the rest of March 2021

monthly photo summary

3/14: We had our virtual "New Beginnings" meeting for Young Women three months into the new year. It's not officially called New Beginnings anymore, but we welcomed the newest girls to move up and had a wonderful lesson by President Sherry Allen.

3/14: Heidi and David flew to El Paso, TX to pick up his three boys and drive to Colorado for a snowboarding trip. Heidi and David went on a hike and she sent me this cute pic of them together.

3/16: Shalane and I met up at Waffle Luv for breakfast so that we could catch up. We hadn't seen each other in so long!

3/17: Disneyland is reopening!!! Only for California residents, but it's opening!

3/17: St. Patrick's Day!
Sophie had an all-green lunch for the special occasion and she brought chocolate coins to hand out during recess as the classroom's secret leprechaun.

3/18: It got up to 60° and I went on a 15-mile afternoon ride before the girls got out of school.

3/18: progress!

3/19: Ellie finished her Wisconsin state report.

3/19: Draper City got a new logo and they had a crew going around the neighborhood putting updated logo stickers on all the street signs.

3/19: Ruby attended an aerial cube workshop and they sent a picture link afterward. Looks painful!

3/20–21: Bryce Canyon Trip

3/23: Another covid test for Ellie to attend Saturday swim at Cottonwood HS.

3/24: Jeff and I went to Springville Museum of Art to see the In Sight, Out of Mind exhibition, a reflection on our relationship with the natural world. It might be my favorite exhibit ever because nature is my favorite subject.
1 - Mitchell Butte (2019), David Meikle
2 - Color of the Monsoon Rains (2020), Gilmore Scott
3 - The Art of Subtlety (2020), Havoc Hendricks
4 - Desert Mountain Overlook (2020), Cody Chamberlain
5 - Morning Light, Mt. Timpanogos (2019), David Meikle
6 - French Country Scene (1899), Edwin Evans

Pitch Field Three (2020), Stephanie Leitch
"Pitch Field Three preserves multiple processes, including the artist's creation of her own tar-like substance and a repetitive pattern of fishing lines that capture drips from the hanging reservoir. The falling fluid stimulates pitch, or asphalt, and is extremely viscous, or a thick consistency between solid and liquid. This viscosity is a chance to explore how the liquid is both penetrable and impassable. The artist said, "The viewer must circumambulate the boundaries of the work and access its interior solely through desire."

3/26: Ellie's swim friend Sarah broke her elbow and had to have surgery. Ellie and Berkeley went to Sarah's house to bring get-well gifts and lift her spirits. Sarah has osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), commonly known as "brittle bone disease," so her break was more severe than a normal break.

3/27: We had an unusual new bird digging in our front garden. Ellie noticed it and took a picture and I looked it up. It is a Northern Flicker, which is a type of woodpecker that feeds on the ground and nests in cavities.

3/27: I sold two of our old devices (my old phone and an old iPad) to Trademore. I got $30 for this first-generation iPhone SE and $61 for an iPad Air 2.  It's not much but they aren't sitting in my cabinet anymore and they'll be refurbished or recycled.

3/29: I started the process of obtaining my Associate Educator License (AEL), which would allow me to apply to the Utah APPEL program. The APPEL program allows individuals with a bachelor's degree to obtain a teaching job while completing a teacher education program.

3/29: The church announced that the Draper Temple will move to phase 2B reopening starting April 12, making proxy baptisms available for the first time in just over a year.

3/31: Woohoo! One more step to getting back to life not ruled by covid!

One Year of Pandemic life: week 52 / March 7–13

Sunday, March 7

We had a family fast for Ryan (Cyri's husband) who was diagnosed with lymphoma, Katie who has shingles in her eye, and Melanie, who continues to suffer from terrible long covid symptoms.

After sacrament meeting, we had a YW presidency meeting on Zoom. It was time to decide if we are going to plan Girls Camp for this summer. Our  YW president has been very cautious and was reluctant to commit to an in-person camp. I felt quite strongly that we should move forward with planning camp, taking the optimistic perspective that things will only get better over the next few months. The girls who joined YW last year already missed out on their first year of camp; I didn't want them to miss two. Girls Camp is something that most girls really look forward to and after a year of distancing and virtual socializing, I think it will be an important way for the girls to feel united again. I expressed this opinion and thankfully, everyone else agreed. We are tentatively planning a 2-night camp for July. We're hoping that everything will work out and that most families will feel comfortable sending their girls to camp.

We all went on an afternoon walk to the park, including Ruby! Ellie wore her rollerblades and the rest of us walked. I am loving the warm afternoons. It was a sunny 62 degrees, which is just about perfect in my book.

Ellie's been working on playing "Shallow" and she wanted to show me her progress.
It's a difficult but beautiful song.

Ellie has been working on finishing the fourth Fablehaven book.
Her school copy is overdue and she needed to get it finished.

Ruby has been working on a special project in her room:
painting the lids to her fingernail polish with fingernail polish. Who knows why.

Monday, March 8

News: “Fully vaccinated people can gather indoors in small groups without taking precautions but should continue to wear masks in public, the C.D.C. said. Vaccinated people can also get together with members of one unvaccinated household, as long as no one has a complicating health risk” (NYT).

Jeff had a quarterly float pharmacist virtual meeting from 8–12 and then went to work at the Taylorsville clinic from 1:30–4:30.

At school, we had a new student named Winter that was added to our class. Winter has been doing virtual school all year and is coming back to in-person school for the first time. She has gone to Sprucewood in the past so most of the students already know her.

At bedtime, Ellie freestyled a Mother’s Day song on her guitar, complete with lyrics. It was hilarious and I wish I'd written it down!

Tuesday, March 9

Jeff had training at the Cottonwood IHC pharmacy. I was home and got a ton accomplished. Tess needed to leave work early to get Em to a soccer game and she asked me to come work for the last 40 minutes of the day. I got there and all the kids were so excited to see me. "Miss Anna! You're here too?" Ms. Bronson was gone again but the substitute, Mrs. Joy, was amazing. I got to be there for art booster with Mr. Hale and the kids were not total monsters.

After safety patrol, Ellie & Ashlyn walked home together and ended up going back up to Sprucewood to play on the playground.

Jeff and I have already been missing our lunch dates and decided we needed to make time for a date. We went to Wasabi for half-price sushi night.
We got a table right away and ordered Mars, Sunset, and Idaho from the 1/2 price menu.

We got home to find out that the girls had been fighting while we were gone and we had to have a discussion about conflict resolution.

Wednesday, March 10

News: “All Utah adults should be able to get COVID-19 vaccines starting April 1, governor’s office says” (Des News).

Cottonwood High School is finally allowing Fish Market to have swim practice at their pool again, but they are requiring all swimmers to get covid tested every two weeks. Ellie's Saturday practices will be back at Cottonwood starting this week so she had to get tested. And I found out that today was the cut-off date. I got Ellie scheduled for 3:30 with Test Utah at the Draper Senior Center site. It was pretty smooth. We drove up, a tester scanned the appointment code, then came back with supplies for the rapid test. Ellie had to endure having a tiny test swab shoved up her nostril and swirled around for ten seconds. I received a text with her results in less than fifteen minutes.

signs of spring in the garden

For Little Women, we had a Virtual Game Night activity. We played a get-to-know-you game, a memory game, and charades. It was surprisingly fun to play games with each other over Zoom.

Jeff put on Ellie's swim parka to tease her. Fits pretty well!

Ruby was stretching in her room and I was surprised by how flexible she's gotten.
I'm certain I've never been able to do this!

Thursday, March 11

News:

• It has been exactly one year since the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
• President Biden addressed the nation in his first prime-time address to the nation. “Biden said he would call on all states to make all adults eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations by May 1. If everyone gets vaccinated soon after, there could be a return to normal by July 4, he said” (Des News).

Jeff left early to get a required blood draw at Alta View only to find out that they weren't open, then he had to drive down to Utah Valley Hospital in Provo to train for the day.

I had a 10am oil change scheduled at Bountiful Mazda. I went on a 2.5-mile walk while I waited and recorded a Marco Polo response for Girl Squad on the drive home. Cheryl's friend told her about a local pharmacy that was doing Johnson & Johnson vaccines without appointments and she got one!

Friday, March 12

For some unknown reason, Ruby woke up at 2:30am and rather than trying to go back to sleep, she stayed up and started working on her Friday schoolwork. I, on the other hand, slept in till 10:30 and woke up with a headache.

Ashlyn came over to work on state reports with Ellie. She brought walkie-talkies and I don't think they really got any work done on their reports.

Saturday, March 13

We woke up to one inch of snow on the ground. When I woke up Jeff and the girls were watching videos about Wandavision.

Ellie went to Saturday swim, the first time back to Cottonwood High School pool. Berkeley’s mom drove them to practice and Callie's mom brought them home, getting smoothies on the way.

Heidi called me to say that she had broken her nose (!!!) and that she was flying to El Paso with David to pick up David's boys for their Colorado snowboarding trip.

Ruby and Jeff were pretending to be asleep so Ellie got Ruby's blankets and stuffies and piled them on top.

Ellie used her invisible ink pen to write inspirational messages on her hands. Love this girl.

It has been 52 weeks. I can’t quite believe it. One year of pandemic life and we’re still living it. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. But if you had told me a year ago that we’d be wearing masks everywhere and the temples are still closed and travel is still very restricted and life is not normal, I would have cried. And I am crying, realizing everything we’ve been through. Yet, we’ve been so fortunate, so blessed during all the uncertainty. Life is not back to normal yet but we’ve made it this far and we’re going to make it to normal someday, hopefully in 2021.

___________________________________________________________

I'm finally posting this in June 2021. Yes, I'm incredibly behind on blog posts, but I'm not giving up. It has been important to me to document life during the pandemic. No, the pandemic isn't "over" yet, not even in June. We are still living "pandemic life," even if so much of life has gone back to the way it used to be.

For the blog, I am going to go back to my old format of doing a monthly photo summary post plus separate posts for trips and special occasions (I think). I've gotten in the habit of taking daily notes—documenting the mundane and noting events in the news. I'm sure I'll continue that habit, I just won't include as much of it on the blog.

Pandemic life: week 51 / Feb 28–March 6

Sunday, February 28 

News: “Over the weekend, the FDA gave emergency approval to the J&J vaccine, making it the third available COVID-19 vaccine to Americans. Unlike Pfizer's and Moderna's vaccine, it only requires one dose and doesn't need to be kept in freezing temps, making it easier to ship and store. The vaccine is 85% effective against severe COVID-19 symptoms 28 days after vaccination. The gov's hoping to ship 4 million doses this week. And Dr. Anthony Fauci is saying 'don't stress' – he's encouraging Americans to get whatever vaccine is available to them” (The Skimm).

We had 9am sacrament meeting, as usual, then at home, I taught the YW class lesson on Zoom on the computer and Ruby taught her class lesson on Zoom on her iPad in her room. Somehow the two of us are on the same teaching rotation; this was the second time we've taught on the same week.

In the afternoon I was feeling really crummy—nausea, headache, and chills, plus I was very tired and irritable. I laid in bed to rest but couldn't fall asleep because of the headache. Ruby spent the afternoon catching up on her reading for ELA and Jeff worked with Ellie on solving her Rubik's cube she'd bought at Target last week.

In the evening we watched The Sound of Music with Ellie (Ruby wasn't interested), and Jeff and Ellie finally solved the Rubik’s Cube!

Ellie was so pleased that she and Jeff didn't give up until the cube was complete.
It was even more complex than I'd realized and I, too, was impressed with their tenacity.

Monday, March 1

Jeff had his first official day with IHC, which consisted of online training that he did from home.

At work, Ms. Bronson was gone and we had a young female substitute teacher who wrote "Mr. Zoellner" on the board and told me that she was married to a woman from Ecuador. She had been a teacher in Indiana and moved to Utah after getting married. Not your typical Utah newlywed story. She was nice but she wasn't a good substitute teacher. Morning meeting was chaotic and the rest of the day didn't get much better. All the usual suspects were acting crazy but two students, in particular, were throwing things, yelling, and being totally disrespectful. They wouldn't listen to me or the sub so I ended up asking one of the behavior aides to come help. The sub didn't go get the kids from either recess and spent a lot of time scrolling on her phone. 

The highlight of my day was going home for lunch with Jeff. He'd gone to Costa Vida and picked up salads for us to eat and everything was ready when I got home.

Tuesday, March 2

News:

• “Utah Gov. Spencer Cox says all Utah adults could be vaccinated by end of April” (Des News).
• "Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Texas will end all of its coronavirus restrictions beginning next week with a new executive order” (Des News).
• “President Biden said the U.S. would have enough vaccine doses by the end of May to cover every American adult, two months earlier than he previously estimated” (NYT).
  
  

Jeff had to be at the Midvale IHC facility at 8am to meet with his new boss, who Jeff worked with previously at CVS, and do some initial training.

I had to get a picture of Jeff on his first day of work!

I drove Ruby to school and when we were almost to Addy's house to pick her up Ruby realized that she'd forgotten her shoes! Thankfully, we were ahead of schedule and had time to run home and still get to school on time.

I had a hair appointment with Kylie at 12:30. I got 1.5 inches cut off plus my usual "babylights" and some lowlights to balance out the blonde.

Mom and Dad texted to say they both got their first covid vaccines!

Ellie came home from school to report that Mrs. Dean had a migraine and got a sub for the second half of the day. Jack's mom, Jessica LeBaron, was the substitute and she asked Ellie to be her helper for the afternoon. Ellie loved that.

A new Tesla Supercharger station was just put in on 123rd. I took a picture to text to Dad.
When he was here last year the closest Supercharger station was downtown Salt Lake!

Jeff was home at 4:50! and I went on an evening walk. Jeff will be training at different locations for the next three weeks, working 8–4:30 most days.
I'm really going to enjoy having him home in the evenings.

Wednesday, March 3

Jeff was scheduled at Home Delivery/Central Fill for the second day in a row. He got a throrough tour of the facility and did CPR training.

With no more snow on the grass and the warmer temperatures, Sophie decided that she wanted to go outside for recess. This was the first time she's been outside for recess since November! She had lots of friends who wanted to play. They had grass fights and rolled around.

That evening I had a Little Women class presidency meeting at our house. After the meeting, Sarah and I gave all the girls rides home. When she dropped me back off at home we sat in her car in my driveway talking for 45 minutes. It was a lovely impromptu hangout, a conversation that we both needed.

Thursday, March 4

News:

• “All Utahns 50 and older, as well as those with some less severe medical conditions, will be able to start scheduling COVID-19 vaccination shots Monday” (Des News).
• “Cox announced Salt Lake, Davis, Cache, Grand, Sanpete and Wasatch counties will move from high to moderate risk levels for COVID-19 transmission” (Des News).

Jeff worked at the American Fork Specialty Pharmacy from 9-5:30.

I got my second covid vaccine! My appointment was at 4:20 and it went even smoother than the first one.
It's a great relief to be fully vaccinated! I haven't worried about getting Covid-19 for quite some time now, but I would prefer to never get it and I feel very fortunate to have access to the vaccine.

Friday, March 5

News:

• “The Senate on Friday night passed HB294 setting the timetable to lift COVID-19 restrictions, but amended the House-approved measure to end the statewide mask mandate by April 10 except for groups of over 50 where people cannot social distance” (Des News).
• “For a lifting of other restrictions — except for mask mandates in K-12 schools until July 1 — the measures listed in the bill include if the state reaches a 14-day COVID-19 case rate less than 191 per 100,000 people, when the statewide seven-day average of COVID-19 ICU bed utilization is less than 15%, and when the state has been allocated 1.63 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine” (Des News).

Ruby woke up at 5:45 and got started on her Friday schoolwork and she was finished by the time she usually gets started on Fridays! I feel like she's getting more focused on school and motivated to have good grades on her end-of-year report card.

Ellie's latest selfie sesh

As expected after receiving my second covid vaccine, I started feeling really tired and all my muscles were sore. I felt like I'd done a 50-mile bike ride the day before except that I hadn't. I'd heard some people felt quite ill after their second dose, getting fever and chills, so I felt grateful that my immune response wasn't quite so miserable.

The PTA coordinated a St. Patrick's Day teacher recognition project and I went to the school to help put shamrocks on teachers' doors. Ruby wanted to come with me to help and hopefully see Mrs. Wilbur. Ellie invited Ashlyn over and they stayed home.

The best part about helping with the shamrock project was that I got to see all the notes that students had written to Miss Anna and Miss Tess.

These were my faves (original spelling preserved):

• "Dear Miss Ana, Miss Test, Mr Swallow, Mr Hortin, Thank you for helping me. Love Savannah Cole. [phone number] Call me baby"
• "Miss Tess and Miss Anna, You are so nice teachers. I think you lucky. You now why because I wrote this to both of you. From Grace. Remember you are lucky"
• "Dear Miss Tess and Mrs Anna, You guy are so nice and helpfull"
• "Dear Ms. Tess and Bob / Dear Ms. Anna and Bill, ya'll da man! (and women)
• Dear, Miss Tess, and Miss Anna, I'm so happy you'r helping our class this school year, and Sophie is so lucky to have you gy's your the BEST. Love, Adalyn T."

Ellie went on a bike ride around the neighborhood and I spotted her on my way out.

I got an email from Shutterfly with "Your Memories from 13 Years Ago," Ruby's baby blessing.

Ruby went to hang out at Lilly’s house and then was invited to go to Liv's house for a movie night. After swim practice, Jeff and I took Ellie to dinner at Mo'Bettahs. She was in such a good mood after having her exercise and a satisfying dinner.

When Ruby got home from her movie night Jeff and I watched the final episode of Wandavision with her. (Actually, Jeff fell asleep and had to rewatch the episode in the morning.) For some reason, Jeff ended up crawling in Ruby's bed and falling asleep, so I told Ruby she could come sleep in my bed. She'd been asking for months to have a sleepover with me and I figured this was a good chance. Ruby was listening to Jim Gaffigan's book Food: A Love Story for ELA so we listened to it together for a bit and then went to sleep.

Saturday, March 6

I've started seeing lots of statistics and articles reflecting on the pandemic as we approach the one-year mark. I've been reflecting on my own experience, grateful for where we are but somberly acknowledging that we're not close to being done with the pandemic yet.

Utah COVID-19 Statistics

• Total number of COVID-19 cases: 374,438
• Total reported people tested: 2,243,694
• Vaccines administered: 843,032
• Total COVID-19 hospitalizations: 14,867
• Current COVID-19 hospitalizations: 194
• Total COVID-19 deaths: 1,975
• Single-day high for reported cases: 4,672 (Dec. 31)
• Single-day high for reported deaths: 30 (Dec. 17 & Jan. 21)

We got tickets to see Raya and the Last Dragon at Jordan Commons. Cinemark isn't contracted with Disney to show it and we decided we'd rather see it on the big screen than rent it at home on Disney+. We don't love Jordan Commons but we got great seats and it was just so fun to see a movie at the theater again.

I changed my flat tire and went on a bike ride with Ruby and Ellie. It was pretty windy and Ruby wasn't into it.
She rode home early while Ellie and I kept riding.

I talked Ruby into letting me dry her hair with my new blowdry brush after she'd washed it. It took less than fifteen minutes, which is pretty great for her thick hair. She didn't love how voluminous it was afterward and it certainly wasn't straight, but it looks better than air-dried.

That night we watched Hidden Figures all together and Ruby made chocolate chip cookies. I can't believe it took us so long to finally watch it and I was glad that the girls watched it with us. It's such a fascinating piece of NASA's history.

Pandemic life: week 50: February 22–27 ~ Jeff's last week at CVS

Monday, February 22

News:

• US hits 500,000 COVID-19 deaths: “President Biden held a moment of silence for the lives lost – more than the number of Americans who died in battle during World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War combined” (The Skimm).
• Sharon McMahon (@SharonSaysSo) had an interview on The Daily Show.

Sophie was back from therapy in Arizona so I was back at work. Sophie said her favorite thing was that she got to hold her baby cousins. Also a bonus, her casts are gone! Sophie's friends Savannah and Zoey were back from quarantine. Savannah had covid and Zoey was quarantined because she was exposed by playing with Savannah.

Mrs. Barbano brought a special birthday gift for Sophie - an autograph unicorn.
So now she is going to get her unicorn signed by all her friends. But first: writing its name, Oreo, on its butt.

Ruby had an optometrist appointment at Target Optical. It's recommended for kids to have an annual eye exam since their eyes can change a lot, especially during the teenage years. She didn't think her eyes had changed but sure enough, her prescription changed enough that we had to order new glasses.

Tuesday, February 23

This would be Jeff's last normal Tuesday off. Jeff's schedule with IHC will be different every week while he's a float pharmacist. I'm sure we'll still get days off together every so often, but it won't be anything like we've had these past several years. We've had a good run.

Jeff likes to drive Ruby and Addy to school on his days off, so he took the chance to drive them to school this morning. Then we had the day to do what we usually do: work out and go on a lunch date.

We had our last date lunch at Wasabi. The restaurant was so busy that we had to sit at the bar.
[pictured: Coco & Summer Dragon]

After lunch, we went to the Altra outlet store at Traverse Point and found Jeff some work shoes for only $40! After school, Jeff drove Ruby to her first in-person piano lesson at Jennie’s house. She was so excited to be back to lessons at Jennie's.

Ruby begged me to make this Baked Feta Pasta recipe that became famous on Tik Tok. It uses 20 ounces of cherry tomatoes, a block of feta, and fresh basil. It sounded amazing to me but I doubted that Ruby would actually like it. And I was wrong. Everyone loved it, especially Ruby.

Ruby took the 16 personalities test again and got Virtuoso again. Then Ellie took it and she got Advocate. They had fun reading up on all of their personality traits together. I thought it was interesting that they are practically opposites in all categories except that they're both introverts.

Wednesday, February 24

It was snowing during the school day and we had our first indoor mask break (at least when I was working). We sat in the hallway, spaced apart, reading quietly for ten minutes.

fresh snow on the mountains

We had a Virtual Travel Night for our Little Women activity. The girls each shared pictures and information about a place they would love to visit someday. We virtually traveled to Paris, Bora Bora, Spain, France, and the Bahamas. I shared photos from our visit to Mont Saint Michel because it's one of those places that I learned about and instantly knew I wanted to go there someday—and I went there and loved it. Ruby also had a virtual activity making cake-in-a-mug and talking about goals.

Vel brought over a birthday cake and presents for Jeff since she was out of town on his birthday.
When he got home from work we sang Happy Birthday and ate his delicious carrot cake.

Thursday, February 25

It was Parent-Teacher Conferences and the elementary school had early release. Ellie had her annual doctor's appointment at 12:20 so I checked her out for the day when I picked her up at 12. Jeff came with us to her appointment, waiting in the lobby area while I went in with Ellie. Ellie actually talked with Dr. Conover, answering all her questions, and she survived getting three shots. (I thought she only had to get one shot so she wasn't happy that it turned out to be three.)

Lucky Ellie got to be in the elephant exam room!

After the appointment, we took Ellie to lunch at Cafe Rio and went to Lowe’s to pick out a new pot for her avocado tree.

While Ellie was at swim I had a virtual PTC with Mrs. Dean. She said that Ellie is one of her high-achievers, that she's excelling in all areas. The only goal she had for Ellie was to finish Lexia before the end of the year. I felt proud of Ellie's hard work, proud that she would be finishing her elementary career with top marks.

I squeezed in a spin workout while Ellie was at swim. This was one of my favorite rides so far.

I made Thai Coconut Soup for dinner, Jeff took Ellie to guitar, I had virtual book club, and Jeff took the girls to get milkshakes from Chick-fil-A.

Virtual Book Club: The Four Agreements
I loved our discussion of this thought-provoking book and was so happy to have Annette Gamero join us for the first time.
My biggest takeaway (agreement #2): Don't take anything personally.
"When we really see other people as they are without taking it personally, we can never be hurt by what they say or do" (p.57).

Friday, February 26

News: “Latter-day Saint Charities, the humanitarian arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, announced a $20 million grant to support UNICEF’s historic efforts to supply 2 billion COVID-19 vaccines to nearly 200 countries and economies by the end of 2021” (LDS Newsroom).

It was a no school day because of PTCs. Berkeley called Ellie on FaceTime and they “hung out,” playing Roblox together online. Ellie also made pancakes for herself and Ruby for breakfast and invited Ashlyn and Ally to come hang out for the afternoon.

I helped Ellie repot her avocado tree in the bigger pot we bought.

Sarah came to swim to get her cast signed by all her swim friends.

Ruby asked me to get ingredients to make another recipe she'd found online: Mac & Cheese Garlic Bread Bowls. I bought everything she needed and helped her make them. They were actually delicious but I don't think they were worth all the work. (Plus, pasta stuffed in a bread bowl just feels wrong.)
Oh yeah, and we picked up Ruby's new glasses at Target!

Jeff worked his second-to-last day at his CVS. He got home at 8:25 bringing an armful of gifts from his employees and my last prescription.

Saturday, February 27: Jeff's last day at CVS

Jeff left for his last day of work at his Target CVS pharmacy. I think he was mostly excited for it to be his last day, but it would also be weird since he'd be mostly working by himself that day. He'd already said goodbye to mostly everyone.

Ellie got invited to Lilly's movie birthday party at Jordan Commons to see the new Croods movie so she was gone for a few hours.

Ruby finally used the Target gift card that Melanie sent for her birthday. She bought this LIFE-Trouble mashup board game and I had the pleasure of being the first person to play it with her.

Jeff and I agreed that I should bring the girls in to get some "then & now" pictures on his last day at the pharmacy. He has been the Pharmacy Manager at this store since the store opened in October 2010 when Ellie was a wee baby!

Ellie: 9 months old

Ruby: almost 3 years old

October 2010 / 2021

May 2013 / 2021

June 2016 / 2021

That night I wanted to take Jeff out for a special celebration dinner. We tried to go to Simply Thai but it was crazy busy, so we ended up at Namaste, which turns out had a new name and a new menu because it's under new ownership. The food wasn't as good as it used to be either so I don't think we'll be going back there. I remembered that we had some money left on a Cheesecake Factory gift card so we ordered two slices of cheesecake and picked it up to bring home.

The next day I wrote an Instagram post about Jeff's last day of work:

"Jeff started working for Target Pharmacy during his first year in the Doctorate of Pharmacy program at Creighton University. He got hired on at Target as a pharmacist when he graduated in 2008, and opened the brand new Salt Lake Target in 2010 as the Pharmacy Manager.

He stayed on after Target sold their pharmacies to CVS. He has put his heart into this little pharmacy, loving his employees and developing relationships with his loyal patients. He's also been carrying a great deal of stress, working long shifts with no breaks and bare minimum technician help, getting yelled at daily (and much more).

After years of waiting and praying, Jeff was given an opportunity to work for a new company. Yesterday he worked his last shift at his CVS pharmacy. Saying goodbye has been bittersweet. I'm so grateful for this long-awaited blessing."