... But then we actually got Covid

 Soon our house emptied out. The Arizona Blood party wasn't ready to stop yet though because Elizabeth's family came down a few days later! We spent a couple of days together visiting their rental house up in Tucson, swimming in their heated pool, and hiking. Then I got a sore throat. I thought it was likely just allergies, but just to be safe I wore a mask the next day when we walked around the lake and then hung out at Claudia's house. 

The next day I realized I was definitely sick. In an attempt to quarantine, Isaac and I locked ourselves in the guest bedroom for 2 days. Luckily this was over a weekend, so Aaron got to run the show. Isaac and I mostly slept while Aaron dropped off food for us. We started plotting a way for Claudia to watch Annie and Elliot in the mornings while Aaron worked so I could keep staying away from people until I got better. I had aches, chills, a low grade fever, and a light cough. By the end of 2 days I felt mostly better... but then Aaron got sick. Quarantining both parents was an impossible task, so I rejoined the family for our 2 week lockdown. 

Aaron had similar symptoms to me. After the initial 2 days where we were pretty much out of commission, we both had some milder symptoms that lasted a week or two. Aaron lost his sense of smell for well over a month. The kids all had it really mild- just slight fevers and runny noses. We all got tested (except Isaac) and for sure all had it. We are grateful that we weren't hit with any of the super serious symptoms that some people get. 

Claudia was awesome and dropped off a quarantine package for us. It had a big bag of shelled peanuts that said "We hope you don't go NUTS during your quarantine," some sparklers, orbeez, and coloring stuff. 

Annie twirling with her sparkler

Claudia also split her Rosca de Reyes cake with us. It is a traditional desert for 3 kings day that has a baby Jesus figurine hidden in it. If you bite the baby Jesus while eating, then you are in charge of hosting the party next year. A delightful tradition!

We got through our quarantine lockdown without any major incident. Life wasn't that different. Elliot has spent an unfortunately large portion of the year doing school remotely. We played board games and did lots of Just Dance. We have gotten pretty good at entertaining ourselves around the house and honestly, the kids have probably forgotten how we used to do so much more.

The End of 2020

We had a few days with Jacob and Joanna after Jonny and Megan's family left. We decided to celebrate New Year's Eve a day early so that they could celebrate with us. We ordered Chinese food, made pina coladas, and had a bunch of poppers. We ate while watching Soul with the kids and then set off the poppers at our fake midnight. I had no qualms moving midnight to 8 pm, especially since we are already a day early. 

Jacob recommended a Bollywood movie called Barfi that I really enjoyed, even if we did later realized that a couple of scenes were almost exact copies of scenes from The Notebook. 

2020 was truly a one of a kind year. The whole world was going through some level of crisis. The news was full of unemployment, death counts, and political unrest. We were definitely affected when all our normal activities were cancelled- church, volleyball, playgroup, and more. The social landscape was an absolute minefield with every person being comfortable with different levels of social interaction. I missed having the social life that I was used to. Elliot's schooling situation ended up being dramatically different than what it would have been, in both good and bad ways. On top of that, we had the big life events of Stephen and Claudia moving here and Isaac being born. 

A lot of these events were short term. The vaccine will roll out in force, and the activities will resume. We will be different in a few lasting ways. The most obvious is our relationship with Stephen and Claudia's family. I wish for their sakes that it had been a less stressful transition, but I am grateful that we had extra time living together. Our families are cemented together in permanent ways because of those 6 months. The past year was also a forced case study on how we can live without all the hustle and bustle. Our lives were simplified, and now we really understand what our baseline is. We hope to be more social next year but also to hang onto quality time together around the house.