July 6th - August 16th

Our Family in the last 6 weeks!

Covid Update: Idaho has now 27,620 Confirmed cases (that's 20,189 new cases in the past 6 weeks!!) and deaths have gone up from 94 deaths (6 weeks ago) to 269 as of today. In the US, confirmed cases are now at 5.37 Million (up from 2.92 million 6 weeks ago) and total deaths are currently at 169K (up from 132K six weeks ago) and in the world, we have 21.5 million confirmed cases with 772K deaths (six weeks ago, those numbers were 11.3 million cases and 532K deaths)

July 24 should have been the first day of competition for the 2020 Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo (and opening ceremony would have been July 23rd). The Olympic Torch had started it's route back in March, carried by Anna Korakaki  who was the first female torchbearer. Due to COVID, the torch didn't travel lit's full route and is being kept in Japan until the relay can resume next year. This is the first time in Olympic history that the games have been postponed. The new date for the opening ceremony is July 23, 2021.

QUARANTINE: on July 7th our family started in on a 15 day Quarantine! It started with Ben. He was exposed and made mention of that to his supervisor at work. They quickly told him that he had to go get tested and couldn't come back to work until he had his results back. Since he'd been around Natalie so much, she needed to get tested as well. She lives with a family where the mom is fighting cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy and so they asked her to quarantine elsewhere since they couldn't take the risk of infecting the family. Her family refused to let her come back home to quarantine and so we opened up our home to Natalie. 2 days later, she came down with a fever and Ben had a headache/sore throat. That cinched the deal for dad, and he figured it was the responsible thing to get tested himself and work from home. August and Seth also got tested and went into Quarantine. It was said that results *should* be back in 7-10 and most of them were (Negative Results! yay!) but Ben's test became lost/misplaced in the lab (and since he was the original one that was exposed we felt we needed to wait for his results to get back since we'd all been quarantining with him in the chance he was Positive). Finally on day 15, we received Ben's test results back and he was Negative too! Soooo.... the 2 weeks of being isolated, working from home and not leaving the house wasn't necessary! However, on the plus side - it was REALLY awesome to all be home bound together! We had Come Follow Me lessons and Spiritual discussions each day, we ate meals together, played games together, watched shows together and I actually really loved having the whole family all together!

The girls and mom took advantage of the time at home and finished up the kitchen! wooooo! It turned out better than any of us imagined! We broke the kitchen up into different sections and just worked on smaller areas so that the whole kitchen wasn't torn apart and unusable. I'm sure this extended our timeline, but it kept the project manageable and the chaos minimized! We degreased, sanded, primed, sanded some more and put cabinet enamel on 60 cupboards and drawers! The girls were sooo helpful and did a fantastic job (and learned amazing skills!). We ended up doing 3 coats of primer AND 3 coats of enable on each cupboard/drawer. We then installed all new hardware (which really put a nice finishing touch to them!). The final detail was to construct and build up the cabinets to become flush with the ceiling and add the crown molding/trim. The final look is BEAUTIFUL!!! Here's some pics from the renovation! 

McKendra celebrated her "Golden Birthday": She turned 21 on July 21st! Aubrie baked and decorated a delicious cake for McKendra and we decorated the house and had a little family party to celebrate!

Swiss National Day: August 1st was Swiss National Day. We spent several hours baking many items from scratch and the feast came together delicously! We had the Belau 's and Grandma and Grandpa Vogt join in the celebrations. Our menu consisted of: Zopf, Weggen, Rösti, Kartoffelsalat, Gurkensalat, Strawberry Wähe, Engadiner Nusstorte and Bratwurst.

Washington Vacation! We left for Kathryn and Morgan's house in Anacortes, Washington on August 3rd. Mom, dad, Ben, Natalie, Nathan, Aubrie and Lexi all piled into the van and off we went on the 10 hour ride. We spent the week having fun at the Beach/Lake, Boating to an Island for a picnic lunch, swimming, Paddle boarding, doing home improvement projects, eating a seafood dinner by the Ocean, enjoying ice cream at night while chatting, roasting s'mores around their fire pit, jumping on the trampoline and mom and Kat making homeschooling plans!

Also some exciting news happened while in Washington - Ben proposed to Natalie! He wrote a romantic note (at least, we're assuming it was a "romantic note" since he wouldn't let anyone read what he wrote!) and put it inside of a bottle. Aunt Kathryn and mom ran down to the beach to strategically place the bottle and then they "happened to stumble across it" while taking a romantic stroll along the beach at sunset. She said YES and we're happy to welcome her to the family!

The rest of our time was filled with yard work, travels for dad to Eastern Idaho, BBQ's (we had one with the Belau's, one with the Beath's and one with all of the neighbors in the neighborhood). Ben got set up with a new Counselor and that seems to be going well! Nathan has continued with this daily tutoring sessions with grandma and has been progressing so well with his reading. Also, with the new public schooling plans (most are starting off as only Virtual and then moving to just 2 days a week in person and 3 days at home online)... with the uncertainty, many have decided that homeschooling would be the best fit for them this year. With that, I've had many friends (and acquaintances) reach out for help in getting set up with the homeschooling and so that has taken up quite a bit of my time these past few weeks. Below are some additional pictures from the past 6 weeks...

Spiritually Speaking... John Edition

There is nothing groundbreaking to report on the spiritual side of things. We have continued to make lemonade out of lemons while conducting home based church, diving into several podcasts each week that have greatly accentuated our Come Follow Me study, and continuing with our weekly family history and genealogy work. We've enjoyed all of our extra time with Natalie and getting to know her. She'll be a great addition to the family. 

While travelling to and from Kathryn's we listened to two great audio books And God Remembered Me and Seven at Sea. The first was the account of a church member who was a waist gunner in a B-17 during WWII in the European theater. His bomber was shot down and he became a POW and had a harrowing experience. Throughout his trials, The Lord sustained him and he survived multiple times when all others weren't as fortunate. The second book was about a Latter-Day Saint family of seven who sold everything to go and sail for a year in the Caribbean and Bahamas. It was a really neat account and definitely inspired us to retire some day. I'm really looking forward to it.