#CoronaWedding, week #3 of pandemic shut down, split head, and general conference!

Making the garage ready for Joseph and Jessica

Joseph and Jessica

Wedding cake for the family

Wedding cake for the bride and groom

Maintenance workers putting on PPE gear to come change our garage door motor

Maintenance guy in full PPE gear supervising our garage motor being replaced.  

Gideon drawing extra chalk lines for the 6 foot protective bubble that the bride and groom stay in.  

Our friends and neighbors came out onto their roof to watch the wedding!

The wedding has started (see the pastor is over 6 feet away)

Gideon has to continue to add more chalk to his chalk bubble, even in the middle of the ceremony!

Saying their vows!

Exchanging rings

First kiss as a married couple!

Our neighbors threw fake snow to celebrate, it was awesome!

One of Caleb's chalk decorations he made for the new couple!

Betsy bringing out the cake she made!

Cutting their cake in the garage, and smooshing it in each other's faces

Chairs were far apart from the pastor and couple, so we all were careful to keep our distance!

The kids coloring while watching general conference

Gideon split his head open falling off the bunk bed

All fixed up!

So March 30th, I got the crazy news that Joseph and his fiancée Jessica (I didn't know she was his fiancée until that day) were flying to Hawaii and getting married April 2nd, and then staying with us during the rest of the pandemic shut down.  I was shocked at the news, to say the least.  Joseph had left for the MTC early January, planning to be on his mission to North Dakota for two years.  After three weeks at the MTC, he was sent home Feb 4th with a medical release.  He was having dissociative episodes in the MTC that they thought could possibly be some kind of seizures and sent him home for more testing.  After a month of seeing a doctor, they only tried to diagnose him with anxiety, they wouldn't run any physical tests.  We didn't agree with the diagnose at all, and were in the process of getting a referral to get a second opinion.  Joseph learned his girlfriend (he met her in online high school, and they had been together on and off for a year.  She was waiting for him while he went on his mission) was struggling and needed help.  Joseph changed his mind about trying to get back on his mission, and flew to California to help Jessica.  He left March 11th, just a few days before everything started getting shut down due to the Corona Virus Pandemic.   Unfortunately, Joseph arrived at the worst possible time in California, he had found a place to stay, and a good lead on a job, but once he arrived everything shut down, and he had nowhere to stay, and no job.  He ended up staying in a hotel for the next several weeks (blowing through all his savings), and tried to find a job.  His girlfriend was staying with him, since she had nowhere else to go as well.  I guess he proposed to her after the first week there, but he never told me.  Anyway, he tried joining the army, but part way through that process everything got shut down there as well, and he couldn't get any kind of job at all.  Realizing that he was almost out of money, and didn't have enough to get them through to April 30th, (the end of the shut down).  Decided to come home and bring his fiancée with him.  They knew once they travelled to Hawaii they would be required to undergo a 14 day quarantine, so they wanted to get married first, so they could be together during this time.  So I had three days to plan and pull off a wedding in my driveway/garage and prepare a space for the couple to quarantine for two weeks, all with a stay at home order in place and social distancing requirements(staying 6 feet away) to meet, as well as no gatherings of more than 10.   Also, Travis was gone for pre-ranger school Feb 1-21st, then left Feb 25th for Fort Benning, GA for Ranger School, and will be gone till the end of summer.  We had very limited communication, so when I finally got to talk to Travis towards the end of March, I had a lot to tell him!  We got Joseph and Jessica flights booked, and I had them fill out and pay for their marriage license online.  Then I worked on finding someone who could marry them.  That took a while, as first a chaplain said he could do it, but then he couldn't.  All the chaplains were told not to perform weddings right now, then our bishop was going to do it, but then the stake president told him he couldn't right now either, so I finally had a friend that I know from PWOC, whose husband was a pastor and he could do it.  (this was with 24 hour notice by this point).  I spent the next few days cleaning out the garage with Samuel and getting it ready, Betsy made two small wedding cakes, one for us, and on for the couple to put in the garage before they arrive.  We set up a gate and a sheet blocking off the garage and bathroom just inside the house from the garage away from the rest of the house.  The little boys gathered white flowers from the neighborhood and made leis for them to wear (they forgot to wear them for the wedding).  They also cut out hearts from white paper, and decorated them and hung them on yarn to help decorate.  Austin donated some white paper flowers she had made, and the white dress she had made.  I reached out to my PWOC group for more ideas on decorating, and a friend dropped off some white panels, candles, an a/c unit and her wedding dress for me to borrow. I also had the job of letting all the grandparents, aunts and uncles know what was happening.   So the day before the wedding we lost power for a while, which was annoying, but the next morning when I went to finish up all the decorating our garage door wouldn't open.  I realized our motor had probably blown with the power outage the day before, as I have heard that happens a lot.  I tried calling the maintenance line, but ended up having to leave a message on their emergency line.  Also, I couldn't open the garage door manually because our cord was missing.  I got a call back from maintenance and they agreed to send someone out to look at it.  A worker came in about an hour and checked it, and indeed the motor had blown, he said someone would be back in a couple hours to fix it.  I then got a call saying they couldn't come until Monday, but agreed to come soon, after I explained I needed it working for my son who was flying in and using the space as his quarantine.  Luckily while I was out working on decorations one of my neighbors came over and was able to open the garage door for me, so I could continue to get things ready.  Then it was time to pick Joseph and Jessica from the airport at 12:45pm, so Samuel, Gideon, and Malachi climbed into the van with me, and we drove to the airport to pick them up.  We stayed in the front two rows of the van, and Joseph an Jessica climbed in from the back of the van and sat in the very back and put on the facemasks and gloves we had waiting for them on their seats.  We drove to the Health Dept. building where they issue the marriage licenses, and we parked and Joseph and Jessica got out through the back of the van and walked to the building.  They stopped on a line made on the sidewalk in front of the building, and a worker came out to talk to them, keeping a safe distance.  They explained what they wanted and were given a paper to fill out, then the person took their IDs and phone number down, and went inside (they were wearing gloves and a mask too)  They ended up having to give the person my phone number, as both of theirs died on the long plane ride here.  So I slid my phone to them to use, and the person called them and did the interview over the phone, they slid my phone back to me, and I sanitized it before touching it. The person came back and gave them their IDs and marriage license, and Joseph and Jessica climbed back in to the back of the van and we drove back home.  I explained to them the situation with the garage, and that they couldn't come in until it had been fixed.  So when we got home, They climbed out through the back and sat in camp chairs (we put them there for them) underneath the big tree near our house.  I was able to bring them some food and a solar powered phone charger, then three maintenance vans showed up.  They didn't come to the house, but went in a group off to the side.  Then I get a call from a supervisor saying that I have to move the tent, chairs, and white panels I had put up.  So I moved that stuff, and then I see that they workers are starting to put on all this protective gear, so I came out to tell them that it wasn't necessary, that Joseph and Jessica hadn't even come close to the house yet, but a supervisor ran over yelling that I needed to go inside and stay inside, and keep my kids inside too, as we were tagged a quarantine house.  (The kids had been working on their sidewalk chalk decorations)  So we all went back inside and watched out the window as it took 2 hours to do a 15 minute job because of all the protective gear they had to get one, and even took everything back out in hazmat bags.  All the while Joseph and Jessica are stuck under the tree, and can't even use the bathroom.  So eventually they finally finished, and Joseph and Jessica were able to come to the garage and start getting changed for the wedding, since it's only an hour away now.  None of the white dresses I had gotten fit Jessica well, so she ended up wearing my hawaiian dress, which ended up working nicely.  The pastor arrived, and we had a short, but sweet marriage ceremony with Joseph and Jessica.  Gideon drove me a little nuts, because he had to keep drawing the chalk lines around everyone during the ceremony, but once I got him to draw around the chairs it was a little better.  Our neighbors watched from their porches and roof, and threw fake snow when the ceremony was complete.  We had the delicious cake that Betsy made, and then I drove Joseph and Jessica to the little apartment the pastor was letting them use for two weeks for their honeymoon/quarantine.  We also had general conference that same weekend!  It was wonderful, I love the spirit and inspiration that is felt during general conference.    It was the first time it was broadcast only, and no one could meet in Salt Lake City, so that was different.  But I had been preparing for the special conference by studying the first vision, and the church's restoration, so to have the new restoration proclamation read by president nelson in the sacred grove was especially powerful.  The kids colored and watched some of the conference, but not all of it.  I know some of them took good notes and enjoyed it too.  The Hosanna Shout was pretty awesome too!