1 year of pandemic.

 Ok, I have really fallen off the blogging wagon this year. But there are 2 reasons- one big for the world and one big for our family.

I've been seeing all these posts saying "A year ago I didn't realize it was the end of my normal life". I read an article that it will be our "flash bulb" moment, one where we remember exactly where we were when we heard that school/church/everything was closing down for "a few weeks". So here's my experience.

In February 2020, I was talking with someone when they said "Man, this coronavirus stuff sounds serious!" And I kind of blew that off. We had lived through the Ebola AND Zika scares in Miami, and both of those had been majorly overblown. So I assumed it was going to be that for us as well. But as time went on, we saw that it was beginning to be just as bad as it sounded. But life was still moving on in Visalia. I was training for a sprint triathlon that I would do in May. This was our week before the lockdown... see if anything seems out of place.

We went to the Blossom Festival in Sanger and ran a race:

We saw the blossoms:

We went to church... I remember even making a joke that James gave someone else coronavirus because he drank out of her sippy cup at nursery. (Notice Cora put on her makeup on the way to church without us knowing)

We went to preschool:

We encouraged sibling rivalry:

We got ready for St. Patrick's Day:

AND, in a moment of genius, we bought a trampoline for our backyard. THIS photo below is my "last normal picture".

We knew something was coming because March Madness had been cancelled and church had been cancelled. My parents came to visit to see the blossoms, but about an hour after they got to our house we got the call that the school district (and, by extension, the preschool) were cancelling classes until spring break to try to slow the spread of the virus. Everyone went into apocalyptic mode. The toilet paper shortage is still something that sounds surreal. James threw out half a roll of toilet paper the other day and it brought me right back to that mindset. At least we don't have to worry about that anymore!

What was supposed to be a fun weekend looking at the blossoms with my parents turned into "Ok, how can we get our emergency preparedness ready so I don't leave the house?"

While many of our friends and family began working from home, and college students left their apartments and went back home, Brandon kept working with the sick people. When you hear about the bodies being stacked in refrigerated trucks in NYC, you start to panic about the health of healthcare providers. I can now safely say I was super depressed. Brandon was exposed to Covid for the first time in only the SECOND week of lockdown. I cried for hours thinking about him being on a ventilator, and what would I do if he died? Etc. etc. etc. I didn't want to get out of bed... I was PANICKING. And a big part of that was that I didn't have any outlet. I am NOT a homebody by any stretch of the imagination, so to be forced to be at home suddenly was awful. Cora was struggling, because she loved preschool and didn't understand why she couldn't go back. And so I was trying to be a good strong parent for her while I was freaking out. 
Thankfully, the fog lifted after a few weeks. I want to update about our first few months, with the "daily post" I put on social media. But our year was so hard and so great at the same time. I can't believe it's been a year already. But looking back now and seeing how awful I felt (and how scary it was), I feel hope. Cora is back at school, even just for half a day. We get to go to church every other week, even just for sacrament meeting. I can go to the gym outside (I REALLY missed the gym, even though I can't do the classes right now). Brandon is still working with sick people (and brought Covid home), but we made it through that fire. He is now vaccinated, along with our grandparents and quite a few friends. And thanks to the parameters being changed to qualify for vaccination in California, I can now get my vaccine this week! (My doctor strongly urged me to get it as soon as possible) This nightmare will not be over for a while. But we are moving in the right direction. Hopefully by end of year 2 we will have some serious steps taken toward our "new normal".

Happy Anniversary- 9 years

 Remember me?  I haven't been on here in a LONG time. But I want to keep track of some things, and hopefully catch things up so I can print this out. Even though we all know 2020 has not been our year.

Brandon and I have celebrated 9 years of marriage. Every year when I look back at our wedding pictures I think "I thought I loved you then". But it seems that our relationship has gotten harder and stronger by taking on the challenges that have come.

Brandon has been my rock through Covid. During the beginning of it, I could barely get out of bed I was struggling so much. He would work all day (with sick people who could have had Covid- he was exposed multiple times in the first month) then take care of me and the kids because I couldn't handle it. By now I have accepted that this is my new normal, so I can do laundry or cook again. How do you repay someone for carrying you through their own struggles?

We always joke that the in-laws in our house are the nicest people. But I'm pretty sure it's actually true. I'm glad I married the quiet nice guy from my ward, and that he saw the real me past the Orange County raised, Tuscany living girl. (He has some misgivings about me at first, if you can believe that!)

Even barring the pandemic, we have been through some things that have ended marriages of people I know. But we've learned that the way we handle our struggles can make or break us. That sounds cryptic, but we're good! Just learning to build our Christ like attributes of patience and longsuffering, as a blessing told me.

We've also had a lot of fun! We had our first trip away from the kids (for more than 24 hours) in the beautiful Hotel del Coronado. We got to have a roadtrip to Colorado and Utah, and we got to see 2 of Brandon's siblings get married. There's no better thing than family, in my opinion. We finally feel like we're past the "struggling student" situation financially, and we love knowing that we can now save for the future. Brandon especially loves to tell me how much is saved in each kid's college fund. That is something we've been working toward for years.

We've been talking about our big 10th anniversary trip for about a year already, and we were all set to go to Iceland. Now it doesn't seem like that will happen, but hopefully we can travel SOMEWHERE next year. For now, I'll just love our house, our kids, and the life we've built and worked so hard for.

Happy anniversary, Brandon.

Our first 911 call.

If you had told me when we started January 2020 that I'd make my first parental 911 call and I was a betting person, I'd have put money on James having fallen off something or jumped and broken something. I'd never ever think it was Cora.

I went to get my haircut after Brandon got off work, and came home and went to bed early for once. My kids had been driving me nuts, and I was glad for a break. Brandon had fallen asleep on the couch, and since I gave up a long time ago on trying to move him I left him there.

I woke up a few hours later to a commotion. It sounded like throwing up, and Brandon YELLING. He never yells, and especially at our kids. All of a sudden here he was, yelling and screaming "WHAT DID YOU DO?? YOU NEED TO TELL ME!" I jumped out of bed to see him holding Cora over the sink, trying to give her the Heimlich. I started shaking, and asked him "Is she choking or something??" And he just kept yelling at her. I realized that what I thought was throwing up was Cora not breathing. She could gasp in tiny breaths, but couldn't breathe out. Soon Brandon and I were both screaming (different ways), and Cora was crying but still not breathing any better. I yelled "I'm calling 911!" I thought Brandon would tell me I was being dramatic, but he didn't say anything. So I ran back to the room. I don't know why, but I was able to stay calm while telling them "my 4 year old just woke up and can't breathe. She's choking. She needs an ambulance." While doing this I was pulling on pants because I realized I was about to have a bunch of strangers in my house and I didn't want them to see me like this I forget what the responder said, but suddenly Brandon was running over to me. He yanked the phone out of my hand and said "I'm a PA. She needs an ambulance right now!" Suddenly, my hands stopped shaking. I had a feeling of immense peace come over me. I just knew Brandon would move heaven and earth to make sure she was ok.

Brandon opened the front door just in time to see a police car squeal into our cul de sac. The officer came running in to see Cora, who was sitting in the chair with me. She was calming down, but still working way too hard to breathe. You could see her working with her neck muscles, which I had learned is a really bad sign. The police car was joined by a fire truck and ambulance, all with lights blazing. Did I mention this was midnight? I'm sure our neighbors were all watching. The 911 response time was FAST, about 3 minutes.

The firefighters said they didn't think Cora was choking, but that it was croup. I had croup a bunch of times as a kid, and I thought "Oh, that's it?" I thought they were going to leave us, but when Cora asked me to not leave her I told her she wasn't going anywhere without me. I had no idea how scary and dangerous croup was. The paramedics said they'd like to bring her to the ER to check her out, so I put shoes on while Brandon got Cora's car seat from the van.

 I started texting a few people at a time, saying "Can you just pray RIGHT now? Cora isn't breathing well." I wasn't sure who was going to see it, but I just needed some support. It would have made more sense to send Brandon with Cora, but when my kids are sad or sick they only want mom. So there I was!

Cora needed some breathing masks with epinephrine, because her oxygen levels were dropping by the minute. Her body was just getting tired. She was obviously scared. But she had her Cotton Candy unicorn (the one she got when she had her second round of ear tubes last August), that I said made her brave.

 The ER itself was a wild ride. There were grown men screaming, and someone had ripped out their IV and was bleeding everywhere. Meanwhile, the one who should be screaming was quiet as could be. Thankfully, we got back to a room quickly and it helped us to not hear a lot of the sounds. I felt kind of bad that we got into a room so quickly when people were laying in the hall all night, but I also did not want to give it up.

 After Cora's oxygen levels became more stable, we just had to wait to make sure she could breathe on her own without the help of epinephrine. She finally fell asleep about 2:30, but I could not rest. I had thankfully grabbed my phone charger and put it in my pocket, because I was just stuck sitting and waiting. I KNEW she was going to be fine if I closed my eyes, but 1) I just had a little metal chair to sit on and 2) my adrenaline was just too high.

They did an X Ray on her throat and determined that it was croup, since there was nothing in her airway. We were finally allowed to go at 5 AM. I was glad that Brandon was awake, even though I knew we had friends who would have picked us up if he didn't answer. James slept through the WHOLE thing, so he was wide awake and happy to see us when they got to the hospital.

Needless to say, we did nothing the next day. Cora took the day off of school, Brandon took the day off of work, and we just rested. We appreciated all the calls, texts, treats, and dinners we were given the next day.

We are so thankful that this was so short lived. We weren't even admitted to the hospital! Cora was totally fine by the time she woke up the next morning. However, Brandon and I were severely shaken up. How on earth does a child go to bed not sick and then nearly die a few hours later? How did Brandon hear her? I didn't! How are we so lucky to have such healthy children that this was our first 911 call? We have friends who have children who have spent more time in the hospital than I can imagine.

I talked to my mom the next day, and she told me how awful it really was whenever I had croup in the middle of the night. I BELIEVE IT.

So there you go. We are officially parents. We have needed to call 911, ride in an ambulance and spend the night in the ER. I hope we don't have to do it again, but we're glad it had such a happy ending.

Trip to Dallas!

I decided to be courageous and take the kids on a flight by myself. Cora had 3 weeks off for Christmas break, and the last week had some crazy cheap flights. So we were off to Dallas!

First things first... I borrowed Kindles for the kids and bought headphones. They did not make a PEEP the whole drive down to Irvine. It was so amazing.

 I tried bringing James's car seat with me through LAX security. It was a DISASTER. Thankfully I had checked our bags (i put all our clothes in one giant suitcase), because this would have been impossible. But when I got to our gate, I found out that our airplane was "remote". Which meant we had to go down 2 flights of stairs and onto a bus. With a giant stroller and car seat? There's no way. As I was trying to figure out what to do, with 2 kids who were trying to run away, nearly in tears, a man saw my plight and took pity on me. He grabbed the stroller and took it down the stairs and onto the bus for me. Everyone learned James's name quickly (of course) and when the man disembarked they said "follow your dad James!". So I needed to explain that that wasn't his dad, just a nice stranger who helped me.

 Flight was chaotic but successful, basically.  We were just glad to make it to Dallas and see our cousins!

 Benson is the cutest. He's so happy and smiley most of the time, but he's unsure about the swing.

 This picture just cracked me up.

The kids loved playing on the trampoline. We may have to buy one!

Pictures by Lucy:

One of the things I love about Dallas are all the nice trails. We went to the arboretum.

We also go to visit their "Fun Club" and swim. So nice in January!

More pictures by Lucy:

Even a filter!

They just opened a Fiiz in Frisco, so we got to go! The kids drinks are RIDICULOUS.

Since Dallin and Alyse live a mile apart, we walked from house to house.

I wish they had a indoor play place like this in Visalia!

And another Texas staple- Buc-Ee's!

Dane was so nice to James!

And on our last day, it SNOWED. Cora said "I am FREAKING OUT. Why is it SNOWING???"

Thankfully, the flight home was much less chaotic than the flight there. I am glad we went, but I think it may take a while to get the nerve to fly with the kids by myself again!