"F" is for FORBES: Home Is a Shelter, Like it or Not

We started April off with a camping trip. All the state campsites were closed, as were all the roads into the pueblo...

...but we drove in the direction of beautiful mountains and followed side roads and old trails that I suppose could be called roads...

...until we found a good spot to set up camp.

It had definitely been camped at before. There was a nice fire ring and a sweet little spot in the trees for a tent.

Also enough empty beer bottles and soda cans to fill an entire large trash bag, which I forgot to take a picture of, but I earned many scratches pulling them out of the bushes. The kids played in the river. Vivi's face in this one! She's coming out of her dressing room.

This squishy Annie!

She had a grand time hopping on rocks.

There weren't quite enough rocks sticking out of the river for me to be tempted to rock-hop, so I took pictures of spring things instead.

When camp was all set up we went for a little hike across the river. It was a serious excursion.

We found big boulders to climb on.

I did not choose this outfit.

Drew tried to get the kids to be flags, but they were sore afraid.

So many different colors of rocks in this little area!

We made a little color wheel to leave behind.

There was such a variety of textures down in the river bed, too.

It was a good opportunity to talk about the different kinds of rocks. "I mean I can take your igneous rocks or leave them. I relate primarily to micas, quartz, feldspar. You can keep your pyroxenes, magnetites and coarse-grained plutonics as far as I'm concerned..."

So many beautiful layers.

We marched up to the wall of sandstone. Vivien got a taste of how unstable it can be when she tried to climb up the wall and ended up doing a series of wild, crashing hops down into a ravine after the bit she was holding onto gave way.

She was rather timid after that. The others ran ahead to find a way around the wall to get to the top. We followed, but while Vivien was carefully, carefully avoiding crumbly rocks, she fell into a cactus. Do you spy the people up top?

Her enthusiasm for the hike was waning. And then it started raining! So, to avoid complaining, we started back for camp. (You must say that in time to enjoy all the rhymes.)

Selfie up top first.

Here is a ghastly cactus skellington.

We were unable to find a good way to cross the river, so Drew and I took off our shoes and ferried everyone (and some firewood for our fire) across, trying to avoid the most the angular rocks to spare our tender feet.

For dinner we roasted hot dogs.

I have never done this before, but I brought a can of baked beans and just set it in the coals using the roasting stick. It was bubbling hot in practically one minute! So easy! Beans and weenies!

After dinner there was more wading.

The girls had such a great time playing in the river...

...they decided to fill a rusty can they found lying around with water and brew a tea for Poseidon by the fire. Drew has been reading Percy Jackson to them.

That night we had s'mores and sang songs around the campfire, and I tried again and failed again to remember Sam McGee (must prepare next time!).

Then we all tucked into our sleeping bags and hung the iPad from a bungee cord attached to the ceiling and watched Treasure Planet. The little kids fell asleep before the movie was over, which was highly convenient. Drew and I were cold overnight, despite being in a tent with a rain fly, wearing layers, snuggled in sleeping bags, and lying right next to each other. My heart aches for homeless people who have to sleep in the cold every night.

The next day we woke up and struck our camp, then we took Drew to see Soda Dam. We had to yell at our kids several times for getting too close to people, who would back away from them as they came galloping over, then look at us pointedly.

Vivien was eager to prove her bravery by climbing the face that stymied her last time we visited.

Here is the back side of the dam, just before the waterfall.

And another front view of the waterfall, just because it's so cool. Like an ugly haircut...

Here is the fount tucked back in the cave up under the bangs.

It was a fun trip! The next weekend was conference. I finally broke out my world puzzle. It was pretty easy until it got to the ocean, and then it was exceedingly difficult.

But there were still funny pieces whose place in the world was wonderfully obvious.

Sunday called for another puzzle. I pulled out the one mom picked up for me at Srta's funeral. The program was tucked inside and I read it, then I cried all day at random moments. Here we are posing with President Nelson to remember how we were when the Proclamation on the Restoration was given.

And here is EVERYONE doing the same in all our separate places.

That Sunday was Palm Sunday. I tried to make some clay out of cornstarch and shaving cream to make our Palm Sunday model. It smelled nice, and was nice to squish, but it was not good molding clay. We did our best with it.

Thursday we did our annual much-abbreviated Passover dinner.

I didn't know where one buys matzo, so I made it from scratch. I later located it on the shelves at Walmart. Next year!

Our Seder plate.

Every year we have done this I have gone through the Haggadah and pulled out the parts that I like, and then every year I forget to save it, so I have to do it all over again the next year. But this year I saved it, so next year it will be easier! We added Ma Nishtana (The 4 questions) song to our Kiddush song this year. Also we did candles. They were not the special Jewish holiday candles, but I lit them like they do in Fiddler on the Roof. It made Drew very uncomfortable, but it sure got the kids' attention! For the retelling of the story part I used our gospel art kit and took them from Adam through the Exodus. Vivien had spent the day watching The Ten Commandments, so she was very helpful in retelling the story.

I think it went very well. I discussed it with Drew's Jewish coworker and she thought it was awesome. She was fully supportive of me shortening it by 5 hours! And she told me her favorite song that we can add to our celebration next year. I don't know if we can use traditional Jewish candles; you're not supposed to blow them out ever, but I think that might have been the kids' favorite part of the whole evening...

Krista wanted to have an egg hunt in our cul-de-sac with our 3-family "household" the Saturday before Easter. I stuffed our egg contribution on Friday in the afternoon. It just so happened to be the day that President Nelson called for a world-wide fast. I parked myself on the floor of the living room, started ripping open all the bags of candy, and was instantly overpowered by the mouthwatering smell of the Starburst jelly beans and Hi-chews and mini Cadbury eggs and Reese's PB cups, but I was fasting so I did not eat any of it. About 5 minutes into my egg-stuffing, Vivien's hungry little face peeked over the landing and said, "WHY does it smell so good in here??" I worked that night, came home and slept for awhile, then in the afternoon we hid the eggs while the kids waited in the back yards.

We had counted and divided up all the eggs so we knew how many each child was supposed to find. It was a little difficult for the kids who aren't great at counting yet.

And it was apparently difficult for the kids who ought to be good at counting, too! Vivien ended up with 3 extra eggs. She looked chagrined when she realized her mistake a day or two later.

They made quick work of the candy. We helped.

Here is our grown up group picture, social distance style, courtesy of Vivien.

On Easter Sunday we dip-dyed the brightest Easter eggs we have ever dyed using our Wilton food coloring gel...

...watched Ben Hur...

...had an Easter feast...

...and a Zoom testimony meeting with Sister Coco.

Also, we gave our Easter bunny a present.

She's such an enormous rabbit!

And the Earth gave us an Easter present, too!

Our yard was looking especially spring-y for Easter.

It enticed The McKenzie over to plant her transplants in the garden boxes.

But alas! We had another late snow, just like we did last year after Easter.

I tried my best to keep her tomatoes and marigolds alive, but 2 nights in a row of below freezing temperatures was too much for most of them.

I am pretty sure it killed our whole crop of nectarines as well.

Our ash tree took it badly, shedding all of its blackened, shriveled spring leaves over the next week. The only branch that held onto its leaves was the one right in front of our window and a little bit sheltered by our porch.

Then it was warm again, so we had a planting party. Michelle came and did her box.

A before picture, for later:

We released hundreds of baby praying mantises into our yard to help out. Drew found an egg sac for sale at Home Depot.

So tiny!

The ash tree activated its secondary buds, so it won't look terrible all year.

Just in time for Earth Day! We made a fruit pizza to celebrate.

We love our little wedge of earth! Hurray for paying a lot of money for someone to come make our lawn look nice.

School became mandatory again in April. The kids each had about 2 hours of schoolwork every day posted on Google Classroom. I usually let the kids sleep in as long as they liked before getting started. Rafe, as always is the earliest riser. Annie is usually up soon after. Vivien and Merrick are the owls.

After they breakfast I get their homework all set up for them in a browser window with tabs for each assignment.

It takes the poor kids twice as long to do any assignments because they're spending so much time looking for their letters. So, we added some typing practice to the daily school rotation.

Here's Rafe watching a video of his teacher reviewing Spanish sounds.

While Vivien and Rafe are tucked into their online school, Annie and I read together on the couch.

For awhile we were working on writing the letters. I've kind of slacked on that recently... Everyone could use better penmanship around here though. Maybe we'll do it as a family and I'll teach myself to write left-handed at the same time.

Sometimes after the required work is done we do some of the "can do" things for our enrichment. We greatly enjoy the fabulous Mrs. Alworth's music and art lessons. Can you spy my name?

And sometimes Rafe and I do PE together. We are working on catching a basketball without spasming wildly.

Then I work out. I purchased a 4-week Fitness Blender program to do in April. Here is my gym:

Or sometimes I set up the gym on the driveway so I can supervise the kids while they ride bikes in the cul-de-sac...

...or make a reading fort in the shade.

Crocheting is a good hobby for sitting and supervising, once the workout is done. I finally started working on the little My Little Pony amigurumi kit Vivien begged me to buy for her at Costco forever ago.

Vivien made Twilight Sparkle a spaceship out of the box the kit came in. The flight plan is written on the paper in front of the box pictured below. We watched Apollo 13 for the 50th anniversary of the mission, so the kids were all about aeronautics and space there for a bit.

Vivien is a very gratifying recipient to make toys for. Twilight has hardly left her side since she was completed.

She comforted Vivien when she fell off the wall and scraped her leg.

She keeps Vivien company at night. One day she got lost and Vivien searched the house all evening, literally "boo-hoo-hoo" -ing, until she was found. It's funny to spy her in the background of all these pictures.

Rafe is harder to please. He is not as interested in toys as he is in playing online games. In fact, he is not as interested in anything as he is in playing online games. He was introduced to them by Elliot, and his precious minutes of screen time have become a source of great contention in the house.

Merrick kind of just does whatever he pleases during our school and play times. Mostly he plays with Allen. Krista likes this because it keeps Allen occupied while she is trying to teach kindergarten remotely.

Merrick and Annie really love to steal my phone and photograph each other lately. Many long nights of deleting hundreds of pictures of the couch, or the movie they watched, etc.

Sometimes Merrick goes up to keep Dad company in his home office and falls asleep.

He is constantly tired because he still won't go to bed when told. I know the fact that I keep blogging about this problem with no apparent effort to fix it makes us sound like terrible parents. We have tried many things, to the frustration of all. It feels kind of like trying to make the wind stop, so for now we're just weathering the storm. Here he is after sneaking down the stairs to watch me exercise late one night. He rolled in his sleep a couple minutes after this and thump-thumped down to the floor.

Here he is, crashed outside our bedroom door which had been closed. He loves to sleep in the monkey suit.

Our cat Scout has loved having the kids home more often. He's not actually our cat, but he acts like he is. If we are outside he will come over for some love. He lets Merrick paw him, and he is exceptionally easy to please. Once I was weeding and he came over and stood right under me so every time I would reach down for a weed my hand would bump him. He was purring like mad.

He makes it so I don't have to change the bird feeders as often.

We've gone on a weekend walk or two. This is one of our favorite spots for a Sunday afternoon stroll. Awww, look at these cuties.

It was nice light for pictures.

Rafe's squinty smirk!

Annie was a little hot. She doesn't like to wear shorts, "because they make [her] too hot."

And here is our baby who is not very babyish anymore.

Drew decided against individual shots and went for a family selfie instead. It's a good angle for me!

Makes all those salads for lunch feel worth it.

Also these whole wheat banana muffins I've been making in my giant 24 count square muffin tin lately.

Annie had a run-in with an ant that crawled up and got stuck in her shirt on our walk. It was very itchy!

We also went hiking up in the Sandias one morning right after I got home from work. I was too tired to take any pictures except the one below, but craziness, we had only been hiking about 15 minutes when who should come up behind us but our friends from Drew's work, Alex and Ari. It was nice to see and hike with them for awhile.

Work has been interesting. They transitioned the Tower 1 half of our unit into a COVID floor towards the end of April to accommodate an influx of patients from the Gallup/reservation area. Only patients who are positive for COVID and are not sick enough to be on a vent come to us. The staff has been putting up inspiring messages with post-it notes in the windows to build team unity and get each other through the stress. The ICU on 4th floor went with a giant WE GOT THIS.

They sealed off 5100 completely so that we can only enter through one door. They taped off our break room (I snuck in to get my stethoscope and scissors out of my locker so I can still be a nurse), propped open all the supply closets and med rooms so we don't have to touch as many surfaces, and made the patient lobby our new break room. When we arrive on the unit, we change into some hospital issue scrubs, then put on a gown, gloves which are to be considered our new "skin" and which we wash throughout the shift, and a mask before we enter the unit. Once we get in we put on a face shield. Before we enter each room, we put on a new pair of gloves over our skin-gloves. It's a lot to wear.

And it's a really long time to wear a mask. Your face feels so free when the shift is over!

I come home and shower off right away, then I go to bed and get to wake up with the most wonderful went-to-bed-with-wet-hair bedhead.

Around town, stores that are essential are limiting the number of people that can be in the store at once, so they've set up entry lines and let people in as others go out.

There are also sneeze shields at registers and masks for all the workers.

I've been on more online meetings this month than in all the rest of the months in my life combined. We even played games with family over an online meeting a couple times. We are getting very familiar with JackBox games. This was a favorite moment:

The internet has been very important. Ours is getting slow lately. It may be time for a new router.

I think I just have a few funnies to tuck in here at the bottom and April will be blogged! Vivien told me the other day that she likes long hair, "because my bangs cover my face when I cry, and when I put my head forward no one can see how red my face gets."