Hearts, Flowers, and a Triceratops (Feb 2021)

Of course the first thing you think about in February is . . . Valentine's Day!  Since Kylie is in 5th Grade, this is my last year of having the fun elementary type Valentine's day.  Bitter-sweet.  Kylie made a Minecraft treasure box as her valentine's box.  That girls is obsessed with Minecraft!

And even though Kate is in middle school, she got to make a box of her own in art.  And what did she choose to make? . . . a Triceratops.  Love it!

On Valentine's Day a family in our ward also went around bringing roses to people who's husbands were deployed.  How sweet is that?

February is also a great month to spend time with friends. . . playing games . . . 

. . . cooking . . . 

. . . going shopping and to the beach.

Lise also has a special friend, Jacob.  But we won't call him her boyfriend because if we did she might melt into a puddle of goo.  They have been special friends for a few months though, I will say. 😉

As for me, I also spent some time with friends in February . . . volunteering at the Plew Elementary Library, going to lunch with friends, and having a Galentine's at my house.  Fun times.  I also decided to spoil myself by trying out Stitch Fix.  The goal was to get some modest, cute, cool (breathable) tops to wear in Tampa, where it is going to be even hotter than it is in Niceville! 😲  So far, I am loving it!

Aly at Home MTC (Jan/Feb 2021)

So, Aly started at home MTC on January 20, 2021, which was awesome.  Considering everything going on in the world with COVID and such, the Church put together an amazing at home experience and a great program to prep our missionaries and get them out in the field.  But there were also some challenges and it was also a bit of an adjustment for all of us.  Aly of course had to obey the mission rules.  One interesting thing was the schedule and having to wake up and go to bed at a certain time while also adjusting for being in a different time zone than her instructors.  She also needed a companion at all times when she was not involved in her zoom MTC classes and discussions.  I was the default companion and would ride my bike alongside her while she did her morning run and was home most of the time to meet this need, but often Lise would be her companion when she got home from school so I could go grocery shopping and volunteer at the library. It was a group effort and got a little tricky at times to the point where I had to bring Aly along to Young Women's and stuff.  But we made it work.  

The other issue was figuring out where Aly wanted to do her classes.  Her first choice was outside, naturally, but it could get pretty cold and rainy sometimes and it would get dark at 4:30, which didn't work well.  

She tried the living room while the girls were at school a couple of times, but once again, this didn't work well when her sisters came home from school and wanted to watch a show with a snack or were being loud.

She even tried using the desk in Kate's room for a bit because of how bright it is in there, but she finally settled on the Kid's lounge . . . on the floor.  Hey, whatever works.  In true Covid fashion, Aly also often wore pants under her dress during her zoom meetings.  Nobody could see them, right?!?

During breaks between studying and teaching, Aly and Kylie would watch scripture videos, Aly and Kate would play chess, Aly and Lise would laugh hysterically about who knows what up in Aly's room, and we all had a lot of great time laughing while going through the blog books at dinner.

Aly would get very stir crazy and so we would still take a lot of walks around the Golf Course and even saw the sunset at the beach a couple of times.

This is a random picture of Kate and Kylie's passports coming in while Aly was here.  I think when I picked this picture I thought they were all holding a Book of Mormon. 😅

So, it was a long and short 6 weeks.  Aly worked hard and did her best to learn discussions and study Spanish despite being in a home with 4 other people living their own busy, crazy lives.  It was both sad and exciting to take her to the airport.  I knew no one could ever truly be ready for a mission, but she had prepared and was willing and I couldn't wait to see all the good she would do.  On March 6th we took her to the airport.  One cool thing was that we had a couple of hours to spare at the airport and Aly was able to facetime with Chris a bit before heading out.

I also love having Lise as the resident creepy photo bomber and keeping things light so we didn't get too sad.

Look out Paraguay!  Aly, er, Hermana O'Gwin, is on her way!

Back Together Again - Chris' R&R (Jan 2021)

The most exciting thing that happened in January was that Chris got to come home for2 weeks of R&R!  With COVID restrictions, I didn't know if it was going to happen, so it was an awesome surprise!  (There were also some great tender mercies that we were all healthy, despite multiple exposures to COVID over Christmas break.)

First off, love the roses Chris sent to me before he came back.  Love my awesome guy.  When I picked him up from the airport we did a quick overnight getaway and a late brunch before heading home to have fun as a family.  It was so nice to relax just the two of us for a bit.  

We did a fire as a family - yummy s'mores!  It was nice and chilly outside (aka cool enough for a sweatshirt in Florida) which made it perfect weather for a fire.

One day we took the two younger  girls to Urban Air, this trampoline park with a bunch of other stuff like rock climbing and ziplines.  We all got nice and hot and sweaty.  Fun times.

Chris really liked knocking people into the foam pit.

Even though it was January we had a great time walking on the beach.  Florida isn't so bad in January, right?

Two things we were able to do while Chris was here was to have Lise receive her patriarchal blessing and get Aly set apart as a missionary.  It was great to have Chris here to be a part of that with the girls.

 The whole trip was pretty low-key and relaxing, just like we wanted it.  We did a lot of lunch and dinner dates at all Chris' favorite restaurants, watched some movies, and went out with friends.  It really was great just to hang out and be together.  Of course the time went way too quickly, and it was really hard to send him off for another 6 months, but I'm so glad we got the time together, no matter how short.  Here is a picture Chris sent me from the plane as he was leaving and my response.