Surviving 2020

Can you believe it's finally December? This year has been awful, but the end is in sight and there is still much to reflect on and be grateful for. Fortunately, we made it through most of 2020 without COVID until this week. Half of our crew has tested positive and the other half is getting tested today. It's been bearable and sometimes feels like the flu. John had it the worse, but overall, we're pretty glad to know that we did have it and that we now have some antibodies.

Reflecting back to 2020, we have many things to be grateful for. We enjoyed much more time as a family for sure. Ashlyn was in her first year of college and ended up coming home for her last quarter. That was a great surprise for me! She was also supposed to move to Seattle for the summer to work at Amazon, and that job ended up being remote from home. So we got to have her home from March through August! 

We played quite a bit of board games and video games together in 2020. We baked, we cooked, we binged Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. We spent a lot of time reading. And of course, we hiked and walked alot. We enjoyed being in our pajamas or sweatpants most of the day. When things finally started opening up, we went on a road trip to Jackson Hole, WY. We say Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Montana and Wyoming. It was beautiful! We made great memories together. 

We enjoyed worshipping from home for most of the year while our church offered our service online. We also enjoyed lots of zooms and skypes with friends and family around the country and world. Isn't technology great?

One hard thing about 2020 was my mom's health. She is only 64 years old, but has had a number of health complications this year. In January she got pneumonia, which eventually turned into a hospital stay that ended too quickly because of COVID. She was eager to get home as much as the hospital was eager to not have her exposed to it there. She went home and then rushed back a few days later with 40% oxygen. This led to a ventilator, a one month hospital stay and another month at a rehabilitation center. Then back to the hospital, back to the rehab place, and back home. She's home now in December on oxygen 24 hours a day, but we are thankful she survived. She has not had COVID yet and we're told it would be life threating if she did. We're quaranting now from her, but have enjoyed seeing her a lot more often than we had these past years. 

Our dog Bear is super happy to have everyone home more this year. In fact, when the school started back up in the fall, and the boys were gone a couple days a week, she went into a depression. Ashlyn's room was empty when she went back to Truman in the fall too, which she proudly claims as her own room. She's adjusting again to Ashlyn being home for winter break. I know Bear has had to hear all about 2020 from everyone's perspective here and I think plans to make a journal one day. In the meantime, the boys are trying to convince John to give her a sibling so she can experience mothering. I'm not sure we are desperate enough for that this year yet!

We hope you have been able to see the glimpses of good and love in 2020 like we have. We pray that this New Year will bring you gratefulness and joy in the moments. Please feel free to comment or reach out to us through this blog. We love and miss you all!

Merry Christmas from our crew!