Chris and I, mostly I, have been getting antsy with being home all the time and not seeing people. COVID cases have been sky rocketing so the governor asked people to not gather with people outside your household. We had had plans to rent a condo in St. George for the kids 3 day weekend and was glad that the governor didn't ask everyone to stay at home like he did in the Spring. The kids have been fighting a lot and we hoped a trip outside and away from home would be just the ticket to reset. We found a condo that didn't have too many fees and had 2 bedrooms and a sofa sleeper. We went to Zion's our first morning. It was beautiful. We couldn't drive or park in the Park, so you sign up for a shuttle time and get shuttled in and you have to take everything with you that you want for the day. We chose to tackle our longest hike first. I can't remember the name Emerald Pools ? Upper Waterfalls? something like that. I think it was 3 miles round trip.
I was hoping to get a good family picture... maybe one we could use for Christmas cards? Although I didn't coordinate or control anyones outfit in anyway so if we did get one, it would be a very casual Christmas card picture.
The day was really fun and tiring. The crazy thing was my blood sugars were just sky rocketing. Was it the stress? (lots of kid fights) Was it the exercise? I only brought so much food with us and I made sure I had good low carb options, but I also kept thinking... but I have insulin.. I should be able to make this work if I give myself enough insulin! So I kept giving insulin and kept eating...although not eating much. By the end of the day though I was in the upper 300s so I quit eating anything and kept giving insulin till I had 6 units on board! (so much for me!) I kept rising and rising. I was emotional and frustrated and by the time I was off the charts high, over 500. I was scared. I figured something MUST be wrong with my insulin or pump so I was anxious to return to our condo so I could use the emergency insulin in an epi pen style. Meanwhile we're trying to find a restaurant to eat at but the kids were being TERRIBLE and I was grumpy, hungry and scared. We just got Taco Bell in a drive through for Chris and the kids and headed back to put everyone to bed. I had to wait for the insulin already inside me to go away to make sure I never had too much in me at a time. I needed to put 8 units in, but again I was scared of that high a number and only put in 6 units. After an hour it was bringing my BS down to near normal. Luckily, I hadn't made it to the pharmacy before we left to pick up a fresh batch of insulin and Walgreens was able to switch the location for me and by midnight Chris was back from the pharmacy in St. George and my numbers were approaching normal I could finally eat something. Such a stressful night.
The next morning we ate at Waffle Love and then went shoe shopping. I must have misjudged the carbs in the waffles because I dropped really low at the shoe shop. The little kids were running around the store, while I sat in the corner trying not to be seen while Chris rushed to the car to bring me juice. It took a while for my numbers to rise and I didn't want to waste the shopping trip, all the kids needed new school shoes so we bought shoes and left to meet my cousin Aaron's wife, Cera and their kids at Pioneer park for some bouldering and rock climbing! (They've already had COVID and were done quarantining so we figured it was a safe encounter. It was a lot of fun. Everyone was brave and tried the rock climbing. She even insisted Chris and I have a go.
Then we made it back to the condo in time to catch the last bit of daylight to try and swim. It really was cold, so after only the kids swam, we hung out in the hot tub. After swimming we played the Condo's indoor Putt Putt thing and then we then wanted to eat out at a sit down restaurant and found a Mexican place recommended by Kayla. It was a LONG wait. The kids were at each other's throats, fighting and bickering and complaining. They got Gwen's food wrong 2 times! And it was too much for her. She had a really hard time with it and cried and growled about it. Chris and I looked at each other and thought.... oh so this is a vacation with kids, huh? Ok. lets never do this again. It sure helped us appreciate regular life and be cured of the idea (mostly it was ME that needed curing...not Chris) that we'd be happy if we could just get out of the house and go on a vacation. We headed home the next day and stopped at Aaron and Cera's to say goodbye and see their awesome Ninja course in their backyard. It was super fun to spend some time with them. We stayed just long enough at their house that we decided not to try and explore Snow Canyon on our way home.
We sold our beloved couch! We all loved that couch and hated to sell it, but it just doesn't fit any of the spaces in this house. We ordered a new one from Costo.com and it was able to be delivered the day after Thanksgiving and ended up costing only $200 more than we sold our other couch for.
Thanksgiving was different this year. It was just us, our family, no one else...no friends or neighbors which is totally new for us. We had hoped to celebrate it with all the Archibalds but with COVID cases rising we decided to just stay separate. We shared some food with each other but thats it. In the hopes of making whatever we did not feel totally lame to be doing it by ourselves we really changed it up this year. We went for a rustic style Thanksgiving menu and ate it by the fireplace in the living room, off the coffee table as we sat on the floor and ate out of pie tins. It was kinda fun. A lot of preparation for a short amount of eating amongst a lot of fighting. But there were sweet minutes here and there with no contention and yummy food. The pictures at least make it look fun.
I tried a cinnamon roll crust apple pie, turkey breast, quinoa - kale - squash - cranberry stuffed pumpkins, typical marshmallow sweet potatoes, cranberry salsa with corn chips, corn on the cob, pumpkin knot rolls, banana cream pie and blueberry cream cheese pie. My numbers were high after dinner and I couldn't get them down until 10:00pm, so I wasn't able to eat pie with everyone else.
We walked down the street to the Baum's Christmas tree lot and picked out a live tree. We also missed having mashed potatoes and stuffing so we had a more traditional / leftover thanksgiving meal on Sunday. It was yummy.
