Ethiopia Reunion

My Dad's family was part of a pioneering group of people to set up college education and modern medicine practices in Ethiopia from about 1964-1974 when communism took over.  A lot of the work that these families did remain as a base that would be built on 20 years later in the mid 90s. During the time with communism, the college was shut down, the hospitals barely ran, there were droughts and famine bad enough to catch the attention of the entire world.  The church did it's first world wide fast and used the money to set up a dam in Ethiopia.  This started what we know of the Humanitarian Center of the church.  My Uncle ran into another lady that had grown up with him in Ethiopia and got her in contact with my Dad (Who had been saying that they needed a reunion for a long time).  Together, my Dad and Marcia, put together a reunion of the families that served out there during these times.  Alot of the parents have already died, but the kids that grew there loved seeing each other again.  Covid struck and my parents couldn't come to the reunion, but I took pictures and videos for them.

The group was not able to teach the gospel while there, but they organized the first Ethiopia church branch in their homes.  30 years later, the first convert to the church in the area helped church members take a trip to Ghana to get their endowments out for the first time.  Now in 2020, the church organized a Addis Abba, Ethiopia mission for the first time.  What a neat heritage to remember.

My Uncle Chris with his friend age group.  Harold (dark blue shirt) is actually married to the administrator at my kid's school.  We put together that we had that common connection a couple years ago when I was the Parent Organization President.

Someone brought a yearbook that had Kindergarten through High school ages.

Everyone at the reunion.

Just those that lived in Ethiopia.

We took pictures of family groups as well. 

Each person/group was offered a chance to give memories or ask questions.  I loved hearing the perspective of the whole group when I've grown up hearing my Dad and Grandparents talk about many of these things.

Jer, the best cinematographer.  I hurt my shoulder about a week before, and on Saturday morning I couldn't move it.  Jer got me to the doctor and on a muscle relaxer.  Then he drove me and did the filming at the reunion so that I could take pictures.

My Dad and Mom put together a book from a lot of the pictures that people uploaded onto a shared google drive.  Some were very familiar to me because I had scanned and cleaned them up myself.  Others I had never seen and it was so fun to see a peek of my family from a friend's perspective.

My Grandma playing with the kids on the swing set.

My family getting off the plane for the first time in Addis Abba

A picnic in Sodara (not quite sure on the spelling).  I love that my Grandma is relaxed.  In pictures she was never this relaxed, but here she has her arm around my Daddy and it's now my favorite picture of the two of them.

My Uncle Chris was commenting that he was probably mad that they told him to stop playing and come get a picture.... 

Aftermath

 This week has been crazy.  We got home Sunday from our trip, put things away and got the house ready for daycare.  Started daycare Monday, visited with Jim, Judy, James(who's in town), Amy and some of the Hansen family, got sick Friday morning, Ada and I were diagnosed with Covid, shut down the daycare for the weekend, found a substitute for our musical number on Sunday, called everyone to let them know they were exposed to covid and found out that two of my daycare kids had also just gotten sick with strep and hand foot and mouth.  It's been quite the week.  We were registered to run the temple to temple run, but hung out at our house instead.  By Saturday/Sunday the rest of the family were all starting to show symptoms.  So far my helper, Beth, and one of the daycare kids have come down with covid.  Hopefully that's as far as it goes.  It's possible that we gave it to the Hansens and Grandparents, but we're praying that if we did.... it goes well.  I'm supposed to open the daycare Wed again, so tomorrow is sanitize the house and toys day.  The rest of my family is supposed to get out of quarantine Thursday, so they'll stay upstairs while my daycare is down.  My daycare partner is in Ecuador right now otherwise I'd have her take them for the rest of the week. Oh well. 

This is our second time with Covid.  This time it took about 3 really sick days and 2 kind of bleh days.  Ada and I have lost our sense of smell, but I prefer that to the tingly/itchy skin I had last time.

Another round

 I just finished up another week of daycare.  It was nice to be done, but a half hour after my last kid left, my partner calls and tells me that her son has covid... So, I will be doing daycare next week and maybe the week after that as well.  The problem is that we had gotten over our numbers right about Christmas time, and we've been having to split the daycare up.  The person that's supposed to be working takes the early morning kids... 8 of them... and the person that was supposed to be off for the week takes the other 6-7 kids.  It means less time off, but we have 3 of them leaving in Feb and 4 of them starting school in the fall, so we should be within our limits soon without having to tell any parents to find other care for their kids. But for now, that means that I will keep the 8 that I had this week and the 6 that she had through the week need to find alternate care until we know that they aren't going to come down with covid too.  I was telling Jer that something that this pandemic has helped me with is being flexible and being able to change plans easily when needed. Just another example of plans and temporary plans.

As a side note, Jer was just called to be the Stake Technology Specialist... two days before Stake Conference.  He went and did it, and the person that trained him turned out to test positive for Covid on Tuesday.  Either it was too early to get Jer sick or Jer's mask helped, or Jer is asymptomatic.  He got tested this morning, but because of the sheer number of people with Covid right now, he won't get his results for a couple of days.  Here's to hoping.  One way or another, we'll be okay.  There were so many cases at the school that they chose to do online learning Friday through Tuesday of this next week and cut down on cases.  

Ada's best friend Hannah left today too.  I'm sad that Ada's lost yet another friend, but I'm so glad for the positive help that will come from the move.  Ada's been such a great friend and I'm proud of how she's handled such adult situations. Hannah's mom has been having delusions since Sept and Hannah has been trying so hard to get mental health help for her.  She's refused and we've come really close to being able to have her here in our home, but DCFS said that she was being provided for in her home and they couldn't help her.  We've helped her with calling the police and LOTS of days hanging out at our house.  FINALLY, they sold their home and now they are technically homeless. (They moved out today and checked into a hotel.) DCFS was able to come and take Hannah and the police took her mom into custody to go to the mental hospital down in Provo.  All because she was now "homeless".  Hannah texted me with such joy!  I'm so glad that her mom will finally get the help she needs and deserves (mother of 7 who lost her husband 4 years ago). I'm also glad that Hannah will finally feel safe and not have to sleep with her shoes on and her bag packed.  She's currently with her brother that's a student, but she can't stay long term. The hope is that her brother in Japan can take it to court and get legal guardianship over her while her mom is getting better.  Hannah's 15, so she might be over the age of 18 by the time her mom is stable again.  I'm sad to lose such a sweet neighbor, but I'm so happy for her.

Final weird tangent for tonight.  You can tell that our health system and labor force are strained right now.  One of my daycare mom's is the supervisor of the CNA's at a nursing home.  She has 15 staff out right now.  All of the stores and restaurants in our neighborhood have 'we're hiring' signs.  One of the ladies who used to be my Young Women came home for the 2 week break from college and immediately was hired even though she'd only be around for 2 weeks.  I got a sinus infection from that cold in December.  I knew it was a sinus infection because I get them often.  I tried treating it from home because I wanted to avoid the doctors.  I finally went into the insta-care (it was a weekend) and the doctor wouldn't believe me.  Even after I had two negative covid tests, he still wouldn't give me antibiotics.  I called my Primary care doctor's after hours line to see if they could do anything.... 3 calls in 6 hours and no answer from the doctor.  On Monday I called into the main office twice.  All I got was a text saying that my prescription was denied.  I was really confused because I wasn't asking for a prescription.... I was trying to ask what to do next.  I called one more time on Tuesday and didn't hear back from them until Wed night.  Yeah, you can tell that they are short staffed and super busy.  I think it's the same everywhere for the next few weeks through this Omicron spike.

Sam's Christmas Concert

 

Sam has made some real progress in just a couple of months.  He LOVES playing the flute and I love hearing him do something new.

Monday

 

Monday was Sam's 7th grade day.  They have only the 7th graders so that they can explore the school, meet teachers, and experiment with lockers.  Sam was really grumpy (as he is with most new things), but when I asked about each thing he could tell me something he liked about it.  He loves the library, loves the options for lunch but is non plussed about how they actually taste (he threw away two lunches and was trying for a third before someone caught on and told him he's only allowed one lunch per day), he has several boys from our neighborhood in his classes, and he likes band and math.  The bus comes VERY early in the morning though.  Apparently the district is in need of 50 new bus drivers, so each bus driver that they have has to drive 2 separate routes.  I sure hope they're getting paid double as well. I have a friend that is so angry right now.  She's a single mother and wants to take her kids to two different schools for different programs.  Every school has something she doesn't like, but now she's saying that Utah schools are not set up for having single parents.  She's made that there isn't before and after care so that she can work. But every job has something wrong too.  It makes me wonder how much is Utah's system and how much is her own discontent over her personal situation.  She could be a bus driver, a lunch lady if she's worried about hours, a reading interventionist, part time somewhere while her kids are in full time school... It does say something about opportunity vs desire.

Our James and Emily cousins are in town for Education week.  It's so good to see them.  We only see them about once a year, so I'm glad for the opportunity.  The kids swam and chatted. I chatted with Emily, Judy and Emma on the porch.  I definitely didn't want to leave. The next day, we found out that James and Henry in Maryland tested positive for Covid.  So all of the rest of the kids and Emily went to get tested.  Their rapid result test came back negative, but they did a longer PCR test and Dunccan came back positive.  So now we're waiting the 6-7 days and we'll go get tested as well.  If we catch it, we aren't communicable until Sat or Sunday, so the schools said to let the kids come to school in masks. I've made all the arrangements to miss Sunday and for my partner to take the daycare on Monday or until we get our results back. I found a place that will test us on Saturday and hopefully we'll get our tests back the same day or by Monday. And hopefully they come back negative, but if not.... it was still good to see our cousins.

Evelyn loves Peter so much!

Sam's first day of school...

Kayaking with the Brashers

 

One of our favorite things to do is to share fun activities with family and friends.  The Brashers had never been kayaking, so we went down to Salem Pond and had a blast.  There were more people at the pond than I've ever seen, so we found a quieter spot away from most of the people and made a base camp.  There were many adventures, between Joseph and Ada trying to use the youth kayaks and swamping them, Evelyn stealing the paddles from Matthew and Ada, Sam rescuing them, Jer accidentally throwing his fish line in the water, Seth paddling out and rescuing it with the proudest look on his face... I saw smiles and heard laughs from everyone.  My sister Janelle came and that was fun to catch up with her.

Sam fishing

I liked this one because each person kind of matched their boat.

Evelyn fishing

The guys fishing next to us kept sharing their bait with us, we only caught one fish between everyone, and realized that we hadn't brought anything to keep it in, so we gave it to them.  Everyone had fun fishing anyways.

Seth kept coming back and trying out all the different boats.  

Jeff did a great job with both the kayak and the standing paddle board.

This face is why we like kayaking.

Robert, Joseph and Matthew kept trying to capsize each other.... so Evelyn joined in with bumper boats.