#quarantinelife

Things are lightening up a bit here in Utah. Stores are open and although they recommend masks, I still see plenty of people without them. Sometimes that makes me mad. I think it is purely selfish annoyance. I find a mask rather smothering and it makes my face sweat. I would rather not wear one, but I know it is courteous to others to cover my face. It isn't about getting sick...it's about not getting other's sick. So if I can stuff my face in a mask and feel my hot breath condense on my skin, so can you, random citizen.

Enough of my soap box. That isn't what I came to talk about today. Instead, let's talk about what we were up to during quarantine.

First, all church services moved to our homes. In some ways the church has been preparing us for home study for years now. I'm very impressed with their foresight. We transitioned very well. We have an organ player and a worthy priesthood holder. What more do you need?

Our lessons have been insightful and sometimes we meet online with family to discuss gospel topics after church is over. After a few weeks, Young Women's even started back up, all online of course. It was nice for the girls to Zoom and see their peers. They've played lots of games like Pictionary over video.

School was online of course and you could often find the girls studying or doing art.

By art, I mean our summer art, but Robyn still had an art class. She was given an assignment to do a piece from 6 feet away. (Where did they come up with that idea?) She stood on a chair and drew in flour. It was pretty cool.

We had some home haircuts. I cut Tyler's hair. And Robyn cut mine. (Not at the same time.) My favorite line at the end was, "Mom, I think I gave you some accidental layers." Those are my favorite kind of layers.

We made treats. We actually make treats all the time, so I'm not sure that counts in our quarantine post, but these ones were fun because we put eyeballs on them. Eyeballs are fun to look at but not as much fun to eat.

We did a lot more walking during quarantine. How about you? We did more walks in the last two months than in the last two years. Most were in the neighborhood, but sometimes we grabbed water bottles and went farther.

A friend made us face masks. Not everyone has needed one. Usually I do all the shopping by myself to cut down on unnecessary risk and exposure. But we do have enough for everyone.

Boredom is always a part of quarantine. Luckily, there is always the weird selfies when there is nothing else to do. (Props if you can tell which kids are in this picture.)

Robyn and I did a lot of driving. She needed to practice to get her license and for a while, gas was really cheap and the roads were pretty empty. It was the perfect storm for those with a learner's permit.

The hammocks came back out as the weather got nice. The girls spend a lot of time out there. I took this picture, because it looked like someone scalped Ivory and left her hair out there.

Probably the best thing about quarantine is family time. We have had tons of meals together and we have played so many games. Sure, the girls get sick of each other now and then, but in general, I couldn't have picked a better group to get stuck with for a couple months.

Art Theme: Science

As usual, I was blown away by all the fun ideas people came up with for the theme Science. Some people made art to show science and other people used science to create art. All acceptable. And cool.

Let's jump right in. It is easier for me to put our family's art first because they are all in a folder in order, so just get used to seeing our stuff first. It doesn't mean ours is better, because I often find my favorite piece outside of our art. (This week my two favorites were from other families.)

First up, my Mom's. She used black and white clip art and colored it in. So much going on and such fun to look at.

Creating the Uncurable Virus by Megan

Tyler was going to take a picture of the stars moving,  but the camera shutter wouldn't stay open longer than 30 seconds. So you get a cool picture of the big dipper.

Ursa Major in May by Tyler

Curious Cats by Pearl

Science by Pearl

Glamour Lab by Maleen

MAGnificANT by Pearl

Yoga Genes by Daisy

The Table Tubes by Ivory

I used science for my next piece. I boiled red cabbage and soaked my paper in the purple liquid. It turned it into ph testing paper. Then I tried different liquids to see what color reaction they would have.

After checking colors, I used several solutions to paint my art. I loved how it turned out.

I'm Just a Chemical by Maleen

Cup of Galaxy by June

Stick by Robyn

Pre Big Bang by Robyn

Ivory and June also tried an experiment to create art. Using cold liquid poured over ice, it was supposed to build towers. It didn't work quite like they wanted, but still a cool (literally) result.

The Science Demo by June and Ivory

The Francis' came up with some great stuff this week. Do you recognize anyone?

Purrah by Maya

Jane Goodall by Lilly

This is my favorite. I love all the details about the planets put into people. Great job Addison!

Planet Personification by Addison

Rebecca did a fun depiction of an actual sketch you would find in a scientist's notebook. Clever and beautiful.

The Botanist's Notebook (detail) by Rebecca

The Botanist's Notebook by Rebecca

Tricia and her kids used a lot of science to create their art. From ice and salt to diffused colors to homemade lava lamps and leaf rubbings, I love it all.

Glowing Lights by Annalise

Planet Neserious by Annalise

Aaahhh! Colors by Camille

Butterflies in Garden by Camille

Cauldron Bubble by Tricia

Leaf Relief by Tricia

The Hulse's did one better. They went and spent the week in Yellowstone and enjoyed all the science mother nature has to offer. They took a week off making art, but probably had a more relaxing week than the rest of us. We missed seeing their creativity, but there is always next week.

In fact, next week is Jonny's theme. It is a doozy. He chose Dante's Inferno. I really have no clue what I'm going to do, let alone what might be submitted. Should be interesting.

Broken Barriers Symposium

National History Day is easily one of my favorite days to hate. I think the idea is cool, but I don't like how it takes up so much of Ivory's ENGLISH class. They don't study that much ENGLISH because they are busy writing papers for History. And yes...I get it. Doing research and writing is part of ENGLISH, but I still think there is too much focus on this one project. If you want more details about how it all works, you can look back at last year's post about Ivory's Susan B. Anthony project.

In the meantime, things were not how they should have been because Covid hit just a week or so before NHD day. That meant no large competition in person. But everything could still be sent in by video and many things like websites would be viewed online anyway. It mostly meant no interviews and I don't really know how much that accounts for in the scoring process.

To Ivory it meant they bumped up her day to perform by a week. Instead of waiting until the actual day, they wanted all performances early so they could judge them and get results back on the now extinct history day. Ivory was not happy about it. She had to not only write the script, but memorize it as well. She buckled down and did a great job. She had too much information in her performance and her performance was running past the designated 10 minute timeline, but she worked out the bugs and got it down to almost ten minutes exactly.

Because of Covid, we were also limited to where we could go to perform. I had some ideas previously, but everything was on serious lockdown by that time, so we used our lovely living room. Tyler created a backdrop to go on the TV behind her and we made do. When in Rome...

Ivory did a great job. She only took two takes which is amazing in my opinion. Spoiler: She didn't move on, but I'm really fine with that. And since everything was done online, it didn't have the same feel for the winners I'm assuming. (I don't know, maybe winning virtually is just as good.) Here are some pictures Robyn took while Ivory was performing.

Here is her presentation if you'd like to watch. It is very interesting. Her project was on Pompeii. It was a tricky topic to begin with since there aren't many first person sources about the account. Most people involved, died. Ivory still found a lot of interesting facts and I think you might enjoy listening.

Once again, I'm super excited NHD is done. And if I can keep my kids out of the advanced program, this might be the very last one for us. That's something to smile about. :)