The First 2 Weeks of the 2020 Pandemic

Allow me to take you back into my journal for a few snippets from early March- specifically, the first 2 weeks of isolating at home, due to the pandemic of 2020!

Wednesday, March 11th

The World Health Organization declared the Coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

Flooding at the Cottage!

While we were living at a cottage, looking for a place to live, we had a lot of adventures, not the least of which was some pretty intense flooding and I cannot move on from sharing about that time without sharing that with you!

I've already written about some of the most beautiful moments from living at the cottage with you, how it affected me- how our family really needed that time of peace and healing, and how spending a lot of time in nature inspired creativity in our kids. Now let's get onto the crazy, adventurous part of that time!

Here they are standing on the front lawn! Water is well past their ankles & goes all the way to the road!

After living at the cottage for a couple of weeks. we started to have a lot of rain. As the rain continued, the lake level rose and soon we had waves crashing up over the dock and puddles in the front yard that turned into a little lake of their own that spread until it slowly covered one step and then another of the front porch and we wondered if we would need to move to a hotel because the water threatened to reach the door!

Here are a few photos from that time:

Nature Inspires Creativity!

It was interesting to sit back and observe the way that being in nature brought out creativity in our girls while we were living by the lake. We didn't have a good Internet connection while living there, so screen time was easily avoided. The girls were homeschooling during that time, so they had more free time than they typically would, and we didn't have any friends in the area. With all of those factors combined, they needed to find things to do with their time and the backyard was one of the best places to do that. They found so much to do out there, and all of it exercised their creativity.

It was common for me to be busy in the cottage and to glance out the window to see a scene that looked something like this:

Surprising Old Friends in Our Old City

The girls' main goal while back in our old city was to surprise each of their best friends from school who didn't know we would be in town.  The surprise went really well!

We drove to Talia's friend's house and surprised her at her door (which went perfectly) and then went to the bus stop for Katrina to surprise her friend. We got both of the surprises on video to remember the moment. :)

Arriving in Canada

The story of our Utah to Canada moving road trip has come to an end, and now it's time for our arrival back in Canada!

Review of the Road Trip

We carefully chose the stops that we wanted to make during our moving trip from Utah to Ontario. When we originally moved there, we intended to visit St. George Utah, where it's much warmer than the rest of Utah, but we didn't have the chance during our 10 months living there so we decided to go there for our first stop. We had always wanted to show our kids the cool (kid friendly) things in Las Vegas, so that was stop #2. We also wanted to visit Ken's cousin's family in Texas so we made that happen, and made the best of the driving time in between, to see a couple of cool places like the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam.

Arriving "Home"

Visiting Family in Texas

One of the stops we planned on our moving road trip was in Texas. Ken's cousin (who was his Best Man at our wedding) lives there with his wife, 2 daughters the same ages as ours, and a son. We have visited them as often as we have been able to through the years, and even met them in Florida for our first trip to Disney World. They came to visit Utah in the summer while we were there, so we saw some of them then, but we couldn't wait to spend more time with them. It was our favourite stop on our road trip!

We arrived on a Thursday (March 21st) after a long drive, and there was one thing we all wanted to do: visit Bedford Snoball! (This is a local treat place that they have frequented for years, and we have visited with them several times before). It was a highlight of our trip & we went back almost every day!

During one of our visits, we took the photo on the right after looking through photos from a previous visit, 7 years ago (crazy to see how much they've grown!)

Road Trip Stops (between Las Vegas & Dallas)

After a couple of nights in Las Vegas, we got back in the car and started driving toward Texas. It was a lot of driving but we found a couple of places to stop along the way! (Full map with details later in the post)

Our first stop along the way was the Hoover Dam.

Las Vegas, Nevada (Moving Road Trip)

Back in Utah when we booked our hotel for two nights in Las Vegas, we chose Circus Circus because we found a great deal and because it included a water park! We didn't tell the girls where we were staying for this stop because we wanted to surprise them. Although we stayed in an older room that didn't have anything special about it, we were positioned just across the street from the waterpark which served our purposes just fine!

Here are a few of our must-see stops in Vegas when you're traveling with kids and need some ideas of things to do in Vegas besides gamble! 

St. George, Utah (Moving Road Trip)

Halfway through March, with snow in the mountains and cold in the air, we said one last goodbye to my sister and her kids, we walked out of their house, got into our car and started driving away from our home in Herriman, Utah.

I was relieved because we were finally finished packing and emptying our townhouse. I was excited for our road trip and the adventures ahead of us.

Those feelings of anticipation were mixed up with the sudden pushing through of the feelings of sadness, loss, and uncertainty that came with leaving our new home in Utah that I was finally beginning to feel settled in. I had struggled to plant roots in this new place and it seemed that just as they were beginning to take hold, I found myself pulling them up without a clear vision of where I would soon be attempting to plant them once again.

Saying Goodbye to Utah

Our time in Utah came to an end pretty quickly when Ken found out about his new job offer. We found out about the job at the end of January and by the time things were finalized, we had about 6 weeks before we would start driving back to Canada so it was a pretty busy time of selling a lot of furniture, packing all of our stuff, finding someone to sublet our rental townhouse, and trying to make arrangements for our arrival in Canada.

During that time, we also tried to squeeze in as many appointments as we could (haircuts, eye appointments, dentist appointments, etc.!) Here's a photo of the girls & I after our eye appointments:

...and here are the haircut before & afters:

Our 1st Two Weeks of December

The last time I did a week or month-in-review post was in September (for August). I keep meaning to catch up! Maybe I'll do that eventually, but for now, I've got a review of our first 2 weeks of December.

I want it mostly for my own records, but if you want to keep up on what we're up to, here you go! ;)

August Month-in-Review

It's September!! How did this happen?!!

I've pulled together a post about our August and I have a few thoughts to share at the end of it... I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject & then get into it further in the future, so hang in to the end if you think you might like to weigh in!

Near the beginning of the month Talia and a couple of her older cousins had the opportunity to go to a special youth event for a day. While they were there we met with 2 of my sisters-in-law (& a bunch of cousins) at a park. Katrina brought a treat she had created for everybody.

July (Month-in-Review)

July was another whirlwind. A lot of good and a lot of fun was crammed into this month and at the same time, personally, a lot of struggles. This post will focus on all of the fun and the good!

At the tail end of June, I picked my parents up from the airport. They stayed at our house for a few nights and we welcomed them with this little greeting:

June (Month-in-Review)

Here's a quick review of some of the highlights from our month of June.

June 1st

The girls & I went park hopping...

Our 1st Few Weeks in Utah

I've done a lot of week-in-review posts in the past few months but today will be a bit different. Today is almost a whole month-in-review, starting with moving day, and an overview of the rest of the month of May.

This will be a long one but I wanted to get it all documented and have a place to look back on it all.

Driving from Ontario to Utah!

After a whirlwind one week to pack up our life and prepare for a move from Canada to the United States, we were finally ready, all 4 visas in hand, to start driving to Utah!

We left later than planned and we didn't have a plan for where we would stop each night (beyond the 1st two nights), but we figured it out as we went & had some good adventures along the way!

A Week to Pack & Move to A New Country!

It's time to catch up on these week-in-review posts!  Today's post is all about the week between visiting Utah to find a home, and leaving Canada to move to Utah!

Talk about a whirlwind!

Utah Home Hunt

In the middle of April, Ken & I flew out to Utah together to look for a home for our family. We planned a week-long trip so that we'd have plenty of time to visit the University and get some paperwork done for his new job, get some other legal things started for moving to the USA, and spend time looking at different rentals. We expected to fly out on April 14th & fly home on the 21st but things didn't go as planned! We ended up with some unexpected detours but got the most important things done in the end.  Here's the story of our Utah Home Hunt!

It all began with an ice storm...

1st Week of April Journal

We've been so occupied with our move (driving across the continent & getting settled in a new country) that it's been 2 weeks since I've published on the blog! I'm happy to be back and ready to wrap up the "Smoke Saga" and get on with sharing the adventures that have come to us since then, with travelling from Ontario, Canada to Utah in the U.S.A., what it's been like for us to settle in a bit here, and at some point I'll go back in time and share our Disney experience with you!

Picking up where I left off last in the smoke saga...

Smoke Saga - Part 5

I'm getting more & more behind with each part of the "Smoke Saga" and I really want to catch up to the present! So, I'm going to do a quick summary of week 4 of dealing with the smoke damage, to try and catch up a bit!