Bye, Jon!

Jon had to return to Spain due to the Covid virus.  His parents wanted him at home with them.  Jon left early in the morning.  He flew to Dallas, then to London, then to Madrid.  His dad picked him up in Madrid and drove him to Pamplona.  We really enjoyed having Jon stay with our family for 3 months.  We are planning a trip to Spain for next summer to visit his family.

Jon and Carter

Robert, Mark, Dorias, Richard, and Jon

Eldon, Carter, Jon, and Jessica

Last night of foosball
  

April Fool’s Day

Meat loaf ‘iced’ in mashed potatoes

I forgot it was April Fool’s day.  I had to think of something to do with no way to get supplies.  The grocery stores were still out of supplies and I didn’t want to risk trying to go to the store unless absolutely necessary.

Jello in the drink cups

Jon fell for the jello drinks.  We had fun with our dinner.

Quarantine

The pandemic of Covid-19 spread across the world.  In some areas, the death toll was quite high.  New York City, Spain, and Italy were especially hard hit.  Schools were closed and a stay-at-home order was issued.  We did not go back to school after Spring Break.  Mark continued to work at his office in San Antonio, but he was not permitted to travel to Mexico.

Life continued with a few changes for us.  The boys did distance learning for school.  It was basically a joke.  The school work was very easy and really was just to keep the kids from sliding backwards in their academics.

Jon studying at his desk in the living room area

All of the boys working on school work (or playing video games)

Many items were not available at the stores.  Toilet paper was cleared out.  I was thankful we had our food storage during all the panic buying that people did.

Homemade bread

Because we live in the country, we were able to continue many of our normal activities.  Swimming in the backyard, going on walks, and bike rides.  We also played board games.

Swimming

It has been quite an adjustment to limit social interaction.  The twins are more extroverted than I am.  I am thankful they have each other and that Jon was here.

Churches were closed down.  We began doing the Come Follow Me program as our Sunday worship. I have really enjoyed having home church.

COVID -19

A pandemic began a several weeks ago in China.  It is spreading across the world.  We were supposed to go back to school from Spring Break, but schools are closed this next week as well.  The school district will reevaluate at the end of the week, as to when we will be able to return to school.  Many, many people have died and the hospitals are overwhelmed in Italy.  It isn't really bad here in the states, but they are predicting it will become bad and we will have to quarantine.  The media is spinning this to be horrible.  I don't know what I should believe. Our lives are fixin to change...not for the better.

Jon Anduleza

Jon came to Boerne from Pamplona, Spain to be an exchange student and learn English.  He lived with another host family for the fall semester.  Over the winter break, we found out that Jon needed a new host family.  He was already friends with Richard and Robert.  And he had made the high school JV soccer team with the boys.  I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to have another 15 year old boy in the house.  We had an extra bedroom and he was on the same schedule as the boys.  We volunteered to host Jon for the Spring semester.  We filled out the paperwork, had a background check, and got the extra room ready for Jon.

Robert, Jon, and Richard 

Jon instantly fit into the family.

A Trip to Utah for Easter Weekend

We originally were going to surprise all of the kids with a trip to Utah for Easter weekend.  As we talked about it, we decided we better let the kids know.  Rebecca needed to be able to get a head on her assignments so that she could take a little time off and play with the family.

We flew to Salt Lake City very early Thursday morning. (March 24).  We had to leave the house at 4:00 am.  We arrived in Salt Lake City by 8:00 am.  Then we rode the train to Provo.  Mark's sister, Emily, picked us up at the train station and took us directly to BYU campus.  Mark gave an hour long presentation to the AIChE club as soon as we got to campus.  We cut it close and arrived right at 11:00am when the presentations was scheduled to begin.

We had lunch with some of the Chemical Engineers that will be working for Valero once they graduate this spring.  When we got to the restaurant the host recognized Mark. The young man had been in Mark's Philmont crew about 6 years ago.

We met up with Matthew for dinner at P.F. Chengs.  The kids like their food.

Rebecca and I decided to try their chocolate cake.  It was super yummy!

On Friday, I took Rebecca shopping for some things she needed. Mark and Matthew took Richard and Robert to find snow.  They had a lot of fun playing in the snow. Mark even took a little tumble for about 10ft when hiking back to the car.  

Richard and Robert

Matthew, Richard, and Robert

Later that evening we had a nice dinner at Red Robin.  Although, I ate something I was allergic to and had to take some Benedryl.  I went back to Rebecca's apartment and feel asleep on the couch.  Mark and the twins came and got me later so that we could go back to Emily's house for the night.

On Saturday we planned a BBQ Easter egg hunt for some of Rebecca's friends and our family members that live in the Provo area.  It was a lot of fun.  We stuffed 250 Easter eggs with candy and some with money.  We grilled hot dogs and hamburgers at the park.

Lauren and Rebecca

Rebecca

The kids shadows on top of the playscape

On Sunday, we met at Rebecca's apartment to have lunch 

and then went to church with her.

Matthew, Dorias, Mark, Rebecca
Robert & Richard

The twins and Rebecca sang in Sacrament meeting.  They sang Gethsemane by Melanie Hoffman.  I got to accompany them on the piano.

Robert, Rebecca, Richard

Studio C

We all enjoy watching a clean comedy show called Studio C.  The boys especially enjoy it.
While we were in Utah, visiting Matthew and Rebecca, we saw two of the actors from Studio C. Their names were Steven and Whitney.  They are married and have a little one.  The boys were so excited to meet them.  They were gracious and let us take a picture.  We thought they were students at BYU and that producing Studio C was their college job.  Mark asked them.  Studio C is their real job.  They both write and act for the show.