A lot can change in a few weeks! Near the end of January, my coworkers took 10 days off work for Chinese new year. I continued working and emailing them, but they didn't respond after the 10 days were up. Around the same time, there were a few news articles about a possible virus in China, but not a lot. I wondered if maybe some of my coworkers had gotten sick and that's why they weren't responding. As days went on, the articles became more frequent and spoke of the Chinese government covering up how awful the virus was. I felt bad for my coworkers, and hoped they were okay! Several weeks after they were expected to return to work, they finally responded, but wouldn't say anything about the virus other than I was to tell customers to expect shipping delays. I had no idea then, that the virus was so awful and that it would soon be spreading all over the world.
On February 16th, we visited grandma Antczak in her nursing home, and Lyla dressed up and performed a little ballet dance for her. Little did we know that was going to be the last time we would be able to see her for a long time! We also played at the nicklecade with cousins, went to Kyler's soccer games, and re-newed our aquarium membership and went several times with friends, again, didn't realize at the time that those would be the last times we did those types of activities for a long time! On February 28th, Jared read a news article that said that the virus that was in China had infected a cruise ship and now a few Americans had the virus, and that the virus was very contagious. We went to Costco that day for some regular items, and decided it would be wise to stock up on a few other extra essentials. Everyone else in Costco that day had the same idea. We were shocked to see that shelves were getting emptied so fast, and that all of the water bottles and toilet paper were gone. The next week, we gained new knowledge that the Coronavirus had killed a lot of people in China, but that if we contained the people that had the virus, we wouldn't have an outbreak here in the USA.
March 8th, we went to church as normal, not knowing that would be our last time for a long time. Jared snapped a few pics of me and the girls before church. The next day it was announced that a Utah Jazz player had the Coronavirus, and had probably spread it to multiple people (the article said he got the virus from a reporter that recently traveled to China but was asymptomatic). This was a turning point for utah and things changed pretty quickly after that. There were several other known cases of the virus in the US. On March 12, the church announced that we would no longer be meeting as congregations. Soon after, most public schools in the USA were closed until further notice, and the government began restricting large gatherings of people. Jared was also told to start working from home!
We went to Albuquerque for Jared's sisters wedding on March 21st, and visited Arches National Park on the way. Only a few close family members were able to attend, but it was a beautiful day, and it was nice to celebrate something positive with all of the chaos that was going on in the world. It took our minds off the coronavirus for a day and was a nice little break. We headed back home and went into quarantine mode and Kyler started homeschool. It was advised at this time to stay home as much as possible, and non essential businesses all closed. This week we started potty training Zoey! The twins also read their first book, we got a nintendo switch and celebrated Tucker's first birthday! Today, the city just announced all of the playgrounds are closed and issued a stay at home order. So that's where we are today...looking at another month of staying at home as a minimum. There are currently just over 700 cases in SLC.
