05 April 2020

I feel like Monday marked the first day of real quarantine for our family as the kids should have gone back to school, but didn’t. We tried a few things to keep us busy this week. We built with LEGOs and we baked cookies. I worked on my quilt in the evenings, its coming along nicely. 

So I've needed a truck, at the very least, since I moved out to Two Jack Ranch, although if you really ask me, I'll tell you I've needed a truck since I sold my last real truck in 2008!  Seriously though, with ranch chores (think taking pigs to processing and moving rail ties around the property), a horse trailer (and picking up hay every few weeks), and the occasional mud slurry/running washes that need to be crossed to get in and out of our property, its been the next big purchase on my list for a long while.  Now hubby came with a truck, just not a functioning one, so he was on board with buying a truck.  I gave him my list of wants: Dodge (remember that Super Bowl commercial in 2013 that made me tear up and I vowed my next truck would be a Dodge?  I know I've told you that story...seriously such good advertising...they were so getting my money), cab room for everyone, 4x4, long bed, Cummings diesel, appropriate towing capacity (for the trailer, horses, and that 5th wheel that is also on list), oh, and if you could find it in black (but at the very least not white) I'd appreciate it.  Now that amazing husband of mine is a great finder of finds, and after we went to the Dodge dealerships and test drove trucks that didn't meet all our requirements and were astronomically overpriced, he found the perfect truck online.  I'm sure he didn't think it was possible to get one with EVERYTHING I wanted (the long bed part seemed to prove the most tricky), but he did it, he found it.  And at a great price to boot!  The only catch?  It was in Okarche, Oklahoma.  We called the dealer and asked all our questions and even had him go out and smell it for us (there's nothing worse than a vehicle that's been smoked in) and when we were satisfied that it was what we were looking for we told him to hold on to it, that we were coming to Oklahoma. 

We considered flying, but with the COVID situation decided that it would be more responsible to drive, so we rented a car on Tuesday night.  We had to pick it up from the Tucson airport, and let me tell you, it was weird.  There was nobody at the airport, I mean NOBODY, it was spooky.  Did you ever read that book The Stand?  The one where everyone is wiped out by a super flu and the few people that survived are walking around the ghost town that is America?  Anyway, it kinda reminded me of that.  We walked right up to the counter where the Budget guy was reading a paper and signed our rental car out.  We went home and dropped off our other car, loaded a duffel bag of overnight stuff and left at about 10pm.  Phil took the first driving shift.  Somewhere in Texas around 4 AM I took over and drove us into Oklahoma.  We got to the dealership in Okarche (okey-arc) around 2 PM where Trevor, the dealer Phil had talked to, was waiting for us.  We both test drove the truck and knew it was the one for us.  It met every need and want I had and was considerably less than anything we saw in town.  It took us a couple of hours to get through the paperwork and financing stuff, but the bonus was that Carter Chevrolet treated us to dinner from Eischen's Bar (as seen on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives).  We had fried chicken, okra (my personal favorite), pickles, bread, and pops.  It was phenomenal!  I feel bad because I think I got to enjoy it more since Phil had the pen in his hand the whole time!

We dropped the rental car off and then drove to Edmond to have dinner with Phil's sister Alyssa and her family.  It was a nice time and I'm grateful they let us drop in on them without much notice.  When we were done Phil drove and we made it to Amarillo before we found a hotel for the night...it had been a loooong day!  We were pretty irritated when we went downstairs in the morning for our hot continental breakfast, this is, after all why we preferentially chose this particular hotel, it consisted of a paper bag with a box of Froot Loops and a carton of milk and a banana.  Phil brought it up to the front desk, but he defensively blamed Corona.  I guess there may be some changes that we're going to have to put up with for a while!  Needless to say, we stopped for an early lunch!  We made it home in the late evening safe and sound.  It was a fun adventure and gave us some alone bonding time too (and I love my truck)!

Phil took Arlo for a ride in the desert on Thursday evening, its quickly becoming one of Arlo's favorite activities, and they came back with a rattle snake.  I kid you not, a four foot rattle snake.  Ugh!  He showed Arlo how to skin and clean it and then proceeded to bring the naked snake in the house and batter and fry it.  Yes, dad was in charge of dinner on Thursday and "snuggets" were on the menu.  Honestly the kids loved them, I tried some and I can say that snake does taste like chicken...bony, bony, chicken.

It was General Conference weekend so the kids enjoyed piling into my bed to watch on the TV in my room.  Phil had to work so he missed the Saturday session.  We were grateful to have him back on Sunday, he even made it home in time for the first session.  The kids wanted to watch in our room again, although I deemed it too crowded by the afternoon and moved them all out to the living room!

29 March 2020

We actually enjoyed our week stuck in the house together as we saw the last week of spring break pass. On Monday the farrier came out to the ranch and cleaned and clipped the horse’s hooves. Arlo joined dad outside to watch and learn.

Now that the boys are all fixed up and their feet are looking good, we are hoping to take them out for more rides. Dad showed the kids how to saddle them and took them for a ride inside the corral. The girls enjoyed that a lot, I think the horses enjoyed it too.

On Tuesday the kids went out with Phil in the evening for a ride in the side by side, they took a gun with them and came back with a dead rabbit.

We took inventory of a our pantry and freezers this week and made a list of some staples that we wanted to stock up on. Phil and I went to Costco and got most of what we wanted, although I admit it was a little unnerving to see empty shelves. On Wednesday we drove down to Wilcox to buy bulk pinto beans at the Bonita Bean Company. We had to wait in line for about 45 minutes and were limited in what we could buy, but it was sufficient for our family. We even picked up some for Phil's aunt and uncle which we dropped off in Benson on our way home.

On nights when we were all home, we broke out some of the board games and enjoyed playing games together. We even played my favorite, Risk. I annihilated everyone, there may have been some wailing and gnashing of teeth on the kids part, Phil took his beating like a champ.

To help keep me busy this week I pulled out several quilt blocks I made probably a year or more ago and laid them out and measured to see how many more I would need to make in order to have enough for our new king sized bed. Luckily I had enough of the fabric leftover (with a few yards bought on eBay) to come up with a plan to make more blocks. I sewed in the evenings when Phil was working and made pretty good progress. I guess if I can’t leave the house for a while, I will have a project to work on.

On Sunday we were able to have Sacrament meeting at home since we are no longer able to meet together with our church ward. I am so grateful to have the priesthood in my home that made that blessing possible. We created a simple program and everyone participated. It was novel and fun and even maybe a little spiritual.

22 March 2020

The kids continued their spring break this week and Helen and Arlo went to spend the week with their dad. We had to be pretty much business as usual back at the ranch. With the state of the things currently, I have no idea whether or not we’ll be able to move forward with our reception in April. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to proceed. It’s definitely a little stressful, but we will just try to be flexible and go with the flow.

Phil was back at work on Tuesday and while he was gone, our new bedroom furniture was delivered. I had been a little concerned that it would be too big for our bedroom, but once it was all placed and set up, I thought it was great, I’m really happy with it.  We have another chest of drawers opposite the bed you can't see in the picture, so between the new furniture and the closet we can finally put all our clothes away!

It was strange to work from home all week, although I seemed to get a lot more done. That’s probably because the noisiest members of the family were not home. I’m curious/scared to see how this will work if we are all stuck in the house together for very long!

Phil and I continued working on the house in Benson this week, trying to get it ready to sell. We are making some fixes inside and out and are almost ready to start painting. It has been quite the chore and I can’t estimate the number of hours that have gone into cleaning the house out and fixing it up. I’d be lying if I said I was looking forward to painting the whole thing! I’m sure it will be worth it when we are done. I’m anxious to get it on the market since we have no idea what the near future looks like with the COVID situation.

On Friday, Phil and I took a break from the house and had lunch in the park in Benson. The weather was so beautiful and it was a welcomed change of scenery!

Felicity enjoyed having time alone with us this week and took advantage of having Phil to herself. They spent several evenings having driving lessons on the ranch with the Rhino. I had a pretty happy thirteen (almost fourteen) year old! The kids came home on Sunday and it was nice to have everyone back under one roof. We’re going to keep pressing forward with hope that no one here gets sick and we can return to normal soon.

15 March 2020

So my week started with the expectation that we’d enjoy a quiet spring break week together and ended with an abbreviated honeymoon…it was an interesting week!

I was unpleasantly surprised on Monday to go out to the mailbox and find dozens of my invitations returned to me.   Evidently with the bow and decorative tag they were just irregular-shaped enough that the Sahuarita post office couldn’t run them through the automated sorting machine so they wanted an extra $0.15 per envelope to sort them manually.  Long story short, I spent the better part of my morning adding postage to envelopes.

In the afternoon we took the kids out to dinner and to the movie theater to see “Onward” for Family Home Evening.  It was such a cute movie, we really enjoyed it!  Helen went to spend the night with Nana and the rest of us enjoyed some quiet time at home.  I continued to make preparations for our reception; this week’s project was a doughnut display.  I was seriously enjoying coming up with different dessert options and ways to display them!

Thursday threw our plans into chaos.  In the morning I woke up and was getting married on April 9, having a reception at the church, taking a cruise, and making a stop at Disneyland before the end of our honeymoon; by lunchtime my cruise was cancelled, Disneyland closed, and the church suspended all public gatherings.  Phil called me mid-day from work expressing concern that if all the closures due to COVID-19 were going to happen the temple would probably be closing too and we may not be able to be sealed in April.  He said he felt strongly that we needed to consider being sealed early reasoning that being married in the temple was more important than the reception, pictures, luncheon, etc. and that we may have to wait a long time if they closed and didn’t reopen for several weeks or even months.  I wish that I could tell you I immediately felt the spirit of confirmation that he was right, but I felt attached to my well-laid plans.  I asked him to call the temple and see if they had any information about whether they would be closing.  They not only didn’t know if they’d be closing they didn’t know if they’d be allowed to do live ordinances if they did close.  Phil was undeterred in his feelings that we shouldn’t wait and suggested we pray about it.  So over the phone we prayed together to know what to do and I knew that he was right, by the end of the prayer I had peace about the decision even though I had no idea how it was going to work out.

 

Phil called the temple and made an appointment for us to be sealed the next evening at 6pm.  This initiated a flutter of phone calls to friends and family that we had planned to have at the temple with us.  We were pleasantly surprised to find that almost everybody we had planned to have at the sealing in April was willing to drop everything and be at the temple with us with only a days’ notice.  I got up on Friday morning and kept a lash appointment I had planned already, then I went to the nail salon.  I was supposed to meet with my friend Sume that morning, so I drove into Tucson and spent some time with her.  I don’t know what Phil spent his day doing, although I know at some point he got a haircut and bought a new suit.  I came home and showered and did my hair and makeup and honestly, it didn’t turn out too badly.  The dress I had ordered hadn’t come in of course, so I decided to wear the one I wore to the Fireman’s ball again.  I think it worked out just fine.

Phil and I got to the temple an hour early and my lovely friends Abish and Gretchen were already there, Abish had even brought me flowers to make our photos look a little more official!  I love my friends.  They walked us around the grounds and took some photos for us before it was time to head inside.

We got through the formalities of checking in with the office and giving them our recommends, marriage license, and letters from the First Presidency and then got to head down to the dressing area to get ready.   I must say I was pretty tickled they let me use the Bride’s room to get ready even though I didn’t have  big fancy dress, flowers, etc. to mess with after the sealing.  On my way out of the dressing rooms to meet Phil I found that he had run into some friends who were there coincidentally and we invited them to join us, it was a nice surprise.  The temple workers got our guests all organized and settled and Phil and I went upstairs  and got to sit in the Celestial room together for quite a while.  It was nice, there weren’t any other patrons there so we had the whole room to ourselves to enjoy the special spirit that was there and really soak up the joy and anticipation we were blessed to experience.

After we finished in the ordinance room we got to go join our guests in the sealing room.  It was so great to see so many happy people who dropped everything to be there for us last minute.  I even had a few surprise guests on my side of the room.  It was a very nice ceremony, I felt so honored and blessed to have so many prayers answered in one evening.  It was beautiful.  When we were done we got to hug everyone there and then went to get dressed back in our street clothes and meet everyone outside of the temple.  We took a few more pictures and then went over to a gelato shop in the La Encantada shopping center where Phil's brother and sister-in-law treated us all to treats.  It was a lovely night to visit and celebrate.  There was no stress, we could just enjoy being with people we love; it was hard to be disappointed we weren’t having a big reception and honeymoon trip when everything was so perfect.  Phil and I stopped and had dinner at Oregano’s on our way to the El Conquistador resort after our guests started to head home.  Phil shamelessly told the waitress we’d just gotten married so she brought us out a free desert.  After a while, the manager came out and said that our meal was on him and congratulated us.  It was very nice of them.

We enjoyed a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant on Saturday morning and then went and hung out by the pool in our swim suits.  I don’t think we actually swam, but it was nice to lie in the warm sun.  We had our dinner leftovers for lunch and in the afternoon got dressed up to go to Phil’s nephew’s wedding in Safford.  We got down there just in time and enjoyed the ceremony and after went to dinner with Phil’s sister and her husband and mother-in-law, we had a great time.  We didn’t get back to the hotel until late but were grateful we got to visit with family again.  We checked out on Sunday morning and picked up the kids on our way home.  It was a heck of a week!  But honestly, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.  I know we made the right decision and I couldn’t be happier that I get to spend this life and the one to come with a truly amazing and wonderful man.  This week was the culmination of a lot of answered prayers.