New Life- Week 97 (Quick Update)

 Fair warning, it's going to be a short one this week.  It's late, I'm tired, and it was a busy but unremarkable week.  In addition to the regular schedule, I had multiple church meetings and an lengthy dentist appointment to get my permanent crowns placed.  It was another week running just about as fast as we could.

Just a quick update on Merrick's tournament this weekend.  His team played in a A team tournament again and played against top ranked teams in the the state.  They won 3 of 4 games (lost one by 2 points) and took third place in the tournament.  At the end of the last game, two other West Linn teams were watching.  Merrick's team scored with two seconds left to take the lead and ultimately win the game.  All the teams rushed the court and jumped up and down together.  It was so fun to watch them support each other.  

As seems to pretty much be par for the course, Merrick was dominant yesterday and, as his coach says, the other teams paid him the ultimate compliment today by double and triple teaming him to stop him.  He is growing so much as a player.  Only a few more weeks of the season and we will all be sad to see it end.

That's it for today.  Hopefully I will be a little more exciting next week, but no promises.

New Life- Week 96 (Looking Up)

 Listen carefully because I don't dare say this too loud, but this week things started looking up a bit for 2022.  Monday I waited for the email that we could reopen the preschool and unfortunately it didn't come so Tuesday instead of going to school, I got my backsplash done in the kids' bathroom.  I still have caulking and the light to do but inching closer.

Tuesday was a roller coaster of emotions.  As I just said, I made good progress on the bathroom, but I spent the day checking my email every two seconds to see if we were going to be able to get back to preschool on Wednesday.  Finally, about 5pm, I got an email that the church had decided to stay closed through Feb 8th, but that we could petition for an exemption.  I emailed all my parents to let them know that I was prepared to keep fighting.  Shortly thereafter, I got another email from the church saying that they had granted us an exemption based on my previous pleas and that we could get back into the building on Wednesday.  Like I said, rollercoaster of emotions.  We capped off the busy day on Tuesday with Merrick's choir concert were he was, in his words, "a tourist attraction" on the back row.  

The other highlight of the week was my mom's birthday (72nd) on Thursday.  We were able to celebrate her with dinner and dessert at Emily's.

Since no weekly blog would be complete without an update on Merrick's weekly tournament, we played in McMinnville all weekend.  The boys played hard and won 3 of 4 games.  No pictures from the tournament but I did get one of Merrick working on his teams free throw challenge, in 32 degree, foggy weather none the less.

New Life- Week 95 (Get Down to Work)

 I have been hearing it a lot the last two weeks, we are in the dog days of basketball.  This week we were supposed to be having an off week.  Instead our coach found us a tournament and so we spent the weekend in Battle Ground, Washington.   And, instead of having the weekend off, we, as our coach says, had to "Get down to work".  I guess that was the theme for the week, "get down to work".

The tournament went pretty well.  The boys were bummed because they lost the championship game by two points to an extremely tough team.  They really had nothing to feel bad about though.  They fought hard and won 3 of 4 games over the weekend, with two blowout wins.  And they qualified for the Washington state tournament, not that they will play in it, but nice to know that they could.

Jeremy and I also "got down to work" on our bathroom remodel.  I got all the cabinets put back together early in the week and got most of the supplies gathered.  The weekend we cut the countertop and set it, the sink, and the faucet.  I am still deciding on what we want to do for the backsplash and while we have the new light fixture, we still need to get it installed.  Most of the hard work is done though and at least we have a functional bathroom heading into the new week. Here are some "before" and, since we are not quite done, I will say "current" photos rather than "after".

As for the girls, they got off easy this week.  I guess we need to put them tp work next week.

New Life- Week 94 (Mixed Bag)

 I want so desperately to tell you that 2022 and I are now friends and that this week was better.  In some ways it was.  Merrick was back at school all week and no one else from the family got sick.  I had some congestion but after 2 negative tests, I decided it was just allergies, but who really knows.  Carrigan was also able to stay in school all week.  Elsie...not so much.

After an extended Christmas break where I was forced to keep the preschool closed because we were on quarantine, we finally opened back up on Tuesday.  We made it through Tuesday and Wednesday before the church leadership decided that the prudent thing to do as responsible community members was to close the church building.  So, after just two days of preschool I had to inform all my preschool parents that we were, once again, closing.  The currently plan is to be closed all next week too and then to reopen.  I am just hoping that they don't decided to extend the closure beyond next week.

In the meantime, since my business closure is completely out of my hands, I decided to redo the hall bath this week.  Thursday, I painted the cabinets.  Friday, I ordered new lights and hardware.  This coming Tuesday, I am hopefully going to get the new countertops.  We have a basketball tournament next weekend so I am not sure if I will pull this all off before I head back to school, but I'm going to give it my best shot.

Speaking of tournaments, Merrick's tournament this weekend was also a mixed bag.  On Saturday they played two games back to back.  The first game they led for most of the game before completely giving it away and losing by 10 plus points.  The second game they lost by 2 in double overtime.  The last play Merrick didn't get the stop and they lost the game.  His coach came down on him, hard.  Merrick took it extra hard and cried the whole way home from Salem.  His coach texted after the game and apologized and said he didn't mean to be so hard on him, but that he just really believes in him and sees something special in him.

Today, was a whole different story. They won both their games, one by about 20 and the other by about 35.  The team in general looked great today, but Merrick dominated!  He was strong, physical, and he just wouldn't let up.  He completely shut down the other "bigs" he faced.

Unfortunately, not much on the picture front again this week.  I have been slacking big time. I did get a few, all of Carrigan, who was living her best life this week.  She got to go mini golfing with some friends on early release day and had a girl's night with some friends on Friday, complete with movie, pizza, and facials.  She declared it the best week ever!  Hopefully we can keep more of that energy going moving forward.

New Life- Week 93 (Play Nice 2022)

Last week, you may remember, we found out Merrick had Covid. I think we all have the tendency on New Year's Eve/Day to look back and reflect on the year and to look forward and think about the future.  That's what I did on New Year's Eve.  It's funny because I found myself feeling very optimistic about 2022 and then we woke up and next morning and quickly got a reality check with a positive Covid test.

Our week this week looked much like you would expect it to look following a Covid diagnosis.  Merrick spent the week in the basement on his own.  It's not as bad as it sounds.  We brought his mattress down and so he had a comfy place to sleep.  He also had unlimited access to the tv and video games downstairs.  He watched the entire Marvel series in the first two days!  He would just text Jeremy or I if he wanted anything (FOOD...always food).  It was a solid week of vegging and milking Covid for all it's worth.

The rest of us mostly just stayed home.  Carrigan was allowed to got the school, but didn't go anywhere else.  Jeremy worked from home and Elise and I stayed home too.

Due to our isolation and previous vaccinations, for everyone but Elsie, no one else in our family got it.  I wish I could say the same thing for our extended family, but that is unfortunately far from the reality.  Despite being vaccinated and boosted, my dad got it, but my mom was spared.  Emily's family and Brendon chose not to be vaccinated and everyone of them tested positive.  Becca's family is a mixed bag of vaccinated and unvaccinated but none of them got it because Becca has been sick with shingles and they mostly had stayed away from family.

Also this week, Elsie ended up at the doc for what we thought was a bladder infection.  It turned out not to be that and we don't know exactly what is was but she seems to be feeling better now.

The good news is that everyone is on the mend.  I am not sure if Merrick will go back to school tomorrow or Tuesday, but his return is around the corner.  I am also able to reopen my school on Tuesday after having to close this past week. 

So 2022 hasn't been off to a great start.  I am choosing to look at the glass at half full though and think that up is the only place to go from here.  I am officially declaring next week as the start of 2022 for our family.

Here is the only picture I really took this week, Elsie is also obviously dreaming of sunnier days ahead.

New Life- Week 92 (Snowy Goodbye 2021)

 This week we said a snowy goodbye to 2021.  The pattern of the week seemed to be snow overnight, slow thaw during the day, and then snow again overnight.  We had several days of this pattern and it made for some fun days of sledding and snowman building, but didn't halt life too much because we could mostly get out and drive just fine in the afternoons.  The kids particularly loved going up to sled at the big hill at the middle school. Even later in the days when their wasn't much snow, it was still slick enough to have a good run.  One day we even met all the cousins there for some sledding fun.

The other highlight of the the week was Merrick's basketball tournament.  Merrick got hurt in the second game on the first day and really didn't have his best game, but the second day he really came alive, he showed up big time for his team in the championship game, scoring 17 of their 29 points.  They won the tournament and Merrick won the "chain gang" award from his coaches.  All this is even that much more impressive when you consider the context, which I will provide in a second.

After the tournament, we spent the evening at the Ioapo's and did some major partying to ring in the new year.  We all ate way more than we should have and played lots of games.  About 9:30 it was pretty clear that the girls weren't going to make it to midnight so we took them home and Merrick stayed for a sleepover.  He seemed pretty wiped but wanted to stay.   The girls were asleep by 10 and Jeremy and I barely made it to midnight.

2022 started out with a slow morning.  By 9:30 I texted Emily and Merrick was still asleep which is very unusual for him.  I didn't really think a lot of it until I got a text a few minutes later from the mom of one of Merrick's teammates that her son had tested positive for Covid.  I immediately texted Emily and told her to let me know as soon as he was awake and I would come get him.  He woke up and sounded congested.  I immediately took him home and tested him (luckily we had one at home test left). He tested positive.

We have started 2022 with Covid, something we have tried for almost 2 years to avoid.  I have heard it said that how you start your new year is symbolic of how you will spend your year, but I refuse to let that be that case.  I am ready to take back my life in 2022 and that starts with kicking Covid's butt.  I will keep you posted but so far it looks like just Merrick has it and at this point it is very similar to cold symptoms.  He has a cough and congestion, no fever.  I will update next week on how it progresses but at this point I am optimistic. 

So goodbye 2021 and hello 2022.  So far we aren't friends, but I know we will be.

 

New Life- Week 91 (Christmas 2021)

 Ok so let me first begin by apologizing for the picture overload that is about to happen.  This week was Christmas!  We started with some pre-Christmas fun.  We went to Christmas ships in the pouring rain, we decorated a gingerbread house, we made treats and cookies, had sleepovers, and visited with friends as we received and delivered treats.

Friday was Christmas Eve.  All the family got together at Emily and Tala's in the early afternoon.  We started with sugar cookie decorating so the kids could decorate cookie for Santa.  After cookies we ate dinner, Thai for the adults and pizza for the kids.  We then did our gift exchange.  The cousins all gave and received some awesome gifts.  The highlight was the new Cousin Crew United sweatshirts from Nana and Papa with the flags of all the different heritages of all the cousins.  It was such a special gift.  After presents, we did our traditional saran balls with all the fun and feisty competition that entails.  We left the Ioapo's fairly early so we could get to bed before Santa came.

It was a good thing we got to bed early because Christmas started bright and early the next morning.  This year Santa brought us an awesome family gift, two inflatable paddleboards. While we plan to get lots of use out of them, probably not for a while, since we got out first snow of the season today.  We were all also spoiled by each other with lots of great gifts.  Merrick was excited to get a phone (he had been pitching hard for one but didn't think it would happed), games, and sports accessories.  Carrigan got the ukulele she had asked for, plus a Fitbit, and lots for different crafting things.  Elsie got the Chelsea Barbies she asked for and plenty of Elsa and Frozen dolls and toys.  As for Jeremy and I, he got a pressure washer and I got laser hair removal, in addition to lots of other great things.

Today we are trying to dig out from our Christmas chaos.  As I mentioned though, we got our first snow overnight and it has been difficult to focus on cleaning when the snow is calling our names.  I have lots of pictures from our snow adventures, but those are going to have to wait.  We are possibly going to have more snow next week so maybe I can share those next time.

For now I am so grateful for this season and the time we have been able to spend with family and focusing on our Savior, his birth and life.  It's the most wonderful time of the year!