The Boat, the Island, the Park

 It's Thursday! My sister Bonnie has been sending out weekly emails to members of her family, and it seems like such a good idea to take a few minutes and remember the good things that happen during the week. I don't know that I will ever be as regular as she is (you can see by the number of posts that I did well for a couple of years and then things kind of petered off). No matter, any opportunity to write down some family history is an opportunity to be taken. We went out to Point Robinson Lighthouse Park on Monday with Andy, Aaron and Courtney, Matt and Wayne and Jaaron and Elise and our respective families. It was our first sunshiney/outdoorsey trip of the year and it was pretty great. Great weather, the beach was nice, a pretty great grass area with picnic tables and of course a lighthouse. The ferry ride was neat, albeit short, and we saw some kind of dolphin/porpoise pod from a moderately close distance. I didn't know there were dolphins in the Sound, but I saw them so they must be there. 

At the park the kids tried to fly kites, but the wind was not steady enough and they got frustrated pretty quickly each time they tried to fly them. They also played lacrosse. The adults played on the beach, and we did corn-hole (beanbag game) up next to the picnic tables. Andy, a few of the girls and I hunted for beach glass. Matt asked for a piece of beach glass at least 10 inches in diameter, as measured by his large hands, and I was pretty sure that given the meager supply on that beach, we wouldn't find anything remotely close. Found a few nice pieces, a few "too new" pieces, and then Andy and I were walking along the beach talking about how to make millions of dollars, when he stopped and picked up the biggest piece of each glass I have ever seen. It was probably 7" in diameter, and even had barnacles on it so you know it's legit. Anyway, we walked back towards the group, because now what was the point and showed it to Matt and I had to eat crow and proclaim Andy the winner of beachglassing. I did find a pretty cobalt blue piece later on, and everyone knows those are the best so really, I won in the end. 

We all had fun until we realized that none of us brought sunscreen. We are still dealing with the sunburns days later, each in our own way. Me, with lidocane aloe, Rachel with her oils and a new yogurt salve that she found on the internet, Ammon by being mad at us and taking cool baths, and Noah by not wearing shirts. Emma I guess found either Elise or Courtney who put sunscreen on her, and so she was mostly fine. Noah only had to not wear shirts because he wore sweatpants to the beach. I asked him why he wanted to wear sweats to the beach before we left, and he said he wears them everywhere, and why should the beach be special. I chuckled and told him it was going to be hot, and wouldn't he rather be in shorts, but he said no. So Noah got the last laugh, because it was only his arms and the back of his neck that got burned, not his legs like everyone else. He was hot, but at least he wasn't burned. 

After the beach, we went to go get some dinner at a burger place on the island called Island Queen. Not Dairy Queen. It was not cheap, and I don't know that I would actually recommend that place to anyone unless they didn't have anywhere else to go, which we didn't, not really. It was pretty expensive, and the portions were not so big to the kids disappointment. We ordered them kids meals for $10/each. Ammon and Emma got corndogs, and Noah got a grilled cheese sandwich. They come with fries, a small drink and an ice cream cone. When the food came out, I chuckled because I saw the corndogs... They were about 4 inches long. It was like they had taken a bun length hotdog and cut it in half. It was pretty funny to watch the kids faces as they realized what they got! Noah's "grilled cheese" wasn't much better, it was just a burger bun with some melted cheese, probably microwaved. And the ice cream cones they got afterwards were two scoops of ice cream, about 1.5" in diameter. We realized later on that the restaurant charges a dollar for those cones. 

After eating, we went back to the ferry terminal. The Petersons lagged behind a little, but it wasn't a big deal, because the ferry wasn't supposed to be there for another hour or so. We were all expecting to wait a while. However, when we got there, they were still loading the ferry from the earlier time! Matt and Wayne left the restaurant a little earlier than the rest of us and were safely on board which was good, because Wayne needed to get home, and waiting would have put him in a time crunch. But Aaron and I were able to squeeze into two of the last three spots on the boat! We frantically called Jaaron to see where he was, but then a truck came around the corner, and that was that. The truck got on and the Alldredges waved goodbye to Vashon Island, leaving the Petersons to spend the next hour by themselves waiting for the next ferry. It was pretty funny. I thought about making a sympathy sign and sticking it on their door, but Rachel said it would just be rubbing it in. 

Here are some photos I took!

It's Been a Rough Year

 I guess the thing to do is talk about how our family has coped this last year with Covid-19. 

 

So, at the end of 2019, word was just starting to come out about this new virus that was apparently coming out of China. Its a coronavirus strain that they think made the jump from bats(?) to humans. It is a pretty contagious disease (maybe), that has caused lots of illness around the world. There is a big battle right now over how deadly the virus actually is, and how the government counts coronavirus deaths, and whether or not hospitals were ever overloaded with COVID patients, and how the government and pharmaceutical companies fast tracked a vaccine, and how the government and all the doctors are telling everyone how we all need to get the vaccine or else we are bad citizens (which just makes me not want to get one), and the whole world getting basically shut down for a whole year while everyone tried to figure out how to stop a virus from spreading (which didn't work), and people wearing masks, and making masks being a new business opportunity for lots of individuals and organizations, and everything getting really expensive because the world shut down and companies ran out of stock of everything. Toilet paper was a precious commodity for a while. Also, the Church made everyone do church at home. And no one could see anyone or go anywhere, because of lock-downs. Schools did virtual classrooms, I work remotely still, Rachel's music classes were over Zoom (a video calling program), kids had Zoom birthday parties, people had Zoom weddings, Zoom Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then there was Zoom church. It has all been pretty interesting. Now, with a vaccine available, governments are slowly allowing people to do stuff again, but only if you wear a mask, or have a gold star on your chest (not really) or a vaccination card that can be lost, stolen, forged (easily) or lie about your vaccination status, because there is no central directory that anyone can access (yet).

ANYWAY! Our family has had a pretty good time though it all. We still went to California to the Bohlin's cabin, we went to families houses, had real birthday parties, went to Arizona to stay with Pat and Judy for a week. We did our best to include everyone who was not scared for Thanksgiving and Christmas, got our Christmas tree from the same guy at work. We pulled Noah out of public school and put him into a home school group that met regularly in person, and Ammon kept attending his own home school group. That was kind of a logistical nightmare, planning on where those groups were going to meet on which days and scheduling it so we could get them to different places. Since I was working at home, I was able to take some of that responsibility so Rachel could keep her music studio open. She helped teach one group, and I taught the outdoor class for the other group.

Church has started up again, meeting for sacrament and 2nd hour classes, but the timing still hasn't been figured out in our ward at least. I got called to be the Assistant Ward Clerk, and that has been an eye opener into the state of the ward. I now know lots of things that I don't want to know. I am also now responsible for maintaining our neighborhoods well property. So I have to go over to the pump house every other day or so and monitor how much water is being used, how much chlorine is in the system and send reports to the county Health Department. fun stuff.