COVID-19 hits

March 13, Trump declares national emergency. March 13, Tanner was going to fly to Boise and spend the weekend with mom and dad to work on a math paper he had to do.  China had been dealing with this deadly virus called the Coronavirus since last fall. It hadn't really hit America too badly.  But as the new year 2020 started, we heard more and more cases of it coming to America. By mid March, we were in full blown panic mode and things were starting to shut down. We had told Tanner that maybe it wasn't the best time to go to Oregon before all this chaos happened, so he was already planning on canceling his flight.  Here is the timeline: March 5, 1st case in NLV diagnosed. March 12, Sisolak declares a state of emergency. March 15, the schools close down and Mikel is furloughed. March 16, first death from COVID-19 in Nevada. March 17, Sisolak orderes all non-essential businesses to close. March 19, 74 cases in Las Vegas. March 20, all businesses (non essential) ordered to close our doors or else! March 23, UNLV goes to virtual learning. March 24, 10 person limit on public gatherings. April 1, schools remain closed for the rest of the year. April 6, Face masks ordered when out in public. April 7, stores begin limiting number of people that can be inside. April 10, Nevada breaks 100 mark on deaths due to COVID-19.

So, I will begin a quarantine section on my blog now since it really impacted life in our family, city, country and world!

Not only was Tanner's trip cancelled, but Taz and Cynjyn's planned trip to Korea was cancelled. Garry and I had a trip to Alaska planned for the end of March and that was also cancelled. Life is about to get crazy people!

First off, there was panic buying on toilet paper and hand sanitizer, hand soap and disinfecting wipes. Literally within days they had disappeared off every shelf in every store. Then suddenly canned goods and meat and water and flour and sugar and yeast and ramen was gone. People were stocking up. Now, we had always had a pretty good food storage and had a big freezer with lots of meat, so we weren't too worried, but, we did start to stock up on things that seemed to be disappearing quickly. I didn't need to buy toilet paper and wipes, but I did when I found them. Same with rice. We found some at Restaurant Depot and got some for us and Talon and Mikel. As a matter of fact, as a joke birthday present we gave a 50 lb. bag to Mikel when we went to Denny's for her birthday dinner the weekend before the real pandemonium began. Obviously, it wasn't too much of a joke, but funny and good still. Lines became super long at Sam's. We saw people just stockpiling things into their carts.

I jokingly sent this photo to my sisters and mom about being stocked up on the staples to get us through the pandemic!

So as things closed down and schools went virtual, the kids had more free time, but no where to go. This is what they thought of that! We did have time to do more little projects though. Garry cleaned all the windows really good and rehung my stars after taking them down to clean.

One of our last nights to be home alone when the kids were all gone. So we treated ourselves to Jack in the Box mini tacos. Cynjyn was allowed to work from home when this all began. She loved not having to get dressed or ready and she did a lot of paper folding and bullet journaling and painting.

With casino's shutting down, Vegas became a ghost town and the strip was earily quiet. Me, Taz and Cynjyn took a ride downtown one afternoon. No one was out and about!

Some of the projects we tackled: organizing the linens and blankets, cleaning off the oven hood. Cleaning out the back yard, learning new games (Game of Thrones that had a novel for the directions) and starting a Rock Band tour. We had gone to at home church and so we would do that on Sunday's with Talon's family and have the sacrament and do a little FHE type lesson and songs for Jaxon. Everything went to Zoom or phone conference calls. Garry had bishopric and ward council every Sunday via that and I had RS presidency meeting a couple of times a month via Zoom. Cynjyn baked cookies and the kids each had an area of the house set up for their school times. Taz and Tanner shared the computer in the craft room and Cynjyn set up shop in the living room on the table for work and school. We could stay in our PJ's all day and still attend work and school. I put some words up on my photo wall that I'd got around to painting and I discovered the glorious world of Tik Tok's and started making those to entertain myself and others on social media.