Sanity Restored

We were abysmal at picture taking this month, so this is a text only post. So sowwy.

Normally, May is non-stop busy with end-of-the-school-year activities, events, concerts, etc. 2020 put the kibosh on all that, now didn't it? Fortunately, restrictions were lifted a bit on May 1, so the kids have been able to hang out with friends.

They're enjoying seeing other people more than they ever have! Our house feels like Grand Central Station most days, and I know the friends' homes are the same. Aani and Ava are running between friends' houses all day every day. Anders and Addie less so, but they still get enough friend time to make them happy. Last night I made dinner, and no one was home except Nils and me. We ate like empty nesters, but eventually a couple of kids trickled in and ate with us.

We're still sticking close to home, not venturing out much at all. Nils continues to work from home. It will be a sad day indeed when he has to go back to the office. I decided to stop working at the clinic. Things are too weird right now, and I felt that I'm better off being here for the time being. I really did like the job, and the people especially, and am thankful for the experience.

YouTube: We invested in a course a few months ago to help propel the YouTube biz. 9 years ago, we made $12 one month and couldn't believe it. Thanks to Nils' dogged persistence and drive, it's now making a little bit more than that. It's mystifying to us. Anyway, this course really gets into the nuts and bolts of how YouTube works, and it's all mostly over my head, but I'm hoping to dive a little deeper into the background. It's too much for just one person to manage, so I wanna be more helpful to the talent (Nils). :)

I signed Ava up for cheer. She's been in tumbling for about 5 years now, and I figured she could put those back tucks and handsprings to some use on a cheer team. She's excited, and we've never done anything like this before, so it should be an adventure! It will help keep her busy for the next few months. She gets frustrated sometimes when she feels like she has nothing to do during the summer, so this will fill some of that extra time.

Aani is making a quick work of becoming a teenager. Her 13th birthday is in a couple of weeks. She's always been eager to be bigger and older, so we better buckle up for this one. She loves hanging out with her friends- she's gotten close to several kids her age that live on our street- how lucky to have so many friends so close by. She's getting into clothes, makeup, and hair. It's fun and weird for me, because Addie couldn't care less about those things. Kids being different, who knew?

Addie loves playing Animal Crossing, drawing, and hanging out with her friends. She makes a single chocolate chip oatmeal cookie almost every day. She loves the Avatar the Last Airbender series, which is now on Netflix. She's watched it twice through already- it's been on Netflix for 2 weeks. She has a garden of succulents on her windowsill in her room. She listens to 40's music and show tunes regularly.

Anders has had some adventures this month. He went to the Salt Flats with some friends- they got  stuck in salt water and had to have the friend's car towed out by a crazy tow tank thing. This involved running 2 miles across the salt to the nearest road to flag someone down. He and some other friends had a campout last weekend. I feel good about these sorts of things. He's a 17 year old boy and needs to get out and experience things like getting stuck in salt water, and use those problem solving skills. His plans for his senior year are to go to high school half time, and the other half he'll go to MTEC and take a computer programming course. Please bless that it can actually happen. It will be great for him.

We've got a few little trips planned for the summer. Since everything was canceled, and I'm not working, we have lots of freedom to go places. First up is South Dakota, baby. We're going wild! Nature isn't canceled!

Couple of Things

Just recording a couple of things so I don't forget about them.

First: When Nils was in India at the end of February/beginning of March, when everyone started hoarding water bottles and toilet paper, I made the mistake of going to Walmart. I had ordered groceries online that Saturday morning, and then realized when I went to pick them up, that the world was ending. I waited for over an hour in a line of cars to get my grocery order, and then for another 30 minutes in a parking spot for them to even bring out the groceries. I didn't realize what was going on inside the store- complete mayhem. 

Aani was with me, and wanted to inside the store to get a couple of things. Oh man, scary stuff. It was insanity- empty shelves and hoards of people buying all the things. As we were exiting the store and putting our things in the back of the van, I somehow managed to forget about my purse. Luckily, I had taken my keys out of it, and had left my phone in the van. We got home, and I immediately realized I didn't have it, so I quickly went back to the store. I checked where I had put my cart back in the parking lot- nothing. Checked all the carts inside the entrance of the store, and nothing. Waited in line at customer service for 20 minutes and asked them if it had been turned in. They were beyond frazzled from the having the weirdest day ever, and looked in lost and found, but didn't see it. I went back again the next day, and they didn't have it. I called the store 3 times to check on it, and they claimed they didn't have it. 

With Nils being in India, our debit card was how he was paying for his way around, so if I canceled the card, he would be stranded financially. It was kind of stressful. We were vigilant about checking all of our accounts for fraudulent activity, and there was none, ever. It didn't make sense that someone had stolen my purse and then not done anything with the valuables. So we waited and kept a close eye on everything for the next several weeks. 

I bought a new purse, an exact replica of the one I lost, because it's the perfect purse. I was very sad about losing it. You also can't buy them anymore from the company that made it, so I found it used online somewhere. Having an exact replica helped me feel less sad, but I was also sad about not having my debit and credit cards, Costco card, temple recommend, insurance cards, driver license, etc. Bleh. I managed to get a new debit card and driver license, but that was all that I had in my tiny new wallet. (I was also very sad about losing the wallet itself.)  

Life went on, the pandemic happened, and I was resigned to never learning what happened to my perfect purse and wallet. A couple weeks ago, Nils got a FB message from the asset protection person at Walmart, saying they had something of mine. Why they found Nils and FB and not me, I know not. I went in, and low and behold, they had it the whole time. My wallet had everything in it, including the $33 in cash. The wallet and purse had been separated, so the man only gave me my wallet at first- I mentioned that I had lost my purse as well, and fortunately had my exact replica with me, so he found my purse in his bin and gave it to me. He told me that the people at customer service don't do a great job of looking through the things in lost and found, and that he goes through about once a month to see if there's anything with ID and if he can track down the owners. He hadn't been through the lost and found in a couple of months. Someone had found my purse right away and turned it in, but the customer service people didn't see it. Silver linings: I now have two perfect purses, two wallets, and two driver licenses. I also have all of my cards back, wahoo! Also, someone was honest and didn't steal my purse or anything in it, which is miraculous. #utahcounty

#twopurses

Second: We ordered a new family car in December- a Kia Telluride. It's an SUV, and we have been really excited about it. You can't buy these cars on the lot for some reason, and the factory can't crank them out fast enough. The dealership told us to expect it in May. I've never been this excited about getting a new car. Nils has been excited, the kids have been excited...I think this is what got us through a long winter, and a pandemic. We ordered a snow white one with black rims, a light grey interior, and all the features. 😭 So beautiful. 

Welp. The factory had to shut down, inevitably delaying our order even more, and then the 'Rona got us thinking about life, and money, and then we decided to refinance our mortgage to pay it off faster, and then we started feeling like we should continue to be responsible, and...we're not getting the car. 

Adulting

 3/4 of the kids are quite disappointed. Addie has major attachment issues and was really unhappy about getting rid of our Sienna, so she is not disappointed. 

Oh, life. You are not boring.