Random Thought

  "Imagine one day you wake up and go to Disneyland but you're too tall to ride Dumbo."

    Andrew to Calvin 6/18/24

Humpty Dumpty

 "It's obvious why the kings horses couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again but it's not obvious why the king's men couldn't!  They could've just put bandages on him."  

--Andrew 6/21/16

Games Online

 "Considering I'm not hearing any strange noises, I'm assuming you're fine."

Andrew to Calvin while playing video games online after a few seconds of silence.

Andrew's Thoughts

Andrew has spent a lot of his time during the Pandemic playing Roblox online with his good buddy, Noah.  Noah will Google Duo him on my phone so that they can see and talk with each other.  It's interesting to overhear their conversations.  On Tuesday, May 26th they were playing at 10:29 p.m. which is much later than they usually play but this was the thought he shared with Noah.
"Each time you break a bone, you basically break it in to two bones. So while it's healing, you have an extra bone."

Kamut Flour

During the Pandemic, I have felt like I'm cooking and doing dishes nearly nonstop.  I finally decided to search for and buy some Kamut flour that some people with celiac claim they can eat without the health consequences.  I was able to buy 25 pounds from a man in Pleasant Grove.  It cost $38.00, so much more than 25 pounds of all purpose flour.  However, my body seems to tolerate it well, and I'm able to make one meal for dinner which saves me a lot of energy.  We've already tried pancakes, cookies, roux, and pizza pockets.

Last week I thought I'd try a new chicken pot pie casserole recipe using Kamut since I usually make mine without crust.  This one https://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/chicken-pot-pie-crumble/ involves making a crumble with flour, butter, and parmesan and sprinkling it over the pot pie base.  I even made it in ramekins with only the vegetables the kids like in their own ramekins.  But, when hungry little Andrew came to dinner and heard me talking to Beth about how we were having chicken pot pie (one of my kids favorite meals) but that I had used a new recipe, he stormed out and nearly burst into tears.  I called out to him asking him what was wrong, he yelled back, "You just HAD to try a new recipe."  I almost laughed out loud.  What a terrible thing I did to him.  He gets so hungry sometimes and was not amused that I made a meal that he might not like.

As it turned out, Beth did not like the crumble, she doesn't think cheese should be used with pot pie.  I pulled most of the crumble off Andrew's but he said he would mix some of his in and he ended up liking it when it was mixed in with the chicken and vegetables.  The homemade pie and crumble from scratch took about 3 hours.  Somedays I wish we all liked premade frozen Costco meals.

Lake House

During the Pandemic we are taking turns with Kyle and Alena's family to go to the Taylor's lake house for one week at a time.  Kevin and I can both work remotely, and the kids can do school from their devices so it gives us a great change of scenery and some great options for fresh air.  We feel so blessed to have this option during this time when many people are struggling so much.  We are not unaware of how fortunate we are and of how many people are working hard at this time or are in very bad situations.

I wanted to record a phrase from Andrew's dinner prayer from our last visit to the lake house.  On April 24, 2020 he expressed his gratitude "We thank Thee for how lucky we are to have a lake house so we can escape our house without going camping." 

Lakes, campgrounds, and four wheeler trails are being overrun by people anxious to be outdoors during this time.  State parks have been reopened to visitors after being closed due to COVID-19 but they are having to close their entrances midday because so many people are trying to recreate at this time. 

Traffic out to the lake house has increased so much for this early in the season.  There is a trailhead near a Pony Express marker on the final road to the lake house that we rarely seen one lost looking car on.  This last trip home from the lake there was a dozen or so trucks with trailers, SUVs and other vehicles all crammed into the parking lot at that little marker.

Pandemic

Some things I don’t want to forget.  The first week of things closing down here, March 15-21, I would wake up without an alarm when my body wanted to and forget that there was a pandemic, that school was cancelled, that stores and restaurants were closing, that we wouldn’t be going to church for weeks.  The forgetting wouldn’t even last more than a brief moment, but it was a nice, peaceful moment.

Also, once that brief moment of forgetting passed in the morning, the rest of my days that first and most of the second week, I was paralyzed by fear.  I was watching daily news briefings with President Trump, reading various news sites and anticipating the illness and deaths of friends and family members.  I remember thinking if I could look into the future just a few weeks, I wouldn’t be brave enough.