Starting the Year Right

Joe and I celebrated 21 years of marriage on January 8th. When you turn 21 years old, you are the legal age to drink, so Joe and I decided to get drunk for our anniversary. JUST KIDDING! We decided to escape.

We almost didn't make it, because a blizzard came in just as we were supposed to be leaving.

I've never seen them de-ice the plane before take-off, but I'm glad they did.

And where did we go? To get a little Disney magic, sans kids! We only went to the parks for 2 days, but it was enough. We decided to splurge and stay on property at Pop Century. We were in the 70's area, and also walked through the 60's a lot, since that's where the main building is. Super fun.

The first day we went to Hollywood Studios. We rode the new rides like Rise of the Resistance (we managed to snag reservations!), Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railroad, and Slinky Dog Dash. Most of the rides in the morning were walk-ons. We rode our favorite ride (Tower of Terror) twice, sang along with Frozen, ate a HUGE carrot cake cookie, and just enjoyed the beautiful weather, while taking it easy like the old people that we are.

The second day we went to Epcot. They were having the Festival of the Arts, and we enjoyed a little of the food booths (best chili relleno ever!), seeing all the art, walking around the world showcase, enjoying the great weather, and feeling our old age in our backs and feet.

They had a huge paint-by-number mural that you could help paint a little of (5 squares). I wish I could have seen the finished product, but they gave us a bookmark that had a rendition. Lovely.

We also had dinner at the Biergarten in the Germany pavillion. Great food, entertainment, and atmosphere. I highly recommend.

It was all over before we knew it, and we had to come back to the not so great weather. I'm pretty sure we spent the rest of January shoveling snow.

How I'm Different

These are ways that I changed in 2020. I started using Zoom, Instagram, and Marco Polo. I started posting memes to express how I feel, like the rest of the world. I get anxious now when strangers are too close to me, and annoyed when people don't adhere to the distance markers on the ground. I try not to judge people who wear their masks under their nose or not at all, and people who still support Trump. I sometimes attend church over Zoom, but I don't like it, but sometimes I fall back on it just because it's convenient. I'm educating myself more about racism, and trying to root out my own biases. I stopped using paper plates/bowls and plastic silverware. I became much more reclusive, and realized how important it is to NOT be. I became more patient - not perfect, but better. I got creative with my calling. I let go of some things that are maybe not that important, and held tightly to the things that are. I learned that sometimes things really ARE greener on the other side. I'm re-learning to count my many blessings. It was an interesting year, to say the least. Good riddance? Definitely in some ways. Well, in a lot of ways. But it wasn't all bad. Some of it was pretty darn good. Here's to changing some more in 2021.

Let's Get This Party Started

I've never put Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving before, but 2020 was different. We needed that holiday spirit as soon as possible, so we put up Christmas a week before Thanksgiving. I regret nothing. We even bought a SECOND Christmas tree, so we could have one in the living room and one in the family room, and somehow I didn't get a picture of either one. Cora was determined to deliver a lot of Christmas goodies this year, so we got started early. For the first time, I made old fashioned Chex mix, just like my mom used to do - I even baked it in my huge stainless steel mixing bowl, just like my mom used to do. The smell of chex mix in the oven is the smell of my childhood Christmases. We also made some homemade chocolate dipped mints, caramel popcorn, and toffee. We bought some cute tins from Dollar Tree, and had just started to get them all ready to deliver, when disaster struck. Joe test positive for COVID! One by one, we fell like dominoes. Joe had body aches, dizziness, sore throat, loss of taste and smell, fatigue, and a cough that lasted for weeks. I had body aches, headaches, extreme fatigue, hot and cold sweats, and sore throat. Cora had loss of taste and smell, sore throat, fatigue, and fever. Joseph had headaches, sore throat, and loss of taste and smell. Madleyn and Alex both had a sore throat and headaches. You can't deliver holiday treats when you're in quarantine for covid, so we were forced to eat all the treats that we had made. Forced, I tell you. The kids ended up missing the last couple of weeks of school, but managed to get their school work done online. Even Joseph, who still managed to graduate in December. Crazy. Joe was lucky that he was able to work from home on the days that he didn't feel like total crap. My friend Ilese asked if she could arrange some meals for us, and that was greatly appreciated, because there were a few days there that both Joe and I were in bed ALL day, and we were useless to worry about making dinners, or any other meals. Of course, it's nice that all of our kids are old enough to fend for themselves - I don't know how we would have survived if we still had littles. When our quarentine was up, Cora decided we needed to make MORE Christmas goodies - we still had a couple days until Christmas, and she was DETERMINED to deliver goodies to friends and neighbors. Sometimes I just let her run with her crazy ideas. So we got started. Again. More Chex Mix and caramel popcorn, and we made gingerbread cookies, sugar cookies, and chocolate kiss peanut butter cookies this time. It was a lot of work, and on Christmas Eve we spent a couple of hours delivering them all. We may have saved some for ourselves too, because clearly we had not already eaten enough treats during quarentine. We also went out driving to look at lights when we were feeling better. Papillion is so great about lighting up the downtown area - it's really beautiful. And it's fun to go through the different neighborhoods and see what people have put up, especially the displays that are set to music. We got a good laugh at this special nativity.

For Christmas I got Joe and I matching Christmas pajamas.

With his beard, he's already half-way to being Santa. And he got me a Keurig Coffee maker so I can make hot chocolate in the morning. I've used it EVERY SINGLE MORNING. It's the best. Christmas was pretty low key this year, since we decided to make it a service Christmas. We let each of the kids choose their own charity they wanted to donate too, instead of just me picking it like I have in years past. It was a good Christmas.