Long month

 July has both been so long and yet absolutely flew by. We've done really very little since the 11th, when we started getting sick and began staying home. And this week we are finally rounding out the quarantine for my whole crew. Huzzah! What a month! We don't know yet, but are pretty sure we got the Delta variant and holy cow, so contagious! All of us got it. It was a wild ride. Thankfully no one got anything but what would be considered a mild case, but man, mild or not it still knocked us out for days on end and took a LONG time to feel normal again. I personally felt really all the classic symptoms. Muscle aches, fever, cough, migraines, lost my taste and smell for a few days, fatigue. The works. I occasionally felt like I wanted to take an extra deep breath. But with my particular complicated health history, I was very concerned that it would be worse if I got Covid. I never expected to get it after being vaccinated, but am very grateful that it provided some level of protection from the worst variety of symptoms. And I'm ever so grateful that come Wednesday all of my crew is officially out of quarantine. Since Aaron never got any Covid symptoms, we had to have him quarantine for ten days from his positive test since we didn't know when he actually got it, so we've actually been quarantining for 18 days when all is said and done. That is a long time! It's going to be wonderful to finally be past it. 

One thing we were able to do is go check out the progress on our house a couple days ago. It's coming along very nicely! Drywall is done and it's even been textured. So exciting! I have hopes that in three weeks when school starts we'll have seen tons more progress because it's probably going to be a 25-30 minute drive every day three times a day to drop off and pick up my kids until our house is done and we can move in. Hoping move in will be earlier as opposed to later in September. It's not actually that far away, but with traffic, it will add plenty of time. 

And last but not least, after my quarantine ended I finally was able to go get my hair cut! I have been contemplating cutting it pixie length again for a while. I get headaches when I pull it back in any way, so it's just not really worth it to have it that long. I do like it about chin length, but I got so tired of it during our quarantine that I made the leap and got it cut a few days ago. I love it! 

And I also finally was able to pick up my new computer glasses. I have noticed my eyes have been extremely fatigued of late and especially when I'm working on my computer. Yet I still have near perfect vision. I got LASIK 14 years ago and it has held fabulously well all these years. Well before I got Covid I scheduled my first eye appointment in many years and found out that one of my eyes is a tad farsighted, the other is a tad nearsighted, and I have a bit of an astigmatism. No wonder the headaches and fatigue! They were fighting with each other to focus. So I ordered glasses and sure enough, got the call they were ready like two days into quarantine. So the day after my quarantine ended you better believe I was in my doctor's office picking up my new glasses. I think they're super cute! Wish I didn't have to need them, but I only wear them when I'm using my computer, which happens to be a lot of hours a day, but I don't feel like they're necessary otherwise. Hopefully it stays that way. They are helping. Lots less eye fatigue and here's hoping after I get over the bit of dizziness that wearing them causes s I get used to the opposite prescription in each eye, that the headaches will go away for good. They are a lot better.  

That time we got Covid

 On July 4th we had a lovely family bbq at my grandma's house. Pretty standard fare.  Dinner and socializing. My brother and cousin and her daughter were in town, so that was super fun. The following Thursday night Spencer came down with a head cold. He was only sick for maybe 36 hours. That's pretty normal for him. He doesn't get sick often and when he does, it's not for very long. I wish my immune system worked that well. Friday morning my sister tells me her daughter had gotten a positive Covid test. That was surprising. The Covid numbers in Utah have been quite low for a while and I just kind of assumed we were past it. Along comes Sunday and Bill wakes up early shivering, with a fever. He stays home from church and we keep Spencer home just as a precaution even though he's been well already for a day. But the rest of us go. After I get home from church I have just a tiny little cough start. It's not uncommon for me to cough here in Utah. We've lived here for just about a year now but my body is still used to more humid climes and the dryness gets to me regularly still. Dinner was a bit of an intense affair, and I wanted some positive endorphins, so I went on my FiA Walk that night. There were only three of us there and it appears I didn't pass anything along to them, thank heavens! But after that I came home and went to bed and Monday morning woke up feeling like I'd been beat up. Every muscle hurt. I have a few chronic pain issues and it felt like everything had been amplified times ten. So my hip hurt and my hamstring and my lower back and I had a fat headache and my neck felt like it was breaking and my knees were horribly achy. My feet hurt. I honestly wondered if the chiropractic care I've been under for a couple weeks had broken me. I actually didn't have a fever at this point. Bill did though, poor guy. He actually slept for five and a half hours on Sunday afternoon. That was crazy. 

So we muddled through Monday and Tuesday feeling about like this. I did develop a fever at some point and just felt so horribly achy for two days.

Oh, and to backtrack, I didn't just wake up Monday morning. I was awoken at 4:30 by Genevieve. She had thrown up on her floor and she was really out of it. She seemed normal at first but as I interacted with her, her emotions were pretty whacky. She ended up sleeping on the recliner in the downstairs TV room and wanted me to sleep with her, so I slept for a few hours on the couch next to her. Turns out I was kind of out of it too and woke up really off. 

So Bill and Genevieve and I kind of proceeded along just feeling sick. I'm not sure why but it didn't really cross my mind that we had Covid even knowing my niece had tested positive. Maybe because Spencer had that head cold and it went away so fast. We did stay home and Bill and I tried to stay a bit less in contact with family that happened to be in town, but aside from that we just sort of waited to get better. 

But then it lasted and lasted and I started to wonder. Plus it was a weird cold. Like we had the fever and aches and chills but then Bill and Genevieve also had some stomach issues. Then we all got this cough. I had a constant headache. It just felt like a combination of a few different types of normal colds all mashed together. So Wednesday I decided to go get tested. I signed up for a test at the closest Walmart and it was supposed to be in the pharmacy drive through, but that was closed. So I had to go find a mask in my van and actually go in the store to get the test. Then I went back outside and walked up to the pharmacy drive through. Very odd and not helpful to be in the store when I'm wondering if I have Covid. I got the test and waited and waited. Then my sister and brother in law decided to get their crew all tested, so I decided Bill and Genevieve should get tested and realized they could get a rapid test nearby. So Thursday they go and get tested and Genevieve gets a positive test and Bill a negative, which really threw us off. But that triggered family that was visiting to get tested and one of them had a positive test. 

So we're all sitting around waiting for my test results. They finally arrived Thursday about 5:30 and I had tested positive for Covid. Which is sort of crazy because I've been vaccinated and up until then I hadn't heard of anyone really getting it vaccinated. Well, now that I have everyone has come out of the woodwork and I know of quite a few people who have gotten it despite being vaccinated. Bill hadn't been vaccinated yet. He had some concerns about the vaccine and was waiting for the full approval as opposed to the emergency use one, so we have a perfect little unwanted experiment of what it's like to have Covid when vaccinated or not vaccinated. I wouldn't recommend it either way, but after being sick for nine days so far, I am probably 95 percent better. Genevieve and Bill less so. They still have the cough. It's not a horrible cough where it hurts your throat, but it is so persistent. It won't seem to just go away already and it makes you cough all the time. It's super annoying. I still have just a touch of of but they have it much worse. Our quarantine is over tomorrow, but we may still not be going anywhere depending on this cough. It's super lame. 

Spencer, Aaron, and Chloe we got tested on Thursday too and they all came up negative. We actually have a family reunion this week that we'd love to attend, but won't unless we're all clear. I'm getting the three tested again this morning. They haven't really been sick, which is sort of miraculous to me. 

We've been isolating ourselves quite a bit more extensively since our positive test results, somewhat to no avail. It's passed around our household to several members. It's crazy to me how contagious this Delta strain is. Before it came to the U.S. all the wisdom was saying if you got vaccinated you were good. I don't feel so good on that point anymore. Thankfully we were never really in any danger of going to the hospital. Bill did have a lower oxygen level for a bit, but it didn't go anywhere, thankfully. I'm grateful we got hit no worse than we did but this thing is a beast. I'm still super grateful to have been vaccinated before getting it. My case was way less intense than Bill's. That was a huge worry for me before the vaccine came out because my health has been less resilient the last few years and I worried I'd get it bad. I credit being vaccinated for getting it less horribly, but it was still pretty awful for three or four days and even today, on day nine, I'm not completely better. 

We'll see if my other kids avoided it or if they just got a lighter case. Aaron seems to have an iron immune system so far. He hasn't even had a cough, but we'll see about those test results. 

I still wonder where we got it. I originally thought from my niece but the timeline makes me wonder if it was the opposite. Or perhaps somewhere different. Or maybe we both got exposed on the third of July when we went to the pool together. Who knows. We won't ever know since there's no way to track anymore, but man, we got hit so hard and at my sister's house only my niece got it. And my grandma and cousin and her daughter and everyone at our BBQ, none of them got it. Covid is just weird and crazy and I'll be so glad years from now when we look back and hopefully it has gone away at some point. 

Happy birthday, Aaron!

We went to the splash pad with my sister in law and nieces. Always a good time. 

Bill and I ran the South Jordan Glow Run. It was a night run that started at 11PM. Sort of crazy for us, but super fun.  I got first place in my age division, which is also very fun! 

And Saturday was Aaron's birthday and we had a grand old time celebrating him. We took him to the museum of Natural Curiosity and he got to have tons of tasty meals and to pick his own movie to watch at night. Low key but fun. 

Hiking, glorious hiking

We went to a fundraiser for some friends and the kids got to eat cotton candy and snow cones and ride horses. It was super fun. 

We did two hikes over Fourth of July weekend. They were both lovely. The first was Albion Basin to Lakes Catherine, Martha, and Mary. It was six miles of breathtaking mountain meadows and wildflowers and beautiful views. 1400+ feet of elevation gain. We went with three other families that are from our workout groups, FiA and F3. It was glorious. 

Monday we hiked to Diamond Fork Hot Springs or also known as Five Springs Hot Springs or something similar to that. It's up Spanish Fork Canyon and Bill and I have both hiked there multiple times, but it's really just a delightful hike. A bit hot this go around on both the hike and the water was way too hot at the upper springs to get into with the outside temps about 90. But we found a slightly cooler pool further down and had a good time soaking. I continue to be so pleased with what great hikers I have. We've been building their hiking skills and endurance for years and years and seeing the fruits of that in an enjoyable and more lengthy hike is really, really nice. This one ended up being 4.5 miles.