Two week letter

This was taken in the hospital of baby Harvey, Elise and Andy

Greta

 For Mother's Day, Matt had Caitlyn come up and take Crista out for the day.  They went to lunch (with the girls), on a bike ride, then Caitlyn took care of the kids while Matt and Crista went to dinner.  I think it was the Vance's first concession with social distancing. 

Bridget

Crista and Caitlyn

Cait, Bridget, Ruby and Greta

Roy and I were able to escape last weekend to Flaming Gorge.  We took our trailer up, and we will leave it there for the summer.  Nate and Cait (or Natelyn, as they've been called lately), went up with us.  It was so nice to have things feel sort of normal for a change.  It was still a little chilly, maybe 10 degrees cooler than in Centerville, but it was sunny and great for walking and hanging outside.  The campground is private, so though they aren't planning on making any concessions for social distancing this summer, this particular weekend was very light on campers. 

Roy and Catharine

Outside of the trailer.  Don't worry--Nate slept in
a tent and Caitlyn slept in the trailer--the hammocks
were for daytime relaxation.

At the viewpoint of our traditional hike--
Nate and Cait

This was previous to our little vacation.  Nate's a big 
biker, so Caitlyn's working on it.

We saw a small group of 5 or 6 of these big horn sheep

Perfect reading opportunity

We celebrated Mother's Day and Roy's birthday at the Gorge.  It made it hard for our kids to visit, but they still remembered us.  Below is a beautiful pillow hand embroidered for me by Jieun:

While things were going well for us at the Gorge, things weren't going so great for the Howells.  Jordan was in a car accident.  Thankfully, Jordan was all right, but the car didn't fare so well.  This has been a hard year for Jordan and Jennie as both of their incomes were reduced for a month or so with the Stay Home Stay Safe orders.  They're both back to work now, but the car was a set back they didn't need.  It was a bummer to have it happen just a couple of days before Jennie's 25th birthday.

Also for Roy's birthday, we used his"buy one get one free" meal at Tuchanos.  It's so sad to see these restaurants that are usually overflowing with people, just trying to get a few customers to get back in business.  When we arrived there was a couple just finishing up with their dinner, and one other couple arrived before we left.  The service was completely different, too.  They served family style instead of the usual salad buffet and bringing meats directly to the table.

Note the empty restaurant

With no school, some of my grand kids have been taking advantage and camping outside.  Dan's kids have been sleeping on their deck.  Yuna had a few bug bites as a consequence.

In the following picture it looks like the camping has been moved indoors.

Doyeon finished her schoolwork early one day.  Time for
rejoicing!

I believe this was home church last week.

Caitlyn took this picture.  We had Nate to dinner last Sunday.

 With Sara being pregnant, she's not willing to break down on social distancing just yet.  so we haven't seen much of them lately.  We're ready for things to get back to normal, but we're wondering what the new normal will be like.  Things are probably never going to be exactly like they have been in the past.  We did get a couple of pictures from Nick showing a new game on the trampoline.  Nick says the girls will only play outside if he goes outside and plays with them.  This makes it very hard to get all his work done.

Nick's girls got new bikes.  They couldn't leave Avie out--even
though she has no clue how to pedal hers.

Caitlyn had the joy of having a Covid.19 test this past week (Sara and Jordan have previously had the experience--Sara's was chosen at random to be tested, and Jordan had to be tested for work) in preparation for her tonsillectomy that happened on the 15th.  Though much easier than her double jaw surgery, she still had a hard day due to nausea from the anesthesia.  She also gets super emotional from the drugs.  She's much better today (the 16th).

An update on Henry, Mark and Katherine's son:  He has had several blood transfusions and chemotherapy.  Unfortunately, both he and Mark were exposed to the Covid.19 virus from one of their roommates.  This is from Nan's letter:
"Henry is doing well with his treatments for leukemia. He was moved to Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and he likes it much better. He had his own room for a little while but a roommate was added and the poor little boy whimpered and cried all the time. Mark had to squeeze close to Henry to make room for the dozens of people who were attending to the little boy. In the morning, Mark asked to be moved because they were unable to get any sleep. They were moved to another room with an older boy. It was much more pleasant but they were soon moved again to a private, sealed, and quarantined room because the mother of the very sick little boy tested positive for Covid. It was really sad because she wasn’t allowed to be with her son and she requested another test. Last evening, we received some good news. Both Henry and Mark tested negative for Covid. It may be too early to tell but Henry will finish his steroids on Friday and he will have another chemotherapy treatment on Saturday and then if all goes as planned, he will go home for about a week. Sadly, he is beginning to lose his hair."