Maternity Photos (Sunday, April 5th, 2020)

Amidst all of the chaos that we have in the world right now, there is a beautiful light shining, with so much hope, and so much to be thankful for every day.  Steve and I have a Thankful list that is never ending, and at the top of it is the healthiness of all of our family members!  

I just wanted to share a sneak peak of our new grand baby!

  
OK, he's a little bit shy, but he's scheduled to make his debut in mid-June!

When you can't call a photographer to take your maternity photos, recruit someone even more talented!  Your own Husband!  Congratulations on one of the best maternity photo shoots I've ever seen!

Puzzle One (Sunday, April 5th, 2020)

Our sister-in-law was kind enough to leave out a puzzle when they headed back home to Colorado, so I have taken advantage of the opportunity, and worked on the puzzle in the evenings.  I have finished my first one, and will have to get another one started.

Thanks Cyndi!  This has been a great pass-time!

Corona Virus Week 3 for Us (Saturday, April 4th, 2020)

It's amazing to me how things are changing week to week as we continue to quarantine from the Corona Virus and watch the news for updates. 

In the U.S. we now have 310,000 reported cases and 8,400 deaths from the virus.  On March 25th, there were 64,000 cases and 900 people had died.  That is exactly 2 weeks ago.  Lake Havasu had our first death from the virus today. Such sad statistics, and so hard to comprehend.  They keep telling everyone to stay home, to flatten the curve, spreading out the infections so that hospitals can handle everyone who needs care.  Unfortunately, our curve is not flat at all.  Everyone, please just do your part and stay home!

A couple of days ago, Arizona's Governor Doug Ducey held a town hall meeting, where he discussed what he is doing for our state.  At that point, he was still considering hair salons, nail salons and tattoo shops as essential businesses in Arizona.  Apparently, he has taken a lot of criticism for that, so as of 5:00 tonight, all of those businesses will have to close.  

Golf courses are still considered essential, which I also think is crazy.  They have taken a lot of measures to keep golfers from touching coolers, water jugs, ball washers, flags, etc.  But I still don't understand how they are considered essential!   Most of our friends are still playing, and really enjoying their time on the course, but I bet if we asked them, they would agree that this is not an essential business. 

New York, Illinois, Washington and Louisiana seem to be the hardest hit states at this point.  We aren't hearing as much about California any more, although they are still under stay at home orders, as is 3/4 of the U.S.  New York is definitely the epicenter of the outbreak.  They have set up make-shift tent hospitals in Central Park, and the U.S.S Comfort military medical facility now sits in the harbor outside of Manhattan to help with the over crowded hospitals.  The images coming out of New York are heart breaking.

They have officially closed the channel to boats here in Havasu, but visitors still keep flocking to our little town.  All of the rental houses and vacation homes are full every weekend, with music playing and gatherings in the streets.  We've started just avoiding people all together because if we yell "Hi", they all walk over to us and start talking, and we have to back away and explain that we aren't doing that.  It's awkward to say the least, especially because we all should be keeping our distance and it shouldn't be an issue.

We watch a lot of bloggers from other countries, and they get it.  The streets are completely empty and people are taking this virus very seriously.  Here, things have definitely slowed down during the week, but the weekends still feel like life as usual.  Our mayor did put out an official recommendation for all visitors to stay home, to keep their germs away from Lake Havasu City, and to take the virus seriously, but so far that's not happening yet.  They are talking about completely closing the lake to try and keep visitors away.  After seeing the explosion of the virus in New Orleans after Mardi gras, it has definitely become more real.

We're hiking less than we were because of allergy season.  The pollen is intense and keeping us at home as I am trying to keep my lungs clear.  So we have now set up a stationary bike and a make-shift aerobics studio to help us get the wiggles out.  Anything to get us out of our chairs and moving around a little bit!

Cooking (Friday, April 3rd, 2020)

Cooking has become one of my go-to pass-times.  I'm just trying to get a little more creative with the ingredients I have.  It has been three weeks since we have gone grocery shopping, so ingredients are becoming a bit boring.  We're using more frozen vegetables than fresh, and just making do with what we have.

Quiche made with frozen asparagus.

Basic packaged ramen, with adobo pork and a few fresh veggies.

Banana bread!  Score!  Over ripe bananas are the best!

All I can say is "Find your passion and enjoy doing a lot of it!"

"Shopping" at the Storage Shed (Thursday, April 2nd, 2020)

We have been keeping a list of things that are in our storage shed that would be nice to have, and when we get really bored, we head down to the storage shed to try and find the things on our list.  We call this a "shopping trip", since it's as close as we can get to shopping.  Every time we go down there it's an adventure.  We sort of marked our boxes when we packed up the house, but not realizing that we were going to be living in a motor home in a pandemic, we didn't mark them nearly as well as we should have.  But part of the fun of our trips down is going through boxes, and then marking them for the next time.  It's kind of sad when you consider that entertainment!

But we just keep getting more and more stuff to try and ease the monotony of life in our motor home, without the ability to move around or really go exploring.  

I have been thinking about people that have made full-time RVing their life.  Many of the state and national parks are now shut down, leaving them nowhere to go but a private campground or RV park.  Living in close quarters, without the ability to talk or interact with your neighbors, would feel a little strange.

Nature Walk (Wednesday, April 1st, 2020)

Today's "creative"  activities were push-ups, sit-ups, and an adventure walk in the empty lots across from Steve's brother's house.  I know, sounds pretty boring, but it's actually a great way to get out, enjoy some sunshine, and see nature at it's finest, all while staying away from everyone!  And it's actually a really large lot!

When we got out in the middle of the lot, it was so peaceful.  All we could hear was the birds singing!  It was wonderful! They seemed so happy, but they were probably warning all of their friends that we were invading!

These are some of my favorite desert flowers. 

And to give you some perspective of their size...

But our biggest find of the day was this rather large humming bird.  It was about the size of a sparrow.  Steve's dad (a biologist) thinks that it is a blue-throated humming bird.  He says they are very rare in Arizona, so we were especially excited to get some pictures of him!

And last, but not least, we enjoyed seeing this super resilient palo verde tree.  It just won't give up!

Oh yeah, we also did more motor home maintenance.  We finished waxing it YAY!, and Steve started on wheel shining.  All in all, a great day!

Never Admit You're Bored (Sunday, March 29th, 2020)

Each evening, Steve and I sit out in the yard, enjoying our gorgeous weather, sometimes completely alone, sometimes with friends on FaceTime.  I enjoy it for about an hour, and then I get anxious and feel the need to move.  Tonight, Steve was really into it, and we sat here for almost 3 hours.  At one point, I asked him how he could just sit and do nothing for that long, and he said "I'm pretty proud of myself, I never thought I be able to do this".  So I sat there a little bit longer with him, so he could be proud of himself.  

But by then, I was starting to feel like a slug, and was getting in a bad mood, so I said we needed to go do something.  He got a smile on his face and said, OK, lets go get water.  So we grabbed our two,  two gallon jugs.  But instead of getting in the car, we started walking.  It's about 1.25 miles to the machines where we get our R.O. water and then 1.25 miles back, which isn't far, but I thought, this could get pretty heavy by the time we get home.  But I didn't say a word.  

We filled up our bottles, sanitized our hands and headed back home. 

I had to help Steve out with his water a few times, because he just couldn't handle it. 😜

It was actually really good exercise and made me feel much less like a slug.  OK, I really enjoyed it.  But be careful admitting that you're bored to your husband, you never know what he'll come up with.