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2020 A Year of COVID 19 and Social Distance

As bad as 2020 has been for us as a population, I wanted a way to remember how we as a family fared. I figure a decade from now when all of this is either the beginning of situation normal or a distant memory, I will want to be able to look back at 2020.

So here are a few of the photos of this past year to show what it was like for our family.

Our year started off great. We even had our nu.
The year quickly seemed headed for nowhere on March when we began social isolation and distance learning.
O’s computer sitting on his great-grandmother’s desk.
Distance learning was a new, serious challenge for our family of 4 special needs children.
Our family walked daily.
We found lots of interesting things on our walks, like this abandoned car from the 1950’s.
It was a pleasant surprise to find so many wooded walks near us. So we walked….
And just kept walking as we discovered more interesting hikes near us.
Wildlife ran rampant in the neighborhood.
All of the walking and sharing in,my wife’s exercise routines lead to my 4,5,6 challenge. My hope is to add a year pf productivity by being healthier in exchange for the year lost to COVID 19.
After a few months of social distancing, we did a formal dinner where we all dressed up.
We had fun playing blind twister with textured circles and blindfold to level the playing field for K.
Fireworks were visible from the comfort of our neighborhood again. They were a tradition that survived the virus unscathed.
We still dressed for Halloween and our yearly photo at our neighbor’s house.
When we could not do some of out normal traditions, J stepped in to keep things fun with Halloween themed foods like Mummy Dogs.
As Christmas rolled around, we headed out to look at the lights. This house has been invited to participate in Christmas Lights War next year.
There is nothing like a singing pooping flamingo to get belly laughs from the family.
What’s Christmas without a constantly squeaking pogo stick?
The rainbow signaled the end of bad times in biblical times. May this one signal the coming of better days once again as we head into 2021.
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Snow Globes and Turning 45 in 2020

Rainbows are supposed to be God’s way of saying tomorrow will be better, right? After 2020, is there a big enough rainbow?

It’s easy to think 2020 has been a disaster of a year.  I mean it started with forest fires ravaging Australia, and it never seemed to get any better.  In February, I started warning my work we needed a plan for when COVID 19 made it to America.  By March, we heard from my sister-in-law in WA that we needed to be taking more care because when it got to us, it would be bad.  By the end of March, my work offered people as much work from home time as they wanted.  Two weeks later, we were 100% telework.

With the stress of the election three weeks away and turning 45 today, it got me thinking about this year of isolationism from the rest of the world our house has endured.  It is a time I will remember for many things, and not all of them are as bad as I would think for the year.  Here are some of my favorites because I want to be able to look back years from now and remember how we got through the pandemic year 1.

I loved the night we all dressed up in our fine attire to eat as a family because we needed something different and fun to do. 

I love thinking about our little kids in the baby pools in our backyard, even if I am bitter about the reason.  We don’t have a real pool because a dishonest contractor took our money and ran. 

I love all the dinners we ate together on our screened in porch.

Blindfolded twister was a big hit with blindfolds and textured circles.

I loved some of the games we played, like blind twister.  My oldest son is a master of that one as his body control and balance is incredible. 

Then there were all the nights my wife and two youngest kids did feats of strength and balance.

There are times where looking at a book isnt the best way to teach letters. You need a strength and balance test.

I love my two oldest kids going back to school at desks used by their grandfather and great grandmother.  I just imagine them sitting there bored thinking their grandparents must have been bored at that very same desk at one point.  Then I think of them learning the same things because the most important things taught in school haven’t changed in the last hundred years.

O’s computer sitting on his great-grandmother’s desk.
A sitting at a desk made by her grandpa when he was in 6th grade.

I also love my wife and I doing the same daily on-line exercise routines.  She would do them early in the day, and I would do them at night.  Between those, cutting down on my soda’s and not eating out much at all, I dropped 40 lbs. and hit my 4-5-6 goal.  Lilly Sabri and Chloe Ting have been my favorites thus far, but that is just because I am a glutton for punishment. Still, I am moderately proud of meeting my goal, not to bad for a 45 year old man who has had Multiple Sclerosis for the past 15 years.

My favorite memories of the past year have been all of our family walks.  Every day from March through September we walked as a family come sun or rain.  As school starts again, we have not been able to do them every day, and I think I will miss those walks the most.  Just walking around our neighborhood and the surrounding areas, we got to see a fair amount of nature and spend a lot of time together.  Granted, I spend a lot of time on those walks prodding our youngest to keep up and not get distracted, but I enjoy our walks. They calm me.

Every anniversary, I write to me wife, “Stay with me. Walk with me. The best is yet to be. This I believe.”

So, I think it is more than fitting that on my 45th birthday, we would go for a walk at a park my parents used to take me for walks 35 years ago.  I didn’t remember that until my mom told me it was one we used to visit frequently.  I only remembered the racquetball courts and pool.  Still, it is one more thing this year with ties to the past, and ending the night thinking about all those ties seems fitting.  The best of life today is built upon so many past efforts and memories.

One of our many delays on today’s walk was when R deciding to climb rather than walk.

Maybe that is what I will take from this year of 2020.  We have so much to be thankful and enjoy even when we feel like our lives have been turned upside down and shaken like a snow globe.  Maybe we all need to harness our inner snow globe in an effort to enjoy the beautiful sights of our shaken-up world.     

Snow globe of a boy raying for a rainbow or just an end to 2020?
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