The governor announced an "emergency state" for Utah starting on Monday of this week and to last at least two weeks. In addition to wearing masks in any building besides our own house, all extra-curricular school activities were cancelled and all school sports. We were also asked to not have any social gatherings outside our own household.

So . . . we were all already wearing masks. Chey had just decided not to do basketball this year so the school sports didn't affect us. But we did tell the kids if they wanted to be with friends, they would need to play outside. We didn't do karate or group tennis. Church will go back to half-ward meetings on alternating weeks. We cancelled our YW activity.

Cheyenne was still quarantined through Wednesday. She did get to go back to school on Thursday, but by that time, SHS had hit the number of cases (15) that required them to go to an alternating day schedule. School was cancelled Friday to let teachers get ready for the new way of teaching. Next week, the twins will attend school in person on Monday and Thursday and will do the rest of their work online. Bethany and Benjamin will attend school like normal.

All of these things are totally doable! But, I tell you, change is hard for the human psyche, and things keep changing! I find myself mourning not only the life we had a year ago but also the life we had last week and the ability I used to have to make plans for the next week or month or year. It's a weird time. It's still possible to be happy. I just have to keep finding new ways to do it!

It got super cold this week and since the kids didn't have after-school activities we were all free to go to the store and buy coats. Yay! Good thing since they'll have to talk to their friends outside for the foreseeable future.

Other than that, the twins did go to a private tennis lesson and they met up with two girlfriends to play on Friday.

Beth and Ben invented a new scary game that gets played in the woods and in Max's shed and they've involved Max and Annaliese. You know I love it when they play outdoors AND with the neighbor kids. I love seeing them out my window, especially when they remember to wear their new coats.

Savannah continues to work at Funfinity and she seems to really be loving it. Calianne worked with her twice and Cheyenne put in her application to work during the Christmas season. She has an interview on Monday.

I finished the second, short chapter book in what will be my ten-book series featuring kids learning from New Testament stories in their everyday life.

Kevin had a great week in the stock market and continues to develop new content for Addo's online mental health platforms.

We will see what our next week brings!