Holiday Letter 2020
We debated whether it was worth summarizing 2020 in our
annual Holiday Blog, but decided to forge ahead. Despite the highly unusual year, we’ve made
the most of it and its worth reflecting back on the highlights as a bit of
self-therapy going into a holiday season defined by more “safe at home”
time. We hope that all of you have stayed
well, you and your loved ones are healthy.
Q1
Blissful ignorance of what was to come, January and February
were the standard hectic lives of two working parents with young children. Blake and Leslie did a series of ski
hills. We are lucky to have a small ski
hill about 10 minutes from our home, so Sundays we’d race from church, grab a
quick lunch and get them out on the hill!
Leslie had a dance performance at MN Timberwolves game, we hosted the Kids
7th birthday- jump roping style, and we hosted a 2nd grade
Mom’s night out fundraiser at our house in early February. We participated in another school fundraiser
that was a snow shoeing adventure and local ice harvest festival. In the “adulting” category of activity we
spent most of January/February signing
up for summer camps, mapping out week by week kids activities at MN Zoo, Church,
sleep-away camp, YMCA day camp, I refuse to tally the amount of time in online
waiting rooms for these registrations. In the midst of it all we got away for a date
night in January, seeing Ben Folds @ MN Orchestra.
As stay at home orders began we decided we’d likely be doing
a lot of biking so Drew and the Kids got new bikes! And we’ve put quite a few
miles on them so far.
Q2
Many of you likely saw the daily whiteboard in Q2, striving
for any sense of control and structure in days that tended to blend together
with us all at home. Like many
households there was a lot of stress and a little sleep trying to balance work
and childcare. I’m sure appliances like
the dishwasher also noticed the drastic change to family routine. We managed to keep our sense of humor through
it all, likely because we discovered an amazing new barista-style coffee maker. Home haircuts were a grand experiment. (We are all grateful that since June salons
have been continuously open)
May brought a new element of fear as riots broker out
through Minneapolis and got too close for comfort. Some neighbors decided to head for their cabins. We held tight at home but took precautions
like having a friend about 30 minutes west prepared to welcome us, backing our
cars in the garage and having “go bags”.
It was a new level of sleep deprivation as we all piled into one bed for
a few nights too.
June was a turning point.
Stay at Home orders began to lift and we decided to go ahead with our
annual week up at Breezy Point up at Pelican Lake. Of course that was modified too- We now own
two units next to each other and while we’d planned on having out of state
friends join us, we decided to defer that for another year. The good news is we had a family from the
kids school willing to join us spur of the moment and it was awesome! The kids had built in playmates. We got in lots of playground and beach time
and it felt amazing to be starting at something other than the four walls of
our house. It was good for the soul. It also gave us some confidence that we could
find ways to be safe while travelling.
We also Discovered the small joys right around us- including
wading in Minnehaha creek less than a mile away.
Q3
We tried to re-imagine summer. It was chaotic at times with most of the kids
camps cancelled. We were grateful their first
year of sleep-away camp was not cancelled.
We got so much done the week they were gone including stripping and
restraining both the deck and their playset.
We also did quite a bit of camping.
Yes, Krista doesn’t camp, but with COVID this year her dislike of sleeping
in a tent was outweighed by COVID risk.
In July we survived cub scout family camp, even a rough night of
thunderstorms. That encouraged us that
we could camp on our own and we did a long weekend trip to Mount Rushmore, or
as Blake and Leslie call it “The Four Heads”.
We snuck in a visit to Kentucky and participated in the
Norton Commons golf cart parade and got some pool time.
Summer faded gently into fall with a delayed start to the
school year in late September. We were
able to get the kids in school Mondays and Tuesdays, then had other childcare
options Wednesday, Thursday and Fridays.
We appreciated every second of kids experiencing in person learning
again. We have a huge appreciation for
teachers and recognize that’s not been our calling.
Q4
The highlights of Q4 so far see to revolve around cub
scouts. Blake and Leslie built contraptions
to keep eggs safe enough to survive a toss off of Edina Fire Department’s
tallest extension ladder. We had several
iterations and at home practice and…. Both eggs survived! They also build rockets to blast off in the
neighborhood park for rocket day. And
of course, many of you reading this supported the annual wreath sales. The weekend before thanksgiving we dressed up
the van as a reindeer, piled in and spent the day delivering our orders.
As we look to round out the year, the schools are once again
closed to in person learning, we are all at home working/learning and we are
navigating ways to live a meaningful life during a pandemic. Like many, we are full of gratitude for our
health, friends/family and all of our blessings. The news of vaccines give us hope for
2021. In the meantime we will enjoy the
extra family time. Wishing you and your
loved ones a safe, healthy and happy holiday season.
