COVID started becoming quite the world pandemic and we watched through January and February as it slowly moved through different countries and presence was talked about more and more. By March we had seen schools closing and people being 'locked down'. In our small community we weren't really sure what precautions were going to be taken. On the evening of March 16th we got a message that school was closed indefinitely. It was a wave of mixed emotions, while the kids were pretty excited to be home...I wasn't quite sure about homeschooling. We had to visit their schools and pick up their supplies, we were told they weren't sure how long the closing would last and for many weeks people had hope the kids would be able to go back and finish the school year.
As a family the first month was a pretty amazing experience. I set up a school schedule and we stuck to it pretty well...it helped me stay sane and gave the kids some organization. We had math, Reading and writing and everyday I lead them in some kind of science experiment or art project. We also had an hour of PE time outside where we would play tag, annie-I-over, capture the flag, hop scotch, little tikes car races and whatever I could think up :) We often took a 'field trip' to the school for free school lunch. I saw our family grow as we enjoyed more time together, it was also an amazing experience to have at home church. It was awesome to recognize how we had been prepared for this time. We held our own sacrament in our living room and met together with all of the Hoopes clan each Sunday for church over zoom.
Time went on and there still weren't many answers as to how long this would last. The kids started getting more and more defiant in the school work and I watched all the togetherness start taking a toll. There were weeks where someone was crying every single day, whether it was a child or me! I swore more than the kids had ever heard me, it was SO HARD. We did take a little break at Easter and head to Vernal for a change of scenery and break from the stress, it was such a good reset. When we returned things were hard. Loa particularly was struggling so bad. She came to my room one night just crying, she missed her friends, the school, her teacher, the environment and everything about it. She hated home school and just wanted her 'normal' back. I cried too, it was just as hard on me and I couldn't do anything to change it...so frustrating!
Finally by the middle of May I had had enough, I gave my kids an end date and told them we could be done even if the school wasn't. It wasn't worth the daily fights and the stress. The weather was getting better and the kids just wanted to be playing outside and they were over having a mom as their teacher. Not to mention, for me it had become a nightmare to try and help 4 kids at 4 levels complete all of the thing required of them each day. Laexin was pretty good through it all and mostly did his work on his own --in fact, all of his grade went up! Loa and Lytzi had by far the most homework and it was a pain to try to keep up on everything.
We were all overjoyed to see the last day of school finally come. I had let them finish the week before but it was a relief when he actual day came. At the same time it was pretty sad that they didn't get to finish out their years the normal way with class parties and field trips and plays...definitely something they will never forget.
We continued to remain 'locked down' and it wasn't until June that we started being able to slowly move into different stages of getting our freedoms back. Fast forward to today, the second week in July, we still aren't out of the dark but for sure are a lot more free from most of the world mess because of this small, isolated community that we live in. The world had become quite the mess. In the midst of corona a black man was killed by a white police officer in Michigan and it caused protests and rioting throughout the country that have now being going on for 6 weeks straight. We are seeing a major amount of unrest. It has been some very obvious 'signs of the times'.
In our state we aren't required to wear masks everywhere, just encouraged to. On our recent trip to Washington and Oregon we saw a completely different situation where it is a requirement and you basically can't even step foot in a public place without one on. Here in Soda, Lava and Grace the restaurant and grocery store workers don't even wear them and you rarely see people wearing them. It is nice to come home and forget about the troubles of the world.
Who knows how much longer this will last. It has been a few months of lots of emotions, disappointments and frustrations but we are trying to enjoy our time together. LeGrand and I were supposed to go to Costa Rica in April and had to cancel that trip, total bummer. Lytzi's clogging class and recital cancelled, Laexin's bball tournaments, Linqs last few months of pre-school. Laexin had a bball camp at Utah State which got cancelled, LeGrand had his 40th bday during corona and Loa had her 10th birthday. My parents got a mission call to the belgium/Netherlands mission and have been spending months with a tutor learning dutch and were recently told they won't be going at all and that it will be a year or two before they can go on a mission. It's been really hard on them as they thought they had a plan and now they don't. They have tried and tried to sell their home and that isn't working out either so they will just stay and make a new plan for now.
We've been trying to start building our house but have been held up by the bank which has been overwhelmed (rates plummeted so everyone is trying to refinance). We've planned little trips to give us something to look forward to and tried to plan a fun activity at least once a week to help the kids enjoy the summer.
Here are some pictures from our days of homeschooling!
The week before school was cancelled Linq had me take this picture on the way to pre-school!
Lots of adventuring got us out of the house!
Corona art, lol!
I let the kids bring the legos up and at one point they decided to organize them by color. For a few months they stayed in the entry room and it looked like this most days but they spent lots of time building and it was perfect to keep Linq busy when I was trying to help the other kids with school work.
We made raspberry sweet rolls one day
Playing with the Chickens and getting surprises from Grammie and Papa
Having Hot Dog roasts
Couver needed a serious haircut but wouldn't come to us because he knew what was going to happen so LeGrand had to haul him, ha ha.
Poor naked dog!
We finally visited the Pocatello temple site in April
Crazy kids playing with my phone!
Salt Art
Fun experiment watching the 'M's' come off the m&m's
Riding in the grader with Dad
More phone hijacking
Many movie nights...sometimes we just want to watch an adult movie so we put them on the computer in the boys room :)
They went treasure hunting in the junk piles out back and come home with all kinds of fun stuff
I had to go to a doctors appointment and documented the first time wearing a mask, the end of April...and only because I was made to!
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