March was the most interesting month ever. It started out pretty normal. Baseball practices were underway. We went on a few outdoor adventures. We were looking forward to Spring and lots of hikes and outdoors time.
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| We had to take Dad to Fat Cats to race Seth and show him the fun arcade. |
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| Mom and Dad went on a date to a paint class. It was so fun! |
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| We hung these beautiful paintings in the bathroom. |
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| Flat Stanley came to visit from Idaho, so we had fun taking pictures with him. |
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| Dax had a few warm-up games. He even got to play catcher. |
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| Dax played really well in his little tournament. |
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| Mark had a few practice games in March, too, where he got to pitch. |
The Saturday before life changed we went on a fun Saturday adventure. We toured two different candy factories and walked around Great Salt Lake State Park. It was so nice to be out doing adventures, but that didn't last too long.
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| The Sweet's factory had so many different kinds of taffy. |
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| There were lots of fun places for photos, too! |
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| We took a family pic to remember all the taffy! |
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| We enjoyed visiting Mrs. Cavanaugh's Chocolates. |
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| Our tour guide was really nice and took a few family pictures for us. |
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| The chocolates were delicious! |
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| Mark and Dax really wanted ice cream instead! |
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| Great Salt Lake State Park was chilly, but fun! |
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| The boys did the Junior Ranger program. |
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| There were some rocks that went out into the lake that everyone had to walk on. |
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| We could see Antelope Island out in the lake. |
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| The boys love being outdoors and adventuring. |
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| Mark was getting over a cold, and this trip was a little too long for him. |
That all came crashing down around March 12. Mom and the boys were supposed to be getting on a flight to California for Charlie's baptism. The Covid-19 Corona Virus was sweeping around the world. We had been watching the devastation in China, and Italy, and now it had arrived in the United States. The night before the supposed flight, Mom was trying to decide if she should go because travel was just starting to be restricted to outside of the United States and Melanie's county had the most Covid-19 cases in the US so far. She was on the phone with Melanie and Grandma and praying a lot. She finally decided that she wasn't going to risk it. Then Stephanie and Tiffany decided not to go. And it took a lot of convincing to talk Grandma and Grandpa out of it, but finally they relented. Later that night, church events, including Sacrament meeting, were canceled.
Things only got crazier from there. School was moved to online school, which led to busyness in our home as we helped Dad put packets together, make videos, and figure out ways to teach his students from a computer. We worked out a good system, though.
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| Dad makes sure his videos are entertaining. |
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| We have made a lot of videos at home and at school. |
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| Mom tries to do Mark's 7th grade PE workouts, but she usually ends ups passed out. |
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| This is our life now during the morning. The boys mostly finish schoolwork by lunchtime. |
Soon museums, zoos, national parks, and more were closing. Restaurants were only doing takeout orders. Store shelves were emptying and you couldn't find toilet paper anywhere. Everyone was encouraged to stay home, which affects our Utah's Adventure Family website. Our lives were definitely different.
We soon adjusted to online school, and we loved spending extra time together. We did sneak away to do some drives and more obscure adventures because we can't always stand to be at home, but we spent many hours completing projects around the house, playing games, and doing puzzles. School is online style until May 1, so we will have to see what April holds.
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| Mom tries to get out and play baseball with the boys on nice days. |
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| We have taken a few bike rides through our neighborhood. |
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| Dax and Dad invented their own NCAA bracket game since the tournament was cancelled this year. We had a lot of fun playing it over and over again. |
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| Dax and Mark kept making brackets for lots of different sports, too. |
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| One morning in March we were woken up by an earthquake. Mark slept through it, but these two came in to see what was going on. |
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| We have done some science experiments. |
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| The boys reorganize their cards about every 3 days. |
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| We are trying to support local businesses, so we visit a few every week. |
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| We visited the Bear River Migratory Refuge one Saturday and had a picnic in the car. |
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| It was a beautiful day and we saw a lot of birds! |
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| This cinnamon teal was really pretty. |
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| We saw two muskrats, and mammals count as double in our total sightings (according to our kids). |
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| We also took a walk down to Utah Lake. It is really full right now. There is no beach at all. |
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| The boys love being out and exploring near our home. |
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| Seth asked me to take a picture by this pretty reddish pool of water. We all laughed! |
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| The boys have a lot more time to play together, which is mostly good (but sometimes bad). |
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| We have done lots more drawing and art in our spare time. |
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| Seth likes to join in on Mark's PE classes, too! |
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| Then he even one-upped Mark with a one armed push up! |
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| Another day we drove around Utah Lake for our bird drive. |
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| We spotted curlews along the side of the road. |
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| A few pronghorn were out, too. |
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| But our best sighting was the blue-winged teal by a cinnamon teal. It was so exciting because we don't see blue winged teal very often. |
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| Dax is always sneaking my phone to take pictures. |
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| We have played lots of family games, and Grandpa Beck's Games sent us some new ones, which was so nice! |
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| We picked up Waffle Luv one night. Mark was so excited just for the smell. |
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| Seth ordered his usual. Plain waffle with strawberries on the side. |
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| We have also been trying to catch up on our Junior Ranger books! The boys have so many badges now. |
