November 2020

 The girls really wanted to go back to their favorite metro park that has a zipline they never seem to get sick of.  Little did we know, the park also recently added some rope swings that the girls had so much fun on! We have been so impressed with all the great parks around Columbus.

Richard got some really sad news this month.  His dad had contracted COVID-19 and didn't want to go to the hospital because he insisted he would be fine. He finally got bad enough that his kids forced him to go and was in the ICU for less than a week before he passed away on November 16th. Richard flew to Utah for the funeral and the girls drew cards to put in his casket. We had so many people send Richard things to let us know they were thinking of him!  We got multiple bouquets, a huge plant, gift cards, and letters.  The girls favorite thing was an Edible Arrangement! It was pretty big but they polished it all off in barely two days. 

We knew Thanksgiving would be very quiet with just our family but we tried to make the best of it. We decorated our table and made a centerpiece turkey out of vegetables, as well as paper bag teepees. We played a lot of games, including our very own turkey shoot with balloon turkeys and a Nerf bow.  We also got to play some Zoom games with my family so even though it was different, it was still a good day. 

McKenna's birthday was the day after Thanksgiving and I was really worried about it.  She always gets so excited she can't sleep and then is disappointed that the day is not as magical as she thinks it will be.  She got very little sleep so we had a few rough parts of the day but I think it was a good birthday overall. We played some Zoom games with her cousins, did a home escape room, and made mint chocolate cupcakes for her treat. She had been wanting an American girl-type doll and I bought this one that I thought looked just like her! We are very grateful for our spunky 9 year old!

The city of Dublin put together something that sounded like a lot of fun so we decided to try it out. It is somewhere in between geocaching and a scavenger hunt.  They put up all kinds of art installations (15 I think) around the parks next to the river and give you a booklet that has clues to help you find them.  Each piece of art has a hidden box somewhere on it and inside is a stamp, ink and a notebook you can write your name in. It was such a fun adventure for our family!  We only did a handful of them the first day and explored some of the parks that we went to. 

President Nelson issued a challenge to post on social media things you are grateful for every day for a week. Since I am the only one with social media, we decided to make a list of things at home instead. It came at a perfect time and it was really helpful and peaceful to focus on all the good things we have right now when there is so much going on that seems bad. 

We decided to do a virtual Primary Program this year and I thought it turned out so great! We had each of the kids record just a sentence or two answering a question based on the Come Follow Me lessons throughout the year.  Our music leader also asked a few families, including ours, to record a song. Our kids sang I Will Walk With Jesus and they did a great job! We decided to do a Zoom session on the 5th Sunday to watch the program all together as a ward.  For some reason, I was really nervous about conducting this meeting and had a lot of anxiety about it.  My anxiety definitely didn't settle down when I saw Elder and Sister Uchtdorf pop up on the Zoom!  Their grandson is in our ward so their great-granddaughter was going to be a part of the program. I got extra nervous and started shaking uncontrollably. Luckily I had already pre-recorded my testimony and an intro talk, otherwise I might not have made it through the whole thing!  It was fun to have them on there but because I was so nervous, as soon as it was over I thanked everyone and very quickly logged off.  Apparently Elder Uchtdorf stayed on and talked for a minute so I have been kicking myself ever since that I missed the opportunity to talk with him!  

We heard about a fun challenge where you would give up sleeping in your bed for a night and tag it on Instagram to a mattress company who would donate a bed to a child in need.  This is definitely the most fun way we have ever done service!

We finally got a little bit on snow on the last day of November.  McKenna and Brooklyn only played in it for a little bit but Kaylee stayed out for hours!  She even built a pretty big snowman all on her own. We don't get a ton of snow here so we have to take advantage of it while we can!