January!

 We had a good January, despite the continuing pandemic situation.  Our New Year was fairly uneventful - Erin woke up with a fever on the 1st, so I went to church by myself while the rest watched from home.  In a protest of the traditional "good luck" New Year's meal not working for the past two years, we revolted and had New Year's lasagna instead.  Hopefully it will work better than the usual stuff!  We watched a sad loss for the Wolfpack to Kentucky in the Gator Bowl on the 2nd.  

We broke out the fondue pot again on the 5th for some chocolate:

The school decided to have all kids do remote learning for the first two weeks back in January due to holiday travel and Covid spread, so we did that.  It went well and was much smoother than remote learning last spring.  It was also nice to save some driving time and be able to sleep a little later.  The kids seemed glad that we didn't decide to do that for the whole year, though!  

Otherwise, some highlights were our new washer arriving on Friday the 8th.  After being without one since Christmas Eve, we have a new appreciation for it!  The new one works great so far and is getting lots of use.

We girls and Finley enjoyed a hike at Raven Rock State Park on Saturday the 9th.  

Erin started her first of 9 weeks of rehearsals for Dance Theater on Sunday the 10th.  She is enjoying doing something new, and the show should be really cute!  The teacher has had to be creative as far as dividing the kids up and doing as much as possible outdoors.

Erin made a gourmet breakfast for us on the 14th!  

We attempted breakfast for dinner for the first time in over 10 years (due to Erin's disdain for it), and she tolerated it well.  Whew!

We enjoyed visiting with Liz and David's cats on Saturday the 16th, and the kids had a day off for MLK Jr. Day on the 18th.  

Erin got to go hang out at Olivia's that day and had a great time.  Then, it was back to school on Tuesday, and so far so good there.  Due to 2 more people quitting in the cafeteria, I am now there every school day from 9:30am-1:00pm.  Thankfully, Bob is home with Finley so I don't worry about him, and it's been going well.  I get plenty of exercise running the food to each classroom!  

We had a bit of snow overnight between the 27th and 28th, but only had a 2-hour delay at school.  Anna and Finley got out to play for awhile in the morning and it melted shortly after they went to school.  I was glad they didn't cancel the whole day!

Otherwise, the last two weeks of the month have been fairly routine.  The kids were busy with school and Erin also has been busy with dance and piano.  Anna is looking forward to soccer starting back up in February and has been working on decorating her newly painted room.  We are enjoying the winter weather and wouldn't mind a bigger snow at some point!  Bob is still working with the Knights every Saturday and Sunday to cook and serve meals to families in need in Apex.  Last count, they had served over 20,000 meals over 44 weekends.  Wow!

We are excited about booking a short trip to Fort Lauderdale during Spring Break in April.  We hope that Covid won't mess it up!  The vaccines are slowly being given.  We hope that speeds up and we will be back to normal soon!

2020

Well, people keep saying that 2020 is one for the history books.  It was definitely quite an unusual year for many reasons.  The event that has had the most impact on us by far has been the coronavirus pandemic.  What started in March as something that we knew nothing about and was going to mean 2 weeks in "lockdown" continues 10 months later!  The whole world has been affected in many ways.  The best news, I think, is that our country and many others have approved several vaccines for the virus after a record-breaking development and testing process, and these vaccines are being produced and distributed as quickly as possible.  We are hearing that the last phase of vaccines (young healthy people who do not work in healthcare/Bob and me) should happen in the spring.  As of now, kids under age 16 have not been tested to receive any of the vaccines, but it sounds like that will change.  So, we will see!  I am also hoping that the number of cases drops drastically once most people get vaccinated, and that we can return to more of a sense of normalcy.  It has to, right?!

We are thankful that this has not affected our jobs, home, etc.  Bob has been able to spend every Saturday and Sunday since the end of March cooking and distributing 200+ meals each day to a community in need, and he has enjoyed that quite a bit.  The kids did school from home from mid-March to the end of May, but were able to return to school in August wearing masks, with smaller class sizes and desks spaced apart, no lockers, no switching classes, lunch in the classrooms, etc.  It seemed to work well, because I think that only 3 adults and one child tested positive between August-Christmas break.  I was able to get my first "on the books" job since November 2009, delivering hot lunches to the classrooms.  That has been a lot of fun and great exercise too!

The kids were able to continue with their activities, though modified.  Dance was all virtual (classes over video that they participated in from home) from April-May, and the recitals were canceled.  Erin's ballet summer camp was moved to virtual.  Anna's summer dance class was shortened from 8 weeks to 4, and then made virtual.  Erin's piano lessons moved to virtual in the spring, as well as her recital.  Anna started soccer in August, which was able to happen more-or-less normally in the fall.  She then tried indoor soccer for the first time in November and December.  That was good, until the Y decided to make them wear masks while playing for the second half of the season.  Boo!  I have been doing cycle classes outdoors at the Y - first in the parking lot, and now under a picnic shelter type area, which is much better - it's covered from the rain, and they recently added outdoor heaters.  The gym is open, but they require masks to be worn indoors at all times, which I am not too excited about doing.  We watched church on TV only for awhile, then did TV mass plus drive-up communion in the parking lot, then daily mass only with TV mass on Sundays, and then finally mass in person but wearing masks, spaced apart, no touching, etc.  Two of my book clubs have not happened since last winter, and the third was virtual for awhile before resuming in person in September.  Bob's Knights and parish finance council meetings have been a mix of virtual/video calls, outdoors, and spaced out in the church lobby or the chapel.  The second and third fish fries were canceled in 2020, much to Bob's dismay...but plans are in the works to offer a modified drive-through option this coming Lent.  The neighborhood pool was opened without furniture or floats and with sign-in required to maintain low numbers.  We didn't make it to the Y pool because they did not allow guests (the kids) this year.

So, all of our regular activities have been drastically changed.  We have not been able to celebrate birthdays and holidays with family, which has been sad for all of us.  We have gotten good at Zoom calls/group FaceTime, and Google Meets!

We had planned a spring break trip to Aruba that was postponed to July and then canceled by the hotel/airline.  We had also booked a trip to Banff in early June with Grandma A., which was also canceled.  Luckily, we got all of our money back in some form or another for both trips.  Instead, we went to Hilton Head twice (once just ourselves and once in August with cousins and grandparents) and Rocky Mountain National Park.  These trips were lots of fun, and we had a great time!

I have spent a great deal of time griping about the pandemic and its effects to anyone who will listen, though I keep seeing people on social media who are trying to look at the positive side of it.  Being positive about it is not always easy for me to do, especially when we watch/read local or national news that seems to stretch the truth or present conflicting information such that we don't know what is really happening.  However, we are truly fortunate that Bob's job has been stable through all of this, the kids have been able to continue learning, and we have our home.  We have learned a lot about technology!  

Speaking of home, we definitely made a lot of home improvements in 2020 - partly out of necessity, and partly because we were home so much that we had the time/motivation to do so.  Highlights include: a new stove/microwave combo, curtains in the living room/kitchen, new window films on the front of the house, a new-to-us sectional in the bonus room thanks to Dale and Maria and Grandpa A. for delivering it, new mattress for B&G, new refrigerator, new-to-Anna bed and bedroom wall color, and a new washing machine.  These have all helped spruce up the house a little bit, along with the never-ending purging of old stuff.

Aside from Covid, other events this year include some racial tensions in the early summer, the presidential election, and a bunch of random freak things that kept prompting people to say "that's so 2020".  We also saw Msgr. Staib retire and welcomed Fr. Chris to our parish over the summer.  It was quite the year...we sure are thankful that we did not have to attend nearly as many funerals as we did in 2019, and there were some really great things that did happen in 2020, but we sure do hope and pray for a return to normalcy sooner rather than later.  After all, I don't know how much longer my "favorite face mask" is going to hold up!!  That's SO 2020!

December!

Well, December was busy, but was not the whirlwind that it usually is, thanks to several of our annual events being canceled this year.  We missed the Red Hat holiday party, neighborhood Santa/hayride, and school Christmas Pageant, Liz and David's annual party, among other events.  Covid continues to be in the forefront of everything, though the good news is that the vaccines are now being delivered to the states and health care workers and those in assisted living, etc. are beginning to receive the first of two doses of the vaccine. Hopefully the distribution will go fast!

I had the excitement of going to Costco on December 1st to get new tires for my car.  That place was hopping!  Our new refrigerator also arrived on Friday the 4th, so that was an exciting week around here.  We enjoyed Santa coming through on a trailer pulled behind a fire truck on the evening of the 4th.  We had a busy day on Saturday the 5th with Erin's virtual mock piano recital in the morning, gingerbread house making, cleaning out our old fridge to sell (the guy who bought it ended up claiming that it didn't work, so we refunded most of his money...hopefully he was telling the truth, but it was working fine when he picked it up!), then Erin had Olivia's birthday party that afternoon, and Anna had a bonus soccer practice, which was a lot of fun.  Whew!

The week of the 7th was pretty routine.  I had the fun of helping my boss in the cafeteria deliver hot cocoa and donuts to all the teachers on the morning of the 9th.  I have never been so popular!  We made a few cookies during the week.

Erin and I went to confession on Saturday the 12th because she had missed her class's time in November.  She also had a virtual audition for the Carolina Ballet summer intensive that day, and while she was already leotard-ed up, she also made her video for the HSSOD 2021 Dance Theater production.  She got the good news this morning that she got a part in the Dance Theater show!  Way to go, Erin!  We probably won't hear back on the summer camp for awhile.  Hopefully the summer camp will be in person this year, and hopefully she will be a part of it!  We were supposed to go to Concord on the 13th for Ben's birthday, but poor Elliott had been exposed to Covid at his preschool and tested positive for it.  Luckily, he never had any symptoms, and the rest of the family all tested negative.  

The following week was the last week of school for the year, and it was busy!  The kids got out of school at 11:30 on the 18th and were ready to relax.  Erin and I enjoyed helping at Brown Bag Ministry in Apex on Saturday the 19th...they modified their structure and don't allow nearly as many people to volunteer, but we still had a great time and made 98 lunches for a site in downtown Raleigh!  In the afternoon, we made some sugar cookies and watched Santa come through the neighborhood for a second time, with a surprise appearance by the Grinch!

On the 21st, Erin had her 12-year checkup and passed with flying colors!  She is perfectly healthy and had no issues other than some eczema, which is ongoing for her.  Grandma A. then came up that morning and stayed with the girls while Bob, Finley, and I went to Lake Gaston for 2 nights!  We had a great time checking out the area, hiking, and enjoyed the (dog-friendly) Rosemont Winery.  The girls and Grandma were busy with several craft projects, walks, and playing games!  We were so thankful that she came!  

Grandma went home on the 23rd, and we mostly hung around here since sadly the Summer Family quarantine was going into January.  We all made the most of it by having a fun Zoom Christmas Eve present opening and played a Christmas song game that Erin made up.  

After that, there was some excitement with our washing machine that ended up requiring a part that was going to cost at least $200...so we decided to order a new washing machine instead.  Then we went to the Tierneys' Christmas Eve party which was lots of fun, even though we were the only guests this year.  We had a great time eating yummy food and playing Ticket to Ride!  Then it was to bed for Santa to come, and he sure did! 

We had a fun Christmas morning opening gifts and then went to church at 10am, where Erin was an altar server.  We spent the rest of the day checking out our new gifts (Erin got a phone!  Anna gets to redo her room!).  It was a very nice day.  The rest of the week was very relaxing - I got to visit the laundromat 2 times and also borrowed neighbor Karen's washing machine.  It is crazy how much you take things like washing machines for granted!  The laundromat has been a good experience, though - just more expensive than I expected!  

The rest of the week, we were busy painting Anna's room a light gray with a darker gray accent wall, cleaning, playing with our new presents, and just relaxing.  It was great!  

It seemed weird to me to not be shopping for Santa's Secret Workshop this year...since the school didn't have the shopping for the kids this year, we are going to try to save everything to sell next year.  Hopefully that will work!  We had a fun outdoor playdate with Tom, Pam, Jimmy, and Danny on the 29th.  Tom was very happy to try out the hot tub!  

We ladies plus Sarah got pedicures on the 31st, which was lots of fun!  True to 2020, we stayed home on New Year's Eve and had fun playing games and enjoyed Jello cake and cheese fondue.  Yum!  Anna tried her hardest to make it to midnight, but 10:30 was the best we could do.  

So, that was December.  Their school announced that they are going to have remote learning at least for the first week in January due to more cases of Covid in the community and within the school.  So, it continues.  I have heard of more people getting vaccinated lately, so we eagerly await our turn!  May December 2021 be back to normal, because we really missed a lot this year!