November

November was the month the world COVID-19 pandemic finally hit home. 

November sunsets.

Jenna was able to sing with Rhapsody for the first time without a mask at their fall concert at the beginning of November.  Parents had to get tickets and sit in assigned seating that was socially distanced, but they let the kids sing without a mask as long as they switched positions after every song so they weren't next to he same students the entire time.

Korinne also participated in choir during the first trimester.

The next night parents put on a Sadie Hawkins dance since the high school wasn't going to let the students have a dance because of COVID-19.  Jenna decided not to participate or ask anyone to the dance and it ended up being a very wise decision.  The day after the dance Jenna developed a sore throat and body aches which are very typical COVID symptoms.  She felt better by the next day but she went in to be tested on Monday morning because she carpools to ballroom in Layton with her friend Kelli who is considered high risk because of some condition she has. Jenna felt like she really needed to know if it was COVID or not to protect Kelli.  She felt fine and the rest of us felt fine so we were a little surprised when her results were positive.  The state of Utah had a huge surge of cases that week and the Governor had already asked for everything to be shut down again for 2 weeks so I told Jenna that if anyone in our family was going to get it that this was the perfect time! 😜😜 We didn't have to worry about any outside activities and she wasn't going to have any ballroom classes that week anyway. We kept the rest of the kids home from school and quarantined just like we had in the spring. We all felt perfectly fine but we knew the drill.  While we didn't test anyone else in the family, there is a good change that at least some of us had it without having any symptoms because we didn't take any precautions and lived with Jenna just like normal.  We weren't alone in our COVID quarantine because pretty much all of our neighbors had COVID during the month of November. A few of them felt really sick, however, so we were grateful that our COVID experience was a lot less painful. Jenna was fine to return to school 5 days after her first symptoms appeared, but she wasn't back very long before the entire school moved online for 2 weeks because they had too many COVID cases to remain open. Fortunately the elementary school remained open so the boys were able to return without any problems.

Korinne enjoys Interior Design so for her birthday she wanted to have a room makeover. Her room was previously Britton's, but she moved in pretty much the day after he left for his mission.  We then moved Jameson into her old room so that all of the kids could have their own room.  

She informed us that white walls were a must and would really open up the space. 😁

Fortunately, we were out of quarantine when her birthday arrived so Jenna, Korinne and I all went our for manicures to celebrate.

Happy 15th Birthday Korinne!

Yup, that's a learners permit. We were glad that someone had given us the heads up a few months earlier that you need to make an appt at the DMV because of COVID and they were 2 months out.  We were able to make an appt for right after her birthday.  

We decided not to travel for Thanksgiving because of the surge in COVID cases statewide. They were asking (begging) everyone to just stay home and not gather in large groups so my parents didn't go to Blackfoot either.  We had a quiet Thanksgiving at home with Grandma and Grandpa P and while it wasn't a normal Thanksgiving, the food was still delicious!

We joked that in the family Thanksgiving "divorce" we still had custody of Adam's famous dinner rolls and that was all that mattered. Ha!

Jameson started basketball in November with Adam as the coach. 

 I was glad that they still allowed the kids to play sports even with all of the pandemic madness.