Or should I say good riddance!? I feel like it goes without saying that this year ended up being a really weird year. So many of our traditions and yearly fun activities either didn't happen or were different this year. Our biggest change was distance learning. The kids have been in distance learning since March with no end in sight. Our school district attempted to return students to school in the middle of a huge upsurge in Coronavirus cases in our community (right before Thanksgiving, I feel like the timing couldn't have been worse). We decided to keep the kids home to see how Thanksgiving travel and family get-togethers affected community spread as well as spread at the school. A week in and Carter's entire grade was in quarantine and then a week later the entire district transitioned back to distance learning because our entire county is in red. So Carter missed a week of in-person classes (he was still learning at home through distance learning so he didn't miss learning, just missed physically being in school) and Elise missed out on 2 weeks of in-person learning.
This has all been such a juggling act to weigh the risks of returning to school to the lack of language acquisition at home because of my limited Spanish speaking ability. Obviously we made the best decision in that case. Instead of being in quarantine over Thanksgiving, like his classmates who returned, Carter got to enjoy Thanksgiving outside with our family. We've learned as we've gone and my Spanish vocabulary has grown significantly as I've worked to fill in the gaps for the kids. I resigned from my job at the preschool so I could stay home and teach the kids while they were in distance learning, although I was hopeful things would improve and the kids would return to school at some point. Our director told me at any point if the kids go back to school, they would love to have me back, so there's an open invitation for me to return. They are super short on teachers with everything that's going on. The preschool re-opened in October. So there have been huge changes for all of us. Back in February I was starting to feel emotional about Elise being in kindergarten and me no longer having 2 days a week with her at home with me. I laugh thinking about that now that we are 9 months into being together constantly. When the kids get to go back to school it will be so exciting, but it will also be a huge adjustment to go from being together all the time to being apart for most of the day. We are all hopeful that 2021 will be a better year! Last year's photo recap can be found here, 2018 here, 2017 here, 2016 here, 2015 here, 2014 here, and 2013 here.
January
We celebrated the start of a new year.
We got some snow.
We celebrated mom, Jeremy, and dad's birthdays.
February
Carter got to participate in his Boy Scout Pinewood Derby.
Carter dressed as a 100 year old for his 100th day of school.
Ty helped Carter make a Lego Valentine's Day box for school.
Elise had a Valentine's Day party at preschool.
We celebrated Valentine's Day.
March
Carter dressed as The Pigeon for book character day at school.
Elise went to what we later realized would be her last friend birthday party of 2020.
I got super sick with the flu and was down for 10 days. Elise was super sweet on Monday when she didn't have school and I was in bed miserable, she even made me toast and brought it to me in bed.
Elise was desperate to be with me but I didn't want her to get sick so she brought a chair in and ate her oatmeal which she had made all by herself sitting in my doorway.
We celebrated Elise's birthday with a Yes Day because she couldn't have a party.
The kids had their first ever virtual playdate.
Ty got to work from home for a while before the whirlwind of being laid off and then finding a new job the next day.
We started "homeschooling" when our spring break as extended by 2 weeks.
Carter started "distance learning" after spring break with a daily Zoom call with his teacher and me supplementing that with work for the rest of the day. Spring distance learning was unstructured and very difficult! Luckily I've taught 1st grade and preschool before so it wasn't too bad for me.
April
We celebrated Easter.
We took Tesla on her first camping trip.
We powered on with homeschool. Outside of a 30 minute Zoom Meeting with Carter's teacher, I was on my own with schooling in the spring.
May
We went digging at the salt plains.
We celebrated Mother's Day.
We celebrated Elise's preschool graduation.
The kids had their last day of school.
Carter got to say bye to his teachers in a drive through parade on the last day of school.
Elise had a drive through graduation at her preschool.
Since we had to cancel Elise's birthday party which we had re-scheduled to May (in retrospect, overly hopeful), we used that money to buy a trampoline.
We had lots of tea parties.
We had our first in-person playdate since early March.
June
The kids each got a hamster, this is Lil Cutie.
Introducing Katie!
We got to visit Gma, Gpa, Paul, Amanda, and cousins among our other Topeka family.
July
We celebrated the 4th of July with a family Firecracker Ride/Run.
And lots of fireworks!
Carter started cooking for himself and Elise a lot more!
The kids completed the summer reading program.
Ty and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary.
We celebrated my 34th birthday.
August
We celebrated mom and dad's anniversary with them at a state park.
Carter fell in the backyard and landed on a rock. We ended up at Urgent Care because of the gash.
Carter and Elise had their first day of school.
We started the year in distance learning but Elise got to go to the school to meet her teacher one-on-one.
Ready to meet her teacher.
September
Katie's fur turned white.
I completed the Virtual Boston Marathon.
We went to Livesay Orchard's for a kindergarten field trip since that's normally the field trip they take in kindergarten.
Carter had his first playdate with his 2 best friends from school since March.
The Gathering Place had a pinwheel art instillation to honor frontline workers.
October
We went to our pumpkin patch we go to every year.
We went camping with Carter's 2 best friends and their families.
We went to a pumpkin patch we'd never been to before with Carter's 2 best friends and their families.
We got to go visit Gma and Gpa.
We got monarch caterpillars and got to watch them as they went through metamorphosis and then released them.
Carter had his first in-person Boy Scout meeting of the school year.
We went trick-or-treating to our neighbors and uncles.
We had a little Halloween get-together at our house.
November
We went on the Talimena Scenic Drive starting in Oklahoma and driving into Arkansas.
We visited our neighbor and learned about Veteran's Day through her stories of her husband's service.
We cheered Jeremy on as he ran his Virtual Route 66 Marathon.
We had a Thanksgiving Feast with our friends since they didn't get to have one at school this year.
We celebrated Thanksgiving with family with a backyard meal.
December
Elise had her first ever Girl Scout event with a Zoom art and baking night.
We visited Santa.
We met Gma and Gpa at a park to celebrate Carter's birthday and Christmas.
We got quite a bit of snow.
We celebrated Carter's 8th birthday.
Carter had his birthday party at a playground with his 2 best friends.
We celebrated Christmas in the backyard with a fire and masks!
Christmas this year looked much different than normal. We celebrated early with Rocky and Leina by driving and meeting them half-way for a joint celebration for Carter's birthday and Christmas. We missed getting to see them and everyone else at Christmas. My parents came on Christmas Eve and the kids were so excited. They asked over and over if Oma and Opa had left yet. Ty had to work but got to leave early and was home around 2pm so he was home when mom and dad arrived. We ate dinner in the backyard like we did for Thanksgiving. The kids each picked a Christmas song to learn in Spanish to do a little Christmas Eve performance for everyone. We practiced as part of our distance learning every day at the end of the day. They were so excited about it and Carter was proud he could sing his song even with his eyes closed. Then when it came time to sing he got freaked out and ran off. I think with it just being the two of them instead of a whole class of kids, he just freaked out.
We watched church service online and mom gave us candles for the singing of Silent Night at the end of the service. After church we played a game where mom read The Night Before Christmas and we passed a present every time she said the word, "the." Shortly after that it was time for bed and the kids set out cookies and milk for Santa. Carter had a tough time falling asleep this year. He kept getting up freaked out that Santa was never going to come because he couldn't fall asleep. I checked that he was asleep a little after 10:00 and then started eating Santa's cookies. Carter woke up and came into the kitchen while I was eating the cookies. Luckily I was wearing a mask and had one bite left so I popped it in my mouth and he didn't say too much about it because Ty grabbed him and walked him out of the room. After that I laid with Carter for a while to help him sleep because I'd been awake since 5:30am and I really needed him to go to sleep so I could start setting out presents! I was up much later than I would have liked, but he was finally asleep and we were able to get everything ready.
Christmas morning Carter woke up at 5am and Ty sent him back to bed. We hadn't gotten to bed until midnight thanks to Carter's struggles to sleep. Carter played quietly in his room and then came back out around 6am saying he was hungry. Ty got him a blueberry muffin and sent him back to his room. At 7:00 he was up again so I got up with him and we checked to see if Santa had arrived. Elise was awake around 8:00 and Carter was so excited for her to see everything. We opened Santa presents with Oma and Opa and then the kids played with them while we waited for Jeremy and Thomas to arrive. Thomas arrived around 10:00 and Jeremy came around 11:00. The kids loved getting to see them open Santa presents. Then we moved into the living room and opened the other presents under the tree. The kids opened theirs and then we took a clean up break. The rest of us opened our presents while the kids played. We finished around 2pm. Then we all got ready to run. Dad, Thomas, Jeremy, and I ran together at trails by our house. Carter wanted to ride his bike and Elise wanted to run too. Mom came to help the kids. Elise ran with Carter on his bike for a while and then wanted to walk. So mom walked with Elise while dad, Thomas, and I helped Carter on his bike. Jeremy continued on. We did a loop with Carter and then waited at the playground for mom and Elise to get back. Once they returned they headed on home while dad, Thomas, and I took off to run some more. We met up with Jeremy and all finished out together. Dad got his leg caught on a thorn and Thomas had a rock he stepped on, pop up and hit him in the shin. So dad and Thomas both finished with bloody legs. It was warm enough I got to run in some of my new Oiselle shorts which I was super excited about!
Ready to head out for our run.
We had leftovers for dinner and played some games. While Elise was playing inside, Thomas went in to get something and asked her what her favorite present was. She said, "My mommy, my daddy, and my family". 2020 was a weird year and Christmas was no different, but it was wonderful. I think the lack of normalcy this year makes me appreciate all of our traditions that we have been able to hold onto even more. And like Elise said, family is the best gift of all! Read about past Christmases here: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013.
Facebook has figured out that I love running and have done quite a few virtual races so it suggests different virtual races for me to run in the advertisements that pop up. I saw the stemless wine glass tumblers for this race and loved them! I showed them to my mom and she was all about it. She signed us all up. I wanted to do this the week of Christmas and planned to do it on Wednesday the 23rd but my legs just weren't feeling up to par so I pushed it back to Thursday, Christmas Eve, which seemed pretty perfect! When I ran on Wednesday morning it was 57 degrees which would have been a bit warm for me to race in right now since I'm used to the cold and my legs felt dead so I knew I made the right decision. Thursday morning I woke up excited to run faster with a tempoish run. The temps were much colder with a 17 degree wind chill! I ran a 2 mile warm up with 3 short strides to get my legs warmed up and going. Then I re-started my Garmin so I'd have my time at 3.1.
I took off and felt pretty darn good. I figured I'd be much slower than I was for my Turkey Trot since I've been running all easy with no speed work or anything since early December. I was excited when I went through the first mile in 6:47 which wasn't too much off my pace from the Thanksgiving race. Although I was running a virtual race, I really couldn't get motivated to actually race this one. I think the cold weather didn't help. I saw my pace was slipping in the 2nd mile when I checked it, but just didn't feel motivated to run any harder. My 2nd mile was 6:54 so not too bad. During the last mile I felt more like I would at the end of a tempo than at the end of a race but I also knew if I had any hope of breaking 21 minutes I'd have to really take off and if I was going to be over 21, I didn't really care by how much. My last mile was 6:50 and I could have kicked harder the last 1/10th of a mile but I had a small uphill and just kind of finished. I ran the last portion in 6:51 pace for a finishing time of 21:20. That was an average pace of 6:51. If I were just starting back with speedwork and tempos right now and that was my pace for a tempo, I'd be pumped. So I'm just looking at this as a strong tempo for me. I enjoyed it and had fun the whole time. Plus I got to drink a glass of wine out of my tumbler that evening with my family at Christmas Eve dinner which was a win! I ran a 2 mile cool down after and then spent the morning trying to warm back up!
December meant lots of Christmas-themed books! With everything going on this year I was even more excited to start in on the light-hearted and fluffy Christmas novels I enjoy each year. I actually started right after Thanksgiving this year. Normally I wait until December otherwise I get tired of them before Christmas. Reading in the dark living room with only the light of the Christmas tree was my favorite this month! Although the whole time I kept thinking of how much it would bug my mom so see me reading in the semi-dark!
Books:
Alaskan Holiday by Debbie Macomber- Last year when we were after Christmas shopping I picked this book up and carried it around for a while before deciding it wasn't worth spending $5 on when I could likely get it at the library. Ty saw me and sneakily bought it for me. When he saw me looking at a Book Page magazine to scope out some good Christmas books at the beginning of December he brought it out, wrapped as a surprise for me. I loved all Macomber's Christmas books I read last year, but this one was my least favorite of hers I've read. But knowing Ty was so sweet and bought it for me to surprise me and then wrapped it special for me, made me enjoy it so much more!
Dashing Through the Snow by Debbie Macomber- I was super excited after Christmas last year when I found a couple Macomber Christmas books at Goodwill. I've held them all year waiting for Christmas time to read them! I was pretty disappointed in this one. I don't know if I read her best books last year and the ones I got this year were just mediocre or if I am not as much in the mood for the cheesiness of her books. But I didn't really like either of the ones that I've read so far! Hopefully the other one I found at Goodwill is better than either of these were, but I won't find out until next year because after 2 stinkers in a row, I'm taking a break from her!
The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate- This was a read aloud with the kids and Oma and Opa through FaceTime. I was so excited to read it when I saw there was a sequel to The One and Only Ivan. I didn't expect it to be as good as The One and Only Ivan and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. Elise even got sucked in a few times. We had a few nights where the kids went to bed late because we couldn't stop reading. Carter said he hopes Applegate writes another book called The One and Only Ruby with Ruby the Elephant as the main character. I think that's a great idea and I hope she does!
Christmas at the Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan- I searched Christmas books in the library database. I was super excited for this one because it had bakery in the title. I always get sucked into titles with bakery, library, or book store in the title. I saw it was the 3rd book in a series when I added it to Goodreads, but oh well. It was okay.
Christmas in London by Anita Hughes- I didn't really like this one and it annoyed me in parts but I did love the setting of London at Christmas so I went ahead and finished it. It was okay. The only thing that saved the book was that it went back and forth between 2 main characters. When I got super annoyed with the main character, it would switch over to the lesser main character and I got a break from her. Her storyline was just annoying and repetitive.
We Met in December by Rosie Curtis- This book reminded me a lot of One Day in December by Josie Silver. So much so, I actually looked that one up to see if maybe it was the same author. This was very cute and I enjoyed it. It was kind of Christmasy but took place starting in December and ending in December the next year, so it's one I would enjoy even if I read it during a month other than December.
eBooks:
I Was Told It Would Get Easier by Abbi Waxman- This was the newest of Waxman's books and I was so excited when I came across it when I was looking at all the books she's written. It was the only one I haven't read. I loved that she brought back the main character from Other People's Houses as a small character in this book, a close friend the main character texts fairly frequently. The last couple books of hers I've read, have me a little terrified for Carter and Elise to become teenagers! She sure makes it sound awful and Elise is already pretty rough on me, so I can only imagine...
The Bookish Holidays of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman- I saw this when I was checking Abbi Waxman out on Goodreads. I was super excited but then realized it was just a short little story she released on her website. It took me a while to find it because it was no longer on her website, but I was glad I did and got to read it! I read it in one sitting because it was so short.
Comfort and Joy by India Knight- I was trying to get Comfort and Joy by Kristin Hannah when I saw this one was available at the library. I read it described as similar to Bridget Jones and decided to give it a try. It was cute and fun. It did have a bit of a Bridget Jones feel to it, but wasn't as funny.
A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg- I was so excited when I found this one searching Christmas books on the library's database. I loved her other books I have read. It was so good and one of the best Christmas books I read this year!
Christmas on the Island by Jenny Colgan- I had this one on hold for a long time and when it came in and I realized it was the same author as Christmas at the Little Beach Street Bakery I didn't really want to read it anymore. Since it was an ebook and the chapters were short I decided to go ahead and give it a try. I'm glad I did because I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva- I was super excited about this one because I love Dickens. I really struggled through it and it actually took me almost the entire 2 weeks I was able to have this checked out to finish it. I liked the ending, about the last quarter of the book, but the first part I just read to get through it. Overall I was disappointed in it and wouldn't recommend it as a Christmas book. It left me wishing I'd just read A Christmas Carol over again instead of reading this.
Audiobooks:
Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory- This was a holiday book that was super popular last year. I put it on hold around Thanksgiving and still hadn't gotten it after Christmas so I canceled my hold and left it on my list for this year. I put it on hold right after Thanksgiving this year to make sure I'd get it before Christmas. I wasn't very impressed with it. It wasn't bad but it wasn't one I was excited to fold laundry to listen to.
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo- I saw Acevedo listed as a great narrator and this was on my to-read list so I decided to listen to it. It was so good. I really enjoyed it and she was a fabulous narrator!
A Quilt for Christmas by Sandra Dallas- I came across this searching the library's database and was super excited, thinking maybe it was a holiday sequel to The Persian Pickle Club. I read the description and realized it was set during the Civil War and knew it wasn't a sequel. It was really good and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren- I saw this one advertised quite a bit. I was super excited for it and it took a long time to get it. Usually that means the fastest way to get it is as an audiobook and that was definitely the case this time. I put it on hold as an ebook, book, and audiobook and the audiobook was ready when I was still way down the list for the others. It was so good and was one of my favorite Christmas books this year. It was like a Christmas version of Groundhog Day but more uplifting and romantic than slightly depressing and comedic.
Nothing Like I Imagined by Mindy Kaling- I was really excited when I saw Kaling had a new set of essays out. I got 5 as audiobooks, read by Kaling, with an itunes gift card but the last essay I could only find as an ebook. After reading it I wonder if it's only available as an ebook because there are pictures, but it may just be that I couldn't find an audiobook version. This was by far my favorite of her books. I liked every essay and there were a few times I busted out laughing on a run while listening to it. I liked her other books but there were always a couple essays I thought were just okay. I really liked all of them on this one.
You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas by Augusten Burroughs- At the beginning this reminded me so much of David Sedaris and made me want to listen to Christmas on Ice instead, but I ended up liking it quite a bit. There were some really funny parts, some really weird parts, and some very touching parts. It was worth the listen!
Winter Stroll by Elin Hilderbrand- This was book #2 in her Winter series about the Quinn family and it was probably my favorite. I listened to the 4th one as an audiobook in December 2 years ago, not realizing it was the 4th in a series. Then I listened to the 1st one last year. Listening to this one I was a little confused about what was still to come (that I knew from the 4th book) and what had already happened in the 1st one. This was the first one I read and had to read the next one right away so I put the 3rd book on hold and got it fastest as an audiobook.
Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling- I wanted a short audiobook to listen to while I waited for the next book in the Winter Series to become available. I looked through books I've tagged in my library app and this one was short so I went with it. I read enough of the blurb to know it was about a girl with no arms who befriends a boy with Tourette's Syndrome. I didn't realize it was a children's chapter book, but I absolutely loved it and was thrilled when I saw there is a 2nd book in the series when I added this one to Goodreads. I can't wait to read that one! I highly recommend this and plan to read it with the kids at some point. It is funny and not preachy, more like a more comedic version of Wonder.
Winter Storms by Elin Hilderbrand- This finished out the Winter Series for me. I loved this one just as much as the 2nd one. Now I want to go back and refresh my mind about what happens with a couple of the characters in the 4th book. I remember the big things but I don't remember specifics about Ava and her relationship and there are a couple things about Jennifer that I'm hazy on.
