A lot happened this week, mostly in regards to COVID 19. Starting on Monday, school was canceled for the rest of the school year. Very sad for some kids especially high school seniors.
On Tuesday Doug Ducey, the AZ governor put at a "Stay at Home Order" he closed all nonessential business, encouraging everyone to stay at home as much as possible. Some parks and hiking trails are even closing to encourage people to stay home. As one guy put it they had "murder tape" all over the benches and playground equipment.
Stores are only allowing a certain number of people in at a time to enforce social distancing. Long lines to get in.
I'm trying to avoid the stores for several reasons. The kids wanted smores, I didn't have marshmallows or graham crackers. For some reason, I did have the ingredients to make those items. So we did. I told the kids making marshmallows was their chemistry lesson for the day.
The kids said the marshmallows were as good as store-bought, I think I should have whipped them a few minutes longer. They loved the Graham crackers, said they were much better. We will be making more.
It was April Fool's Day. Trey got this dummy that I bought on clearance after Halloween. He handcuffed him to this chair, put the sign on him that say's "I love Ah-a Take on Me" and played it on a loop. But hid several devices playing the song on loop. If someone found one device playing the song, the music still didn't stop. This is a throwback to Christmas Morning 2018 when his iPod was locked in a room playing "take on me" on a loop for two hours.
To entertain themselves I bought them some water balloons. They are all interested in history especially WWI. They creatively came up with this game where they crawl into the window wells of our basement "trenches" and try to hit each other with water balloons. They play WWI I'm sure anyone that was actually in the war, wished it was more like this.
Derek beaming Trey before he could climb into his trench.
Some of my favorite Mems this week. This is getting daunting, but everyone is in it together and I really have laughed out loud at some of the jokes people are putting out there.
This is in reference to the Governor of Georgia having a delayed response to shutting down his state. He claimed he didn't know coronavirus has asymptomatic spread. Duh, that is the entire reason the whole world has been shut down for a few weeks.
In early January we started hearing stories about the Novel Coronavirus that started showing up in Wuhan China. At that point, it was an interesting story. How did this virus appear out of nowhere? Why are people dying, how is it spread? As time went on there were more and more cases. It had gotten to the point of "community spread" people getting the disease who had no known contact of someone with the disease.
Italy was infected bad, there were a lot of deaths. Then it spread to the United States. There was talk about we could possibly be quarantined for a few weeks. People started going to the stores to stockpile food and supplies, mostly toilet paper.
At this point, I was cautiously concerned, but not really. Back in 2009, we had a pandemic of Swine Flu (H1N1) it blew over fairly quickly. People got it, in 12 weeks they came up with the vaccine, I had my kids vaccinated. It was in the news for a few months then it went away. There has been other communicable diseases in the past few years, SARA, Bird Flu, MRSA, nothing came of them. I felt like Coronavirus was a lot of media hype.
The first week in March was a busy week. A niece from Curtis' side, Krystal Suarez, was planning to get married March 6th. We had a lot of Curtis' family come into town. First, we had Curtis's Dad and his wife Marilyn come stay with us for a few days. Then his mom, Shauna, and sister, Audrey came to stay with us. While other more family trickled into town for the wedding but stayed at the Zoccoli's or other places. We had several family gatherings so we could spend time with each other before the wedding. Coronavirus was always a topic of conversation. Friday, March 6th was the wedding. It was over the top with 14 attendants, at a beautiful venue in Paradise Valley, the weather was beautiful, the decorations, festivities and food were all amazing. March 6th was the last day of school for my kids before they went on Spring Break for 11 school days. Over the next two days, the family trickled out of the house and returned life was good.
We started hearing about the virus getting more widespread. Large events were getting canceled in areas where the disease was more prevalent. The term "social distancing" started getting used more often. The first time I heard that word, I thought "I love it" being an introvert this sounded like music to my ears, no large groups, no handshaking, no hugging. This is a dream for me. Slowly more and more things started canceling, first, it started with General Conference not having a congregation, then weekly church meetings all of the world were canceled. By Thursday 3/12/19 the US President, Donald Trump, had pretty much put us all on quarantine. No large gatherings, schools closing, movie theaters, and gyms started to close, restaurants could only do take out or delivery. The NBA canceled the season and there would be no NCAA playoffs/March Madness this year. Some states are more strickt on the quarantine. Some business have to close and people are told to "shelter in place" while other states like Arizona are mostly shut down but you can still go to some stores and business. This is killing our economy. Unemployment literally skyrocketed. Highest it has ever been and it literally happened overnight. The economy was fantastic before this all hit. Hopefully, this will be quick.
Most everyone is trying to work from home. Interesting to see news correspondents, doing the news from their home. It is crazy. People trying to work from home, kids walking in and interrupting. It is a new way of life for everyone.
While our kids were on their first week of break they first canceled school until March 27, they were originally supposed to return March 24, then it was extended to April 10th.
Today is the 15th day of the "social distancing" The president came out today and said he is extending it until April 30th. Highly unlikely the kids will return to finish the school year. We're getting emails from the teachers trying to get them set up for "online learning" nobody thought they would leave for spring break and not come back to finish the last quarter of the year.
When word of a possible quarantine started to spread a few weeks ago there has been a run on Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and cleaning supplies. I check every time I go to the store and the shelves are bare for those items. I heard if you go right when the store open you can buy 1 package of TP. While I was not desperate I thought it would be a good idea to get a bit more. The store opened up at 7:00 by the time I set foot in the store it was 7:06 there was a huge line wrapped around the store. I assumed it was for TP, indeed it was. I got in a line of about 70 people at 7:07 I grabbed my one package of TP the shelves were about 90% empty by then. I then headed over to the hand sanitizer. It was 7:20 by the time I got to that aisle, 100% empty. That will wait for another day.
I keep thinking how the world has changed so fast. Although Covid 19 was on our minds during the time of Krystal's wedding, everything seems so different now. If her wedding would have been a week later it would have to be canceled.
This has been very stressful for Curtis. He is about to lose his mind. He is concerned about the economy and his business, his hobbies are playing sports, watching sports, and working. He can't do any of those right now, besides he likes being around people. He feels like he is in a nightmare, I know he is not alone.
There is a lot of funny memes going around social media and people are really trying to be helpful and lift each other up. These are some of my favorite memes.
A lot of celebrities doing PSA telling us to #Stay Home
Life was getting crazy, Curtis needed a break. Curtis and I took a quick weekend trip to Las Vegas. It was very spur of the moment, his kind of travel. We stayed at the Bellagio, we saw a few shows. We ate yummy food and had lots of fun. We had lots of fun walking around the strip and just getting away. This is the first time COVID/Coronavirus was a concern to me, seeing all the people packed into large areas, who had traveled to Las Vegas from all over the world touching arm rails and all kinds of surfaces.
Barry Manilow- He looks a little "plastic" he denies having any work done. His show was fun.
Mariah Carey- TOTAL DIVA. She showed up on stage an hour late, kept having to leave for wardrobe changes, literally having her backup singers perform an entire song. Her "glam Squad" had to come on stage in the middle of her performance to touch up her makeup that nobody could see. No finale just walked off the stage. Not a great performance.
We had an amazing dinner at "Spago" overlooking the Bellagio fountains. It was very memorable.
We ended up in the Penthouse at Bellagio. We got moved because there was no water in our original room. The original room was very nice. The penthouse was AMAZING.
Trevi Fountain outside Cesars Palace. I was at the real one in Rome last April
Caesars Palace
Chinese New Year Exhibit in Bellagio Atrium. It was beautiful
Trey just got ordained a Deacon. He is on the younger side having just turned 11 in November, but since they changed the rules about a year ago he is good. He did great passing the sacrament the first time. He looked very nervous when he picked up the water tray. You could see in his face he did not want to spill the water. He did great, I even got a few texts from friends saying he did well. It is nicer having all the boys move up at once, for the weekly activity last week all they did was teach everyone how to pass the sacrament. Much more efficient that one by one.
Trey's Aaronic Priesthood ordination day. Dax did the ordination, then Derek and Curtis were able to stand in.
On a funny note. Derek came home from school this week not feeling well. He went to most of his classes but came home early. Once he got home he went to bed and slept for a few hours. Right now the sun sets just before 6:00 p.m. and the sun rises about 7:30 a.m. It is dark when Derek leaves for school at about 6:40 a.m.
Derek had been sleeping for several hours, he woke up and saw that it was 6:45 on the clock, it was dark. He hurried out of bed grabbed his backpack and was headed out the door. Curtis saw him and asked him what he was doing. Derek asked Curtis if he could have a ride to school because he probably missed the bus. Curtis started laughing and Derek was all confused. He didn't realize it was still evening time, he thought he had slept all through the night and it was time for school the next day. We all had a good laugh. I think Derek was relieved he had a few more hours before school.
For our 24th Anniversary, Curtis and I decided to take a trip to the Washington DC area and see some things we have wanted to see. We would have brought the kids but they didn't seem very interested in coming. Everyone was happier with them staying home. We started in Philadelphia, that is where Hamilton was playing.
We saw the "Hamilton" Show it was fantastic
"The Thinker" outside Rodin museum
Bottom of the "Rocky Steps"
Reaching the top of the Rocky Steps. Cross that off the bucket list
Liberty Bell
Independence Hall
Then on to Washington DC. We took an Amtrack from Philadelphia to Washington DC. It was pretty cool. superfast, Curtis loved it.
First, we went to the 49er game in Washington. The hotel we stayed at was walking distance from the stadium. That was a plus, the bad thing is there is nothing else there. No restaurants, shops, bars, drug stores, or metro stop. NOTHING around that stadium or hotel. Not only that, my cousins tell me it is in the "hood"
Curtis always wanted to see a 49er Game in Washington. It was a rainy mud bog.
We put on every layer of warm clothing we owned, Curtis got us good seats that were covered. We were still soaked by the time the game ended. It was memorable, we still had fun.
Maybe sitting in the stands wasn't so bad after all.
The 49ers won. There were a ton of 49er fans there. I felt like it was a home game, all the way across the country. It had a very happy ending.
Lincoln Memorial
Next onto the Watergate hotel and sightseeing in Washington DC.
The rooftop of the Watergate.
Watergate pool. Curtis said the exercise room was the best ever for a hotel
Watergate Condos for the owners
The Watergate Hotel. This Hotel was amazing. I think it is my favorite Hotel. The location is amazing, I love the history of it, and first-class amenities.
Abe Lincon Memorial
MLK Memorial
Shout out to do my Dad. He retired from the Forest Service after 40+ years.
Next stop Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia. We wanted to tour the Bunker.
Words cannot describe the Greenbrier. Beautiful on the outside, absolutely bizarre on the inside. I thought I was in a bad dream.
It was absolutely beautiful in the fall.
I saw a TV show about the Greenbrier and how there was a secret bunker for Congress to escape to if the US was ever under attack. It was started by President Eisenhauer and it was a secret until the 1990's when someone leaked the info. I thought it would be a cool place to visit, which it was.
