WHAT A CRAZY TIME! I had my ACL Reconstruction surgery on March 2, a few days before everything went crazy with Coronavirus. The surgery went well but I was down for a few days. It was painful and hard to move and do anything. My mom was able to be here a lot to help with kids and get them everywhere they needed to be and it was nice to have her here to help me too. She’d run and get me treats whenever I wanted one too! Kenny was able to work if she was here so it was really helpful. Between the two of them, me and the kids were well taken care of. I had lots of meals and treats brought over. Erin and Haley came over a few times and just hung out with me in my bedroom. Mindy, Rachel, Haley, and Erin were all so helpful with kids and keeping my spirits up too. Rachel brought me some things she knew I’d need and has been so great to talk to since she’s been through this twice! Dawn has also been great to talk to and she even sent me something in the mail she knew I’d need since she’s been through it twice too! (Please don’t let me go through this twice!) My knee hurt but also my back and butt hurt from sitting and sleeping so much and my thigh muscles were all out of wack so when I tried to walk they would spaz out and I’d need to sit. I also had bruising down my shin bone that killed whenever I stood up.
About two weeks in though, is when Las Vegas, along with the rest of the country, started shutting everything down. School shut down and is shut down until next school year. Kenny started working from home which turned out to be really helpful for me. I was on crutches for about a month so getting around was uncomfortable and just felt like a chore so it was easier to stay put somewhere. In a way it’s been a great time to have a recovery since I have Kenny here, we don’t have to worry about getting kids anywhere, I’m not missing out on anything, I don’t have to find babysitters for physical therapy. I think having things to do and places to be would have been a good distraction the first month though. I would have loved to be sitting out at kids’ games on Saturdays or going to watch my team play soccer even if I couldn’t play. BUT I have actually enjoyed this time! I like having the kids here with me. I feel like they are getting too old on me and this gives me a few months to have them with me, under our influence and nobody else’s and to really have fun with them and teach them while they’re still young. I’m trying to really cherish this time and not get overwhelmed by it.
Anyway, here are a few ACL pictures… (the atrophy was crazy! My leg wasted away! And I did hours and hours of exercises with the green band but could not break through the scar tissue even with physical therapy!)
A few weeks after my surgery I started physical therapy up again. I probably should have been going sooner than that but didn’t have the doctor’s order for it. I went for a few weeks but my knee was super stiff. I had way too much scar tissue build up and at my 6 week post op visit with the orthopedic specialist he said I needed to have a knee manipulation done. (They put you to sleep and forcibly bend your knee over and over again until they break up the scar tissue! Sounds like lots of fun! Eek!) I will have that done on April 29. Then it will be back to physical therapy right away to avoid scar tissue build up like last time. I am just ready to have it done and get on my way to feeling normal again. I haven’t been able to bend my knee more than 75 degrees for 3 months! Hopefully I move right along and even though I will be in therapy for a few months, hopefully I eventually get back to doing normal things (like walking without a limp!)
A few pictures from right before quarantine- back when we could play with friends:
Now back to Quarantine life…Kenny’s birthday was March 19 so we celebrated quarantine style! We ordered Outback to go with Cahills and McCormicks then ate our food in our cars next to each other. It was nuts- we had a cup of ranch spill into my purse, the kids spilled food, Kenny didn’t get utensils so he ate his steak with his hands, but it was Outback so he was happy. Then we went and drove down the empty Strip. It was quite the sight to see it so empty!
One thing I have loved about being quarantined at home is that we have had to get creative! I have loved the time spent with the kids and doing so many fun things with them right at home. I used to love leaving the house, doing things, going places but now I think I am more of homebody than I thought! I have really enjoyed being at home! Here are a few of the things we have done:
Movie night in the backyard. 
Bought pet fish with some money they earned doing yard work for a neighbor! 
Trey always escaping! 
She is almost riding this! 
3 of the kids LOVE to walk Callie’s dogs. Kayli is terrified so she runs inside when the dogs show up. 
Mrs. Buell has dropped off a few packages! We love her! The primary presidency did the heart attack for us. 
Who can keep a dollar up with their nose the longest? 
Trey loved keeping score during our card game. 
We love driving by to see friends and family. 
Zoom young womens. 
Our mailbox for friends to leave notes. 
Letters from Carter and Bennett 
We’ve made way too many treats. 
A few things not pictured: Kayli and Beau have mastered the RipStick. They’ve taken a few falls but they love it! We go out front every night. The weather has been fantastic. We love talking to the neighbors from across the street. We spend hours chatting and it’s been so fun to do every night. Trey disappears on us quite a bit. Sometimes I get a text from Mindy or Haley that he is at their house. We usually don’t even know he left. I guess he misses his friends! Or he goes over the wall to hang out with Callie or to see if he can walk her dogs. Lately he wants to water Jessica’s flowers. If Adelle comes out he is right there smiling at her and she gives him and all the kids handfuls of candy. He can’t help stay away from people. He is the biggest lover! Kayli has done so many art projects, research, you name it. We also organized and got rid of tons of stuff. She loves helping with that. She rearranged her room too and has it so cute. She has really thrived being home and having lots of time to do things. She is always coming up with fun things for her and the kids too too. She’s especially good about doing fun things with Sami. She loves dressing her and Sami in the same clothes! The kids like emailing family, mailing letters to aunts and cousins and sending Marco Polos. Sami loves playing barbies. And! She’s potty trained! Kenny and Kayli potty trained her the first week of quarantine/when I was down after surgery so I had nothing to do with it! She earned a barbie she was so excited about!
Celebrating being potty trained and walking without crutches! 
We had a great Easter even though we couldn’t do our fun traditions with family and friends. We colored eggs and made our own Easter dinner. It was fun to do our own thing this year. Grandma and Grandpa Eliason and Taylor hid eggs in the backyard late one night for the kids to find the next morning. They loved that! Some were hard to find! Then the next night Grandma and Grandpa England came over. Mom was going to secretly hide eggs in the front yard but when she got here we were all out! We got her a chair and all sat 6 feet away on the driveway. We ordered Cafe Rio and checked out their new car. It was fun to see them since we had only seen them once when we drove by in the past few weeks. The kids loved Easter morning and we tried to really focus on the Savior and reason for Easter.
On Taylor’s birthday we did a drive-in movie at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. It was cold and windy but so fun! Can’t wait to do it again in the summer!
Chase’s birthday was last weekend. He wanted to do a long jeep run. We figured we could do that since we’d all be in cars. We went out past Boulder City and jeeped for hours until we got to the Colorado River! Once we got to the water though we got out and couldn’t keep kids away from each other. It’s getting harder to stay away from people the longer this goes on. On our way home we went to the cemetery to visit Grandpa Taylor. We ended up being gone 9 hours jeeping!
Homeschool has been going pretty good for us. The first few weeks were rough just because I couldn’t move around good so I’d just have to yell for the kids to come to me so sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t.
Kayli has been awesome. She signs on to her Google Classroom account every day, prints out her schedule, and gets right to work. She gets on her video chats with her class without me telling her to and she completes all here work and does her best work. I’ve liked watching her work on assignments and seeing what she does really well and where I can help her. She also likes to do extra assignments that she finds. For example, she is reading a book with the school librarian for book club that they didn’t get to start during school. She found a huge book report thing online that she asked if she could do while she read the book. Haha! Kenny brought home all of his extra work computers so he could set the kids up with their own little classrooms. She has loved working, organizing her classroom and having her own computer set up. She is so helpful with her younger siblings and comes up with really fun things for them to do. I can count on her to do a good job with anything I ask of her. She really misses her teacher and being at school but I really love having her here. She is also funny and a fun kid to be around. I feel like she is my little BFF!
Beau isn’t quite as motivated to do his work. He would rather learn new Dude Perfect tricks or shop on amazon for RC cars. If I can get him to focus and do his work then he does a great job-especially with math. He can do so much of his math in his head! He earned some money doing yard work too and bought an XBox game he is learning. He is looking too grown up. His two big front teeth have come in and he’s missing the two on the sides of those so he just has these huge looking teeth that make him look so old! I really, really miss watching him play sports. He would have been playing football right now with so many buddies. He is so fun to watch but soon enough he’ll be back at it I’m sure! He’s also missing watching his Golden Knights play!
Trey also likes doing his preschool work and it’s been fun to sit with him and do work too. I didn’t realize how much he has learned in preschool. He is starting to sound out words and it’s fun for him! Mrs. Kim sets out their preschool lessons and work for the week and we go grab it on Mondays and then he loves to come home and do it all right away! He misses his preschool friends though! We’ve had a few virtual speech lessons with his teacher. He did great for a few minutes until he started yelling “speech is boring!” over and over! He is quite the neighborhood friendly guy. If he sees someone come home he rides down to say hi. We have to remind him to give people their space! He also says when he marries Avery they will have a three story house in Las Vegas. He misses his buddies too.
Sami also likes to get in on the “homework”. She has a little coloring book that we call her schoolwork. So she’ll go grab that when she wants to work too. She’s also into everything and ruining everything! She has taken a marker to so many things but with three older siblings home all day and getting stuff out she gets into it too! She is a pretty funny little girl. She is silly and always does things to make us laugh. She’ll just act goofy or talk in a funny voice. The other day she took my face in her hands and told me that I was the cutest girl ever again! Then she took me and Kayli in her arms and said you are the cutest friends ever again. She is not shy at all either. Like Trey, she yells hi to anyone she sees. She’ll watch over the wall from the trampoline and yell hi to all of the neighbors-and she knows all of their names. She misses playing with her bestie Paige so much. She draws her pictures and loves to go deliver them to her. She loves playing barbies and has a cute little imagination. She also has the biggest smile and the squeakiest, cutest voice.
Kenny has been working from the “cloffice” haha. He set up our closet to be his office. He has like 5 computers, a fan and a makeshift desk in there. He hides away in there to get work done. It’s pretty funny when we are on video calls-everyone asks, “are you in the closet?” They mean the “cloffice”! Sometimes the kids get in there and he’ll set them up with a movie for a little bit.
Kayli’s classroom. 
The first day of homeschool Kayli wrote a report and sent it to her teacher. 
Beau’s classroom. 
Online speech with his teacher! 
A few more pictures…
Usually have a couple kids on me while I help a couple more do school work. Haha. 
Our April Fools joke for the kids. 
Gets herself dressed a lot. Those are my Christmas socks. Haha. 
Getting himself ready to do home church. 
TREY CUT KAYLI’S HAIR! 
Pepperoni and markers on the face. Why not?! 
Someone thought it was funny to teach Sami to call people a meanie butt butt.
We are good. I have loved having the kids home with nowhere to be. I love all of the family time. I miss some things but from all of this I have realized how much I really love being with my family! I hope that when things do go back to normal that we remember how much we love family time and we choose to spend our time wisely! I have enjoyed sitting out on the driveway at nights and not feeling like we should be somewhere else. I have loved staying up late and letting the kids play and then sleeping in! It has been neat to do church at home (but I am definitely missing church-can’t wait until we can get back!) I am sad that my kids won’t get to see their teachers anymore-we’ve had great teachers! We will miss them! We do miss seeing people we love but we do drive by’s or get creative! I feel bad when I hear people are hating this-because I am kind of loving it.
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