Back to school

I forgot to take first day of school pictures, but after the second day Annie reminded me, so we got first week of school pictures, at least. Rachel is in 8th grade, Annie in 5th, Megan in 2nd and Ryan in 4th. So both Annie and Rachel will be moving up at the end of the year. 

The kids were happy to get back to school. Unfortunately on day 3 Rachel woke up with a fever, so she had to miss the next 3 days of school. The fever lasted 2 days, but she hadn't been fever free for 24 hours yet so she had to miss Friday, too. At least she didn't miss the first day of school, but missing the first week still kind of stinks. 

The following week Annie's class had a covid positive kid, so we decided to keep her home for a few days so anyone who might have caught it would have time to get sick and stay home and we'd miss the contagious period. Since Annie and Eloise are in the same class, they did their school work together at home, then had time every afternoon to do something fun: watching the olympics while working on their pinewood derby cars for an upcoming primary activity, swimming, or a lunch date with Grandma. It's almost enough for them to wish they could quarantine more often. 

That Friday Rachel came home from school with a scratchy throat and by nighttime it was a full blown cold. Saturday she felt miserable so we did a COVID test just to make sure, but it came back negative, thankfully. She slept a lot more than normal, and when we got home from church that Sunday she had just woken up and was feeling totally better. Though she did have a bit of a cough. 

That day we had a Come Follow Me lesson centered around D&C 84:56-57 and not treating lightly the Book of Mormon and making sure we value what we've been given. We made a stop motion video for the lesson. One of Ryan's series "Biscuit Asks a Question" and in this one the question Biscuit asks is, "What is your favorite Book of Mormon story?" Everyone had their stuffed animal come and answer the question on the video. It was pretty good. 

That Monday we had the day off of school. We took the kids on a bike ride and everyone came back super sweaty because it was pretty hot and humid. Everyone felt relieved to get a frozen treat at Grandma's house afterwards.

That night we got an email that Megan's class now had a covid case. We planned to keep her home a couple days just in case, but when I went to school the following morning to pick up her work for a few days I found out that she was actually a close contact so it was no longer a voluntary quarantine, but a required one. She was not at all sad about it. She loves spending time with me, so staying home for a week was super awesome.

The recommended quarantine rules are to quarantine for 7 days after a close contact if you get a negative covid test on or after day 5, or just for 10 days if you don't take a test. Tuesday Rachel went back to school, just making sure to wear a mask since she still had a lingering cough and we thought it would make everyone uncomfortable in covid times to have her coughing all day and unmasked. It probably still made them uncomfortable with her masked, but she was no longer contagious and it wasn't covid so I felt fine sending her to school. Tuesday afternoon, however, Megan started feeling a little warm and yucky. Of course since she was in quarantine that made me worried it really was covid, so I made her stay away from people all afternoon. Annie came home from school saying she thought she caught Rachel's cold. Turns out both Megan and Annie caught Rachel's cold. Luckily it was a one day cold and we just kept Annie home on Wednesday, but she was back at school on Thursday. We did an at home COVID test just to be sure, and because it was day 5 of quarantine, so we could be sure Megan was ok to get back into real life. Thankfully both tests came back negative.

We thought Megan would be able to go back to school Monday since day 8 was Saturday and she had tested negative on day 5, but Friday we got an email from the health department explaining quarantine rules for the class and only giving the 10 day quarantine option. I guess because they couldn't require proof of a test? Anyway, Megan stayed home for one more day, making it so out of the first 15 days of school all 4 kids had only been at school for 4 of those days. The biggest streak we had of everyone going to school was 2 days. We were very happy this last week to set a new record of 4 days in a row of all the kids going to school. This coming week we're hoping for a full week with everyone at school.

For FHE last week Ryan finally got his wish. He had been trying to convince people to play the tap game with him for days, and since it just happened to be his turn for FHE, he was super happy to be able to demand everyone play with him. 

Rachel had her first volleyball games last week. She made the C team and is really enjoying playing volleyball for the first time. They won their first set of games, with Rachel serving the winning point on the first of the two games in the set and getting in some other good points and hits. Friday they lost their games, but she still had fun, and they had some good volleys with Rachel making some great saves.

So far this monsoon season is the 4th wettest on record. With more rain Friday night Jacob was eager to go off roading at Reddington Pass and wanted me to go with him. The steep hills right on the sides of the washed out roads are not my favorite places to drive, so we didn't last very long, but it was beautiful and the desert is so green from all the rain the last month or so. 

Ryan and Annie are both very excited to be participating in band this year. Annie chose to play the clarinet, and after Ryan checked out lots of different instruments, he decided to follow in Savannah's footsteps (and use her instrument) and play the french horn. It needed a tune up, so he anxiously waited for Max (the french horn) to return from its tune up. He has been very excited to practice with it and will love playing such a loud instrument, I'm sure.

This week our afternoon schedule starts getting even more full with Megan switching to a new intermediate gymnastics class, and band starting up, besides all the volleyball, piano, and church activities we already have. After a year of absolutely no activities because of covid, this is taking some getting used to.