Fall Break

 This year for fall break we went up to the cabin again.  Originally we were planning on just going by ourselves, but about a month ago my friends Erin Summers and Lisa Moore were biking on the Jordan River Parkway and got in a bike accident.  Erin was going downhill around a turn and slipped on some gravel.  She wiped out and hit her head pretty bad.  She had to go to the hospital and was monitored for a brain bleed.  She had some good road rash all down one side of her body.  Lisa was following behind and hit Erin's bike.  She must have put her foot down funny because she hurt her knee and crashed.  It turned out she tore her ACL and damaged a few other things as well.  She recently had surgery and couldn't put weight on it for a while.  Also they had trips to Hawaii and San Diego that had to be cancelled due to COVID.  So at the last minute I asked Summer's, Tucker's, and Moore's if they wanted to come to the cabin with us.

                                    

Summer's and Tucker's decided to come.  And Moore's sent Sydney up, but stayed home to let Lisa's knee heal.  Our family drove up there Saturday afternoon.  We went to Taco Time for dinner and the kids enjoyed it.  On Sunday afternoon and evening the Summer's and Tucker's made it to the cabin. 

                                     

It was fairly chilly outside, so we spent most of the time inside playing games.  Our kids and the boys played a lot of Wii.  And the teenage girls mostly stayed in their room doing who knows what.

                                   

                                             

We hiked to Periodic Springs one day.  It was finally periodic.  I think they enjoyed that hike a lot.  

                                              

              

                                       

Other than that, we just hung out, ate yummy food, and played games.  We went into Afton one day to see the antler arch and get a treat.

                                         

We got back from the cabin on a Thursday night around dinner time.  By bed time I had chills for about 30 minutes or so.  But no fever.  Then Friday morning I had body aches.  I took some ibuprofen and was fine.  And also had a mild sore throat, like it's just starting and kind-of scratchy.  But Friday morning Shayla texted all of us asking if any of us were feeling sick.  Four of the adults, including me, were a little off.  So the 3 of them (Mike, Shayla, and Rob) went and got tested for COVID.  We began quarantining immediately while waiting for results.  On Sunday we found out they were positive for COVID.

Luke was also sick, but he just fell asleep on my one afternoon and was completely fine after his nap.  Hazel also got sick.  She had it the worst.  She got a super snotty nose and had a hard time sleeping for a few nights.  I brought her in bed with me a few times, and then she only wanted to sleep in my bed.  Then she got a croupy cough, but fortunately we had some medicine we gave her and that only lasted one night.  She is still a little snotty, but seems to be mostly fine now.

On Sunday night I lost my sense of smell.  That was really weird because normally I have a really good sense of smell.  Isaac always says it's my superpower and is always trying to come up with ways to use my "hound dog" nose for profit.  On Monday I lost my sense of taste.  That sucks.  I can taste sweet and salty, but it doesn't have much flavor.  I even tried eating hot sauce to see what it's like.  It burned and I can feel the heat, but not the flavor.  So at first I thought it would be a great way to eat super healthy.  But I can taste sweet more than anything else, so I still feel like I'm eating unhealthy stuff.  And I crave foods even though I can't taste them.

Now I'm mostly fine, still can't taste or smell, but mostly just tired.  Isaac, Sophie, and Aspen never got it or were asymptomatic.  So I'm glad we had mild cases and are doing well.  The quarantine has been hard.  The kids are homeschooling for a few weeks (but the numbers here have been skyrocketing, so I wouldn't be surprised if they shut everything down soon).  And they haven't been able to play with any friends, which is hard because they have all been healthy.  And we haven't gone to stores or anything, but thankfully we've had people bring us some food and supplies.  The kids couldn't go trick-or-treating for Halloween, but we had fun at home anyway.

And honestly after having COVID, I can understand why the numbers of cases is increasing.  This pandemic has been going on for over 7 months now.  People are sick of it, sick of the limitations and not spending time with family and friends.  Isaac and I have tried to be careful (but not extreme).  Our kids mostly play with the neighbor kids outside, we quit our extracurricular activities, we don't see family (high risk) very often, and I don't take the kids to the store.  We thought it would be fairly low risk to invite 2 families to the cabin, but we ended up getting COVID.  And the teenagers we got it from only had a sore throat.  Most people don't want to deal with the inconvenience of quarantining so they say, "it's just a cold, it's not COVID" or don't get tested.  And the data shows that most people have mild symptoms and a high number are asymptomatic (like Isaac, Sophie, and Aspen appear to be), so those people just go around living their normal lives spreading the virus.  I'm not trying to say that's ok, I'm just saying I can see why things are getting out of control.  And if the government doesn't shut things down again, I don't see it slowing down at all because people want to celebrate the holidays with their family and friends.

But we have 1 more week in quarantine.  Isaac actually started going back to work last week.  He worked from home a few days, but the president of their group called one evening telling him he had to go in.  Because he is considered an "essential employee", he can continue going to work even after a known COVID exposure because he was asymptomatic.  So that's kind-of crazy.  It's hard to tell the kids they can't go to school, play with friends, go trick-or-treating, etc. when their dad can go to work.  But we are almost done and we are ready to get back to "normal".