join them.

Overall, we survived quarantine. The kids didn't kill each other and they actually ended up getting along really well for most of it. We played a lot of games together, got them through the end of the school year, took a lot of walks and bike rides, and used our backyard A LOT(especially our trampoline). We have loved our family sacrament meetings and being with each other. However, after 2 months of it, I think we were all ready to start getting out again. Once school was finished, we started taking little trips here and there. We went to Moab with Miner cousins for a weekend, and then turned around and did a 5 day camping trip to Flaming Gorge 2 days later. We started letting our kids play/hang out with friends again, and now we are looking forward to the Miner Family Reunion next week in Colorado. Alyssa is also participating in a tennis camp and cross country practice in the mornings all summer long. The boys did 2 weeks of swimming lessons and we have had a few pool days, as well. Oh, and Lula had a second litter of puppies. We will forever remember this time in history and how it has changed the way we view our interactions with others and how it gave us some time to slow down and remember what is really important.

Cabella's Field Trip

Camden's last day at preschool before quarantine was a field trip to Cabella's. He had fun exploring the fun things there with his best friend, Cameron. Here they are in front of the fish tank.

There were lots of fun animals to look at.

 His whole preschool class (at least, the ones that were there that day)

 And one more of the class

This was the same day that I got about 100 emails of all of the things that would be shutting down, including school and church. Kind of a crazy afternoon. I wish I could go back in time to when everything was normal and the kids could sit on a ledge together like this without all of the fear and worry that is around now.

My 40th Birthday Trip

For my 40th birthday, we took a trip to California. Danny had a conference in Downtown LA and since my parents live somewhat close, we decided to go along and make a fun weekend of it. We flew out on Friday, March 6th. The kids loved going on the plane(except for Alyssa).

My niece was getting married in Arizona that day, so my parents were not at their house when we arrived. We grabbed a late lunch at Hometown Buffet and then made ourselves at home at Grandma and Grandpa's. The kids had fun exploring the toy cupboards.
On Saturday, we headed out fairly early to spend the day with Brian and Maryn and their family. Lydia had an activity with the other kids her age in her ward that she didn't want to miss out on. And since the activity involved going to an animal shelter, Ashley was super excited to go along. I went with them, as well. Ashley loved seeing the dogs. She wished that she could have actually touched the dogs, but there were rules against it at the shelter. We also saw the cats and got to get closer to them, but that wasn't nearly as exciting for her.

Later that afternoon, we supported Robbie at his basketball game. I think he had the largest cheer section there. The little kids mostly had fun climbing up the bleachers and eating the few snacks that we had brought.

That night, we went to Fuddruckers for dinner. We no longer have Fuddruckers in Utah, so it is always a treat for us to be able to go there when we go to California. We said goodbye to the Wheeler cousins after dinner and headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's. They had gotten back from Arizona a little earlier that afternoon and were still getting settled when we arrived.

On Sunday, we enjoyed the day with Grandma and Grandpa. We went to church with them and Danny and I enjoyed getting to sit together during Sacrament meeting for the first time in 2 years. Little did we know that that would be our last time attending church in 3 months. We spent the afternoon visiting and enjoying the toys at Grandma's house. I think the kids pulled out the musical instruments and put on a show for us like they normally do at Grandma's house. That evening, I drove Danny to his hotel in Downtown LA since he had meetings early the next day and we didn't want to fight early morning rush hour traffic.
On Monday, my birthday, I decided to take the kids to my happy place(the beach). Mom and Dad sat that excursion out since it gets harder and harder for them to sit at the beach as they get older. Plus, they had some plumbing problems with their sink on Sunday and had to wait for the plumber to arrive to fix it on Monday. We normally go to Ventura Beach, but I felt like exposing them to a little more of a tourist attraction and we headed to Santa Monica instead. They thought it was the coolest thing to see an amusement park on a peer over the water.

We started the day off by walking to the end of the peer. 

Alyssa bought a souvenir(a necklace) and we enjoyed the performers. They, of course, wanted to ride some rides, but I couldn't bring myself to pay $50 to let them go on 2 rides, so we walked out on the sand instead. It was a good choice. The beach was pretty empty because the weather wasn't exactly warm. But it was warm enough for the Utahn's to dip into the water. The kids played in the waves, dug for sand crabs, and played in the sand(and dug a big hole). 

 

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 I enjoyed watching them and just relaxing on the sand.

We left the beach in the early afternoon and picked Danny up from his conference. Then we headed back to meet up with Mom and Dad for a birthday dinner. We decided on a Chinese Buffet. We were well fed and got to enjoy some fun new things(like crab legs and crawfish and other fun seafood). We had no idea that this would be our last buffet experience for months. We headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's house after that for cake. They had ordered this ice cream cake from Baskin Robins and it was super good. I took Danny back to his hotel after dessert and getting the kids settled into bed for the night. 

On Tuesday, we had some time in the morning before our early afternoon flight. I had toyed with the idea of taking the girls to the temple that morning to do baptisms. But it was raining pretty heavily that morning and I was worried about driving in traffic in the rain and being able to fit it all in before our flight home. I decided against it (which I regretted a bit when the temple closed down the following week). Our flight home was uneventful. We used a whole bottle of hand sanitizer between the trip out and the trip back and we tried our best to limit the amount of handrail touching and other surface touching. We made it home around 7 pm and found everything as we left it at home. The kids were back at school the next day, and then within 24 hours, everything changed...