The state of things today

 

This picture may not mean much to you, but I actually felt the need to snap it because it's the first time in many many months that I *almost* have all the right dosages of my medicines. I feel like this is the perfect image to represent just how messed up things are right now, and I know it's not just me.

We should play pandemic Bingo. The free space in the center says "you've had something cancelled", since that's happened to every single one of us. Maybe there's a space for delta and omicron. At lot more of us could put a chip on omicron, right? Ate a meal in your car?  Showed up at a store or restaurant only to find it closed at a very normal time and day? Something costs twice what it used to? My favorite right now would be a space that says "had to go to 3 different stores to find something basic like noodles". 

I think we'd all have a blackout game. So many things are rough right now. I remember when I first started blogging about the pandemic I only could guess at what some of the ripple effects would be. You can't just stop the world and then get it back going again apparently. 

I guess I'm just wanting to put some of this 'on record'. Something to look back on. There were some moments where it felt like things were getting back to normal, but it really never has. The story of my medicine really stems from pandemic related problems. We got here and established care with my PCM, which i was already at the point of needing refills by the time I even got that first appointment. Since then it's been a battle to get the right medicines and the right dosages due to mistakes, long wait times between appointments and referrals going through. All paperwork is SLOW due to everyone being understaffed. I got some of my meds the first time and then when it was time for another refill my PCM had quit. They didn't tell me until I called and asked why my refill wasn't being processed. The only way to get my medicines (while still waiting for my first appt with the pulmonologist) was to go to an urgent care... filled with people testing for covid. The urgent care doc put in for all of my meds, and then the pharmacy was out of stock of half of them! What? Before I knew it it was January and I finally got to see a pulmonologist who promptly fixed my antibiotic meds, but i still don't have a PCM who can fill all of my other meds. Ugh. I'm getting closer!

Have you had similar woes with every day things? We even had to take our dog to the vet for an urgent visit and I called our vet's office on base and they don't have any doctors in for month. That makes NO sense! Then you wonder if they're sick, or if somewhere else was so understaffed that they got pulled there to help. It's just really been a wild and bumpy ride that no one gave us dramamine for so I'm nauseated and want to get off. We might just have to get used to the ride...

A very fun date day!

Part of Dan's birthday present was to go to a Korean Spa together. Well it turns out the spa I got him a pass for was a women's only spa! Thankfully they refunded our money and we found a place that was more traditional and allowed men and women in the co-ed area.

If you aren't familiar with Korean Spas, it's definitely a different experience than you might think. This is not to get your hair or nails done, it's meant to rejuvenate your whole body and mind. You start off in separate areas where clothing is, I'll say optional. It's optional in the states, but in Korea you wouldn't see anyone in clothes there, it's just not done. My first time in a Korean spa was in Korea, and it was definitely a culture shock and an uncomfortable at first, but eye-opening experience. It's actually really nice when you can get past the weirdness that we hype up in our minds and just 'be'. You can get to a point of just appreciating your body for what it is and how God makes us all so different yet all so amazing. I am in terrible shape right now, but I never felt judged or ashamed.

So in the first area, you shower real good so you're super clean. Then you can pay for a full body scrub and be the cleanest you've ever been in your life. I did this in Korea, but opted not to this time around. Then after you shower you can enter the saunas and various pools/spas. This location had a steam sauna, dry sauna, hot pool, warm pool and cold pool. The idea is to flush out the toxins and impurities in your body by getting your body temperature up and then when you're ready to leave you get in the cold pool to close all those pores and regulate your body temp again. We spent about an hour apart in our separate spa areas. I enjoyed moving from area to area and just relaxing my very tired body. It felt great.

After our time apart we put on our little shorts and t-shirts that they give us (pink for me and blue for Dan!) and met on a different level. This level had 4 rooms where you do more meditation and purifying. Here's a picture of Dan and me in the Himalayan Salt room. You know those salt lamps? This whole room is made of that! The bricks are salt, underneath our towels are salt rocks, and there was a heater surrounded by more bricks. It was so relaxing just laying in there for as long as we wanted. We chatted and Dan listened to a book for awhile.

The other rooms were a jewel room where the walls were completely covered in amethyst, an ice room, and a clay room. Sadly, the last two rooms were closed. I think if those rooms had been open I'd be ready to come back here a lot more often. But we really only spent time in the salt room and cooled off in the lounge area. If anyone ever wants to join me, let's do it! It's so refreshing and great!

After sweating everything out at the spa we were hungry! It's not surprising that there were lots of Korean restaurants in this area of town. It's probably a good thing we don't live closer, or we'd never eat anywhere else! Here we are at a good ol' Korean BBQ place! It never fails to be sooooo good! If we go back we're going to go in the basement of this place and get Korean Fried Chicken!

While we were eating that delicious dinner, we joked that the one thing that would make this night perfect would be to have some Bing-su for dessert. It's a VERY finely shaved ice topped with fruit, ice cream, sweetened condensed milk and other yummy embellishments. It was a pipe dream because we've never been able to find it in the United States.

until....

Now! They have it literally down the street from the Korean Spa we went to! (This was all in the town of Federal Way, btw) While it wasn't AS amazing as in Korea, it came pretty darn close! And it wasn't necessarily a Korean restaurant either. The place was called Cafe Noir and they had a wide assortment of food, treats and drinks! 

This is definitely a 2-3 person dessert!

I even made a little video of it so you could see the texture of the shaved ice. This is not like Bahama Bucks or that type of flavored ice. It's as if someone shaved vanilla dip n dots or something. You just have to experience it sometime!

I'm not sure what it is about having a Korean day like this that is just so much fun. I'm glad we can do all this just about an hour away from where we live! Go Washington! (To be fair Dan says the Korean Spa in Dallas is much much better, but it was never close enough for him and I to go together, he just went when he was traveling)

Our first holiday season in Washington!

December is a famously busy month, especially for musicians. Last year there wasn't much going on because of COVID, and I didn't really think it would affect as much this year, but it did. Alex did not have a holiday concert, neither did Cade, and Dan's unit had a virtual video concert thing. The only really busy week for us was the week before Christmas. I had two schools I was playing piano for and Dan of course was out of town.

But we intentionally decided to stay in town for Christmas this year so that we could just have some down time in our new city and new home. Here's some of our decorations!

Early in December Alex and worked together to participate in a local craft fair. He sold mini pumpkin breads and I sold some of my calligraphy work! He definitely outsold me!

The day after school let out for the break the boys had friends over and that's when we did our cookie decorating for the year. I remember doing cookies with friends about that time in my teenage years too!

I always frost one of the stars yellow and eat it while decorating. It's tradition!

Cade even got together with friends to go ice skating! I'm glad he's having a good time here :)

I felt like we spent the weekdays leading up to christmas eve carting the boys to and from their various friend activities, and of course doing that last minute shopping. We always do Christmas dates with the boys and one kid goes with one parent and they shop for the opposite people in the family. It allows us to shop local and just enjoy an evening out.

Christmas Adam we saw the new Spiderman movie (it was great!), and Christmas Eve was just a really nice day at home. We did our traditional Friday night pizza night and watched the National Lampoons Christmas family vacation. We opened up a family game and played that until late, and then headed to bed.

While we were watching the movies the boys were fighting over their spots on the couch and then ended up very close to each other, and then stayed there for a good chunk of the movie! It was a Christmas miracle! Our boys NEVER do this. They don't even know I snapped a few pictures of it.

Just a few shots from Christmas morning!

We were watching the Bennett's dog Maggie, the pups had so much fun!

Dan got me a new Silhouette! I had an old enough model that it would no longer connect to my laptop or computer. It's great!

Alex had a great Christmas with a new mini computer he built to play lots of retro video games!

Dan got his favorite candy and an apple pencil!

Cade got things to help take his trombone recording to the next level, and crazy socks of course!

Mother nature gave us a wonderful Christmas present too. It started snowing on Christmas Day and didn't stop until the next day. Then it kept snowing all week and went through various phases ice and more snow. Apparently this is NOT how winters in this part of Washington ever go, but it happened at the perfect time. Dan got to stay home from work and the kids didn't have school to worry about missing. We spent the week just taking more time at home. I'm glad we hadn't planned to travel anywhere!

They named him Melty the Snow Monster

Because of the snow, church was cancelled on the day after Christmas. While it was nice to cozy up at home, some of the youth had planned to play their instruments as some prelude music. Here's a video of them practicing a few days before Christmas!

For New Year's Eve we were really hoping to have Kristina and Brett and their kids come to stay with us for a few days. The weather was just awful around the whole country that week and Boise got slammed with snow, and the roads between there and here were terrible. We were going to have kids at stake dances and a get together at our house with the Bennetts and the Foutzes to do a fun Bingo game with prizes. The dances were cancelled and the Foutzes couldn't make it, but we still rung in the New Year with the Bennetts. We had chili, cornbread, charcuterie, sparkling cider, and alex made a two layer cake to ring in the new year and wish Grandma Kathy a happy birthday!

So far 2022 has already been up to no good. The snow didn't really melt, it was just drenched away. It rained SO hard for 2-3 days straight that parts of Olympia and Lacey flooded. Just another unprecedented weather event. Look at poor melty the snow monster on his last day! 

The last bit of our holiday fun was a week after everyone was back at school and work. My friend Teletha got us a gift card for a local escape room, since she knows how much we love those. You guys, this place is legit! We can't wait to go back and try their main room, but you need 8 people. :)

I sincerely hope that despite weather, COVID, and all the other stressors out there, that you were able to find moments of joy and peace during your holidays. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving 2021

The week before Thanksgiving, Cade had an awesome opportunity to be a part of the Western International Band Clinic. It was a weekend long band festival that he auditioned for and was selected to be a part of. We dropped him off on a Friday evening and picked him up Monday afternoon. He spent all day Saturday, Sunday rehearsing and then the various ensembles performed on Monday. He got to stay in a hotel and eat, sleep and breathe band for a bit! The only bummer is that they weren't allowing any audience members so I watched his group perform on a livestream from home and Dan made the trek up to seattle from work since his office is at least 30 minutes closer than our house is. At least when we go to All-State in February we'll be able to hear him perform in-person! Good job Cade!

After Cade's band clinic it was only a few days before we were on the road to Boise for Thanksgiving! We drove all day Wednesday and arrived just in time to participate in the big day. We stayed with the Charles and Sarah McBride family and enjoyed turkey and all that with them, and his sister Kristina, their family and his parents.

Your butter just isn't good enough if it hasn't been molded into a turkey :)

We've taken up a new hobby- charcuterie! This was our first time putting a board together and it was a hit! We haven't stopped snacking on cheeses, crackers and meats since!

Family time always means game time! I did NOT realize a picture was being taken in this moment, though clearly everyone else did, lol

Dan has even more family that lives in the Boise area, but not everyone could come for Thanksgiving Day itself. So we stole a tradition from my side of the family called Friday Pie Day! Let's be honest, most of us are way to full to really appreciate pies on Thanksgiving, so we saved (most of) the pie for Friday and had even more people over for food and games.

We were trying to get a whole group picture, but Dan got in on the posing before the rest of us were ready!

I think this is pretty close to everyone that lives in the Boise area, plus Phillip and Michelle and our family. Most the little kiddos were upstairs playing happily- didn't want to disturb that!

Saturday, the adventurous folks went up to the Hot Springs on cooold day. I was not one of those adventurous folks that day. Instead I went shopping with Charles and Sarah to Deseret Book and went out to lunch. Much more my speed, lol!

What a great way to kick off our holiday season of 2021! We love living within 8 hours of so much family and we had such a great visit. On our way home, since the weather wasn't an issue, we took a longer route home by Mt. Hood. That was Cade's idea, since he doesn't love driving on main interstates, he thinks they're boring. It was worth the extra drive time because there was a spectacular view of Mt. Hood from our car!

 

And as soon as we got back into Washington it POURED the rest of the way home. Thus began our very rainy, wet and cold Christmas season!