Quarantine Thanksgiving

Well, the time finally came. Covid finally caught up to us via dance class. On Sunday, November 8th Michelle woke up with a fever, sore throat, and headache so I made a virtual appointment with our pediatrician. By Monday morning Michelle felt fine and at our appointment the doctor said it didn't sound like Covid to so go ahead with life as usual since Michelle was feeling better in less than 24 hours and had no more symptoms. Then on Wednesday night we heard she had been exposed to Covid at dance class on Monday night. Even though the known exposure was after her symptoms ended, I decided to have her tested. Soon after coming home from getting her test (and some drive through Baskin Robbins on the way home) we received another email stating she was also exposed during her dance class on Thursday, November 5th. I told her we definitely would have had her tested after that email so it was just as well we had it done with. So, late Saturday afternoon, we got the news Michelle had tested positive. Our entire family immediately went into quarantine. And yes, we didn't catch it traveling around hundreds if not thousands of strangers in Florida, but rather 3 weeks after we got home because of dance class. It is what it is.

I spent the next hour emailing, texting and on the phone with school nurses, letting other moms/coaches/teachers know, and canceling plans for the next 2 weeks for our entire family. Everyone was so kind, thanking me for letting them know and asking how Michelle was feeling. Luckily I could truthfully answer that she felt great. Still, a few friends dropped things at our door for her or the family and it was so kind. We truly live in a wonderful place with wonderful people. The hardest part of quarantining for us is that we are also supposed to keep Michelle isolated from the rest of us, including the dogs. Natalie used our bathroom and if Michelle left her bedroom/bathroom area all 6 of us had to put masks on and stay six feet apart. When we walked the dogs we only went around the block, wore masks, and stayed 12-18' away from anyone else walking around. So the biggest thing was that we couldn't eat meals together but Danny had the great idea to FaceTime during breakfast on Sunday and it turns out FaceTime can be really nice, even when you are already in the same house. It was so hard not to give Michelle hugs all day and good night kisses at bedtime. But if we didn't, instead of quarantining for 14 days, we would be required to do so for 24 days. Michelle overheard the nurse explaining all of that to me over the phone and silently left the living room and headed to her bedroom. She was such a trooper! She created art, listened to The Hunger Games trilogy, read Wings of Fire, watched YouTube videos about Harry Potter and a couple Good Mythical Morning ones I sent to her, played games like Battleship with us over FaceTime, and did come out to be with us in the living room to play Nintendo with us, spaced away and all of us with our masks on. I am so grateful for her willingness to sacrifice for the safety and comfort of her family. After her 10 days were over the rest of us got tested and all 5 of us came back negative. It was such a relief! And look at what you can get done when you're stuck at home: we painted Kate's accent wall to match the other 3 walls in her room. This was the beginning of her Christmas present, to redecorate her entire room. She and Hubby hauled her loft bed to the dump and the next door neighbor gave us a new bed we just had to spray paint. She also got a new desk and nightstand, led lights for around the bed and some artificial ivy to hang but I'm making her wait for some of the decor so that she will have something to open on Christmas morning. You can tell how pleased she is at the idea of waiting. lol. Hubby also got out some tools and "fixed" our maple tree. It has two main branches coming up that are starting to split the entire tree apart. We are hoping the fix he found online does the trick and our favorite tree can be saved!

We decided to still social distance ourselves from others for the most part after the great test results, which was pretty easy because the children had all of Thanksgiving week off from school and most activities regardless. We just missed out on having my parents join us for our Thanksgiving feast. And what a feast it was! We can now add making a grocery order to be delivered with our Amazon Prime membership to the list of things we had never done before 2020. The downside of having someone else pick out your food for you is as you put it away you realize some of the best by dates won't make it to Thursday. So, we decided to have our huge dinner on the Sunday before to make sure everything was good to go and Hubby wasn't at work. Our son made sure we had covered all the bases. We had a neat little butternut squash and cranberry dish from the Whole Foods deli, potatoes, stuffing, green beans with fried onions, cranberry sauce, Rhode's dinner rolls, pumpkin pie and apple pie with vanilla ice cream, my GF/DF sugar cookies made with my grandmother's cookie cutters, and Hubby did a fantastic job smoking the turkey. Even with all the disappointment 2020 has brought to so many, I felt like we had much to be grateful for. I showed the family President Nelson's video about gratitude and took the Mayflower quiz on Family Search as we ate. I love President Nelson so much and truly feel like he is the best man for the job at the moment. I also thought it was great we all came up with different historical individuals with the quiz and got to learn so much in a fun way. Everyone except Hubby and Michelle survived so most of us beat the odds of surviving that first winter.