The Year of the Pandemic - Part II

Summer 2020

Of this whole year, summer time during the pandemic most resembled our normal lives, although there were still lots of changes. 

James started out the summer with surgery on his left shoulder.  He planned to do it back in March, but all the clinics and non-essential surgeries got postponed due to COVID.  This was his second shoulder surgery so he knew what to expect, but it definitely wasn't a walk in the park.  He was a trooper and was so strong through recovery.  I guess in a way this year was helpful for surgery because all races and athletic events were cancelled so it was a good time to take time off to heal his body.

Cameron's Snoqualmie Early Learning school never opened back up for the Pre-K class which was actually very sad because he spent many years there and we didn't get to do a formal goodbye or Pre-K graduation.  The plus side was that Cameron got to do summer day camp with Nate for the first time!  And his first camp experience was a great success!  Most weeks they did camp at Camp Rad through Si View Community Center and then they both did one week of Disney camp through Big Star Studios.  They had to wear masks every day and practice social distancing, but otherwise camp was pretty normal.  Lots of trips to Elk Horn (a huge kids fort area), games, crafts, walks to the park, playing outside, getting dirty, etc.  We were so happy for them to have social time and so much active time outside.  

Unfortunately ChelanMan was cancelled due to COVID so we missed out on that fun experience this year with our friends and getting to compete.  But we still got to do a week long vacation to Chelan with the Warners like we've done over the past couple of years.  That trip felt pretty normal too except that there were restrictions on how many people could be in the pool and our favorite Slidewaters water park was closed.  But otherwise it felt like a normal Chelan trip--full of sun, relaxation, good family time, etc. And we also got to spend lots of time with the Faders!

One of our favorite summer traditions got cancelled too--the Torchlight run and parade.  We really missed that this year.  But other summer traditions lived on like our annual camping trip and visit to the Packwood cabin with the Spauldings and Antis'.

The other more normal thing was getting to do a small joint birthday party for Cameron and his close friend Vander.  We hosted it outside at the park and everyone wore masks to minimize the risk.  He was in heaven to see his friends again!

All in all it was a really fun summer and we made the best of the unique situation.  It helped us so much mentally to be able to be outside, do some of the things we really love in the summer, have a break from online school, see some friends, etc. It was just what we needed before heading into fall.

Although we had a really nice summer, it was a tumultuous summer for our nation in addition to COVID. Multiple acts of racial injustice occurred to people of color by police officers that were caught on videotape so a wide audience of people witnessed how people of color are treated by police on a regular basis that often goes overlooked. When a man named George Floyd was videotaped being murdered by a cop kneeling on his neck for 8 minutes, protests erupted across not only the US but all over the world. COVID has also hit BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) harder than any other populations in the country and finally the multiple injustices that many people live with day after day boiled over. We were saddened by so many things we were reading about and watching, but also inspired by so many people protesting in peace and organizing for change.  Important conversations and awareness were occurring at levels James and I haven't witnessed in our lifetime. We had a lot of conversations with our boys to try and help them understand privilege, the realities of our systems and how many systemic barriers and hurdles prevent people of color and minorities from accessing things that come so easily for us as whites.  This COVID time has continually exposed issues just under the surface that have been ignored for too long and it is time for us to start facing them, listening, and talking about them. 

Fall 2020

The boys started school online in the fall. There has definitely been some grieving around this because Cameron is officially a kindergartener now (yay!) and this is not how we envisioned his kindergarten year to be.  I must say though that during this entire time I've been really impressed by our school district and how they have pivoted, adapted, and supported families.  Cameron has been loaned an iPad and Nathan has been loaned a Chromebook since March.  They have beefed up a lot of technology, come out with pretty comprehensive schedules, and the teachers really have worked so hard to keep learning happening.  Both kids got the teachers they wanted (Ms. West for Cam and Ms. Roberts for Nate) and we bought each of them desks for their rooms to have a designated space for online school.  (Which by the way desks were incredibly difficult to come by as everyone had the same idea we did!)  I've been so proud of our boys and their resiliency.  Cameron has been managing Kindergarten like a champ which isn't easy with being on multiple Zoom calls and trying to stay focused while at home with all his toys.  And Nathan is a very independent little learner--he's on top of things most of the time without me having to remind me and he's very good at managing the technology.  

School in the fall was much more structured and complicated since in the spring everyone was just trying to get by.  We quickly got into a good rhythm although I must say it's been very hard trying to work from home and help the boys with school.  We are so grateful because both sets of grandparents help the boys with school a couple days a week which is a HUGE help to us. And an unexpected gift from this year--to get to spend days with grandparents again like when they were younger.  If life was normal right now, they'd be at school and wouldn't get that special time with grandparents.  Not every day is easy and there is a lot to juggle, but overall I'd say online school has been pretty successful.  

 

As if we didn't already have enough going on, we also got the crazy idea to do a big remodel project in our house.  We'd actually been planning it since April, but the bulk of the work happened in late Sept and early October.  Apparently we weren't the only ones as contractors were really booked out.  I guess since everyone has been home so much, lots of people were finally motivated to do some updates that have long been dreamed about.  I'll do a separate post about the remodel.  But it certainly added more adventure to an already very busy and disjointed year.  

Kids sports have mostly been cancelled since COVID started.  But Nate was able to do just a little bit of soccer for a couple weeks this fall.  They never ended up playing any games against other teams due to state restrictions, but he attended practice for a few weeks and got to scrimmage his teammates. He met some new friends and had a great time.  You can tell he's improving his soccer skills every year. He looked so good this year and it's a bummer we didn't get to see him truly in action. 

We also got to still do one of our favorite fall traditions--the Fall Drive with the Warners. Nature hasn't stopped for COVID which has been so therapeutic actually.  In fact nature is probably thriving under these conditions since there is less cars/pollution and less people out and about.  The fall colors were gorgeous this year and it was nice not to have this treasured day cancelled like so many other things this year.

COVID cases started to rise pretty heavily again starting late fall which wasn't surprising.  State restrictions tightened and it was recommended that people not get together in large family gatherings for Thanksgiving.  Luckily we'd been seeing grandparents on a weekly basis so we felt comfortable still doing Thanksgiving like normal. And our siblings were open to it too since they'd been seeing parents regularly too.  It was a nice day with both families, although we missed our favorite Turkey Trot tradition.  So instead we did our own Spaulding Family Turkey Trot at Centennial Park the morning of Thanksgiving. 

And we wasted no time getting into the Christmas spirit right after Thanksgiving.  The next day we started decorating the house and last minute decided to run and get our Christmas tree.  A lot of tree farms decided not to operate this year so we were worried trees might go quickly. We made it to the Keith and Scott Tree farm just 30 min before closing and found a beautiful tree--one of the last ones left.  Then we kept our annual tradition of visiting the Bellevue Square Santa with grandparents the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  Seeing Santa was very different this year--and kind of odd. It made me sad actually because it was so odd. But I guess it makes for memories the boys can tell their grandkids someday!

An early Christmas present arrived on Dec. 19 when our second niece/cousin was born!  June Lillian Warner came into this world pretty quickly (after being a week late from due date) and what a bright spot in this challenging year!  She is adorable and Laila is a very proud big sister.  Congrats Ryan and Carly!

For the Christmas season, we missed doing Black Friday in Downtown Seattle, seeing a Christmas play or music concert, watching our kids perform in the SVA Church Christmas musical and getting Danish at Nielsens Bakery on Christmas Eve morning.  But a lot of our favorite traditions still continued like Santa Train, James' and my Christmas shopping day in Bainbridge Island, and our normal Christmas Eve and Christmas Day traditions with family.  

Whew!  This has been a really long post.  But I wanted to make sure to capture as much as I could remember from this year that's been unlike any other in our lifetimes.  I think we'll be processing all that's happened for a very long time.  And even though we're now in 2021, we're still grappling with many of the challenges and issues that started and were revealed in 2020.  There have constantly been disappointments and adjustments, and at the same time gifts, healthy realizations, and benefits from this time.  I guess that's why it's hard to process my feelings about it.  It's a constant bittersweet-ness feeling inside.  A tension of wanting to get back to "normal" but also not missing some things from "normal".  I get anxious in my stomach when I think about having to go back to work in person again.  There's elements of this adjusted life that I've gotten used to and actually like better.  So it'll be fascinating to see what residual affects stick around and how we as a society have ultimately been changed by all this.  

What I do know for sure is I'm so grateful for the three boys I get to do this life adventure with and that I've gotten so much time to be home, to snuggle and soak them up this year.  If this had to happen at all I am grateful that it happened when the boys were at these ages - 8 and 6.  What an amazing time to be home with them and get more time with them. If they were babies or toddlers, I think I would have enjoyed it, but been exhausted.  If they were teenagers I think there would have been more tension at home. These ages are golden. They can take care of themselves for the most part, they are creative and love playing, they go with the flow and adjust to things so well, and they still really like being with us.  :)  I'm grateful that I've really gotten to enjoy them so much more and in different ways than I have before.  And I'm confident that no matter what life throws at us, we'll be ok as long as we have each other, keep our eyes set on what's truly important, and try to be lights in the darkness as much as we can.

The Year of the Pandemic - Part I

Well it has been quite a year. One unlike any we have ever lived through. It's been a surreal, challenging, emotional, wonderful, needed, awful, hopeful year.  A year with so many emotions and changes it's hard to put into words and accurately capture it. In some ways I think our household and family needed this year...or the effects of this year.  But at the same time I'm so very sad for all the people who have lost loved ones, lost jobs, lost businesses, felt so much turmoil, and are barely hanging on every day.  

Honestly I haven't really wanted to write in this blog this year. That's why it's been so long since I've posted. I felt overwhelmed by everything and wasn't quite sure how to capture it all or how to even have the energy to write about it since it's taken so much energy just to adapt to everything almost on a daily basis.  

I decided recently though that I want to write about it and record it since this blog/journal is really for our boys.  I know they will remember parts about this time, but I want to capture it as best I can in case there's things they forget and also so they can remember it through their parents' experience.    

March 2020

The virus started in China around the end of 2019. We heard blips about it on the news.  Some forewarned it could start to spread and turn into a pandemic.  Honestly I don't remember thinking about it much or worrying about it much in early 2020.  Then all the sudden it was in Europe, South Korea, and then while James was out of town at a church Men's Retreat, we saw in the news that a few people in a Kirkland nursing home were diagnosed with it.  They called is Coronavirus.  The specific Coronavirus strain was COVID-19.  Little did we know at the time that COVID or COVID-19 would become part of our daily vernacular for the rest of the year.  I watched in the news as the numbers began to tick up.  New York cases started to rise quickly as well.  They knew how contagious and deadly the virus was from watching what happened in China and other countries. 

It's kind of a blur now but over the next two weeks, the world changed like we've never seen it before. I remember coming into work and hearing that University of Washington stopped in-person meetings and took all classes online.  Seattle University quickly made the same decision on the same day.  All the sudden I was training on how to use a new program called Zoom so I could do online appointments.  Our team was planning how to downsize who was in the office every day and how we would do our work from home schedule.  And then all the sudden all SU employees were working from home. We shifted to all student appointments and events being online.  All the sudden Boeing decided to shift to all employees working from home. And then Nathan and Cameron's schools closed and everyone was scrambling to set up some kind of schedule for kids to do school online.  Businesses closed.  Restaurants closed.  We ran to the grocery store to load up on groceries wondering if even the grocery store would close (it never did thank goodness).  It was time to Quarantine for everyone's safety (quarantine--another new daily word in our vocabulary).  I remember those first few weeks felt so exhausting, exciting, scary, and weird. Exhausting because it felt like changes were coming at us every few minutes. It was hard to know what to think or do.  And of course fear of getting the virus. With the chaos of the world going on outside, my comfort was being home in lock down with my favorite people.

Spring 2020

Strict quarantining lasted through pretty much all of spring.  There was a couple weeks we didn't even see Nana & Pops or Gramma & Grampa just to keep them safe.  Wearing masks and being obsessed with hand sanitizer became common daily practice.  It felt like every single thing got cancelled--kids sports and activities, get togethers with friends, large events with big crowds, people's trips (Spaulding's Phoenix and Hawaii vacations, Warner's Europe vacation, Antis' Europe vacation, a visit from Lapours), Nate's birthday party, James' shoulder surgery process, doctors appointments, family holidays and get togethers, etc.  There was a lot of grief in the cancellations.  People were doing their best to cope, but were slightly starting to go stir crazy.  And nationally, there was poor leadership around managing the pandemic from the beginning with a president who was in denial and too arrogant and inept to be able to put a plan together for testing, getting supplies to hospitals, etc. It was sad and embarrassing to watch hospitals struggle and be overwhelmed in supposedly "the wealthiest and most powerful" country in the world.  A lot of things about our country have been exposed during this pandemic. It's been hard to watch.

But at the same time there were a lot of beautiful things that came out of this time too--people helping others as best they could, people loving on and appreciating health care workers and essential workers, people getting creative with so much time at home, etc.  Lots of inspiring videos, memes, commercials, etc.  And it was just so crazy and surreal to know the entire world practically was shut down.  The pandemic has impacted the entire world.  It was oddly comforting for some reason.  I guess because we all could empathize with each other and the whole world was on the same level in terms of vulnerability.  

For our little household, we experienced a lot of wonderful things during this time that I'm grateful for:

• I was getting to work from home for the first time in my career. I didn't have a commute and we weren't rushing around. I felt like I could breathe again and time didn't feel so strained like it always does. Oddly I had been praying for God to stop the crazy train in some way--I constantly felt like I was on a fast moving train and didn't know what changes I needed to make in order for it to slow down.  Obviously I don't like that it took a devastating pandemic to finally slow us down, but the shift in schedule and routine was a much needed gift.
• We got to know our neighbors and neighborhood in a way we never have.  Our alleyway and Woody Creek II neighbors have become our "family" in a way as we relied on each other for community.  We took walks around Braeburn every day and people put teddy bears and stuffies in their windows to spread cheer.  We explored the wooded trail behind our house discovering "Bubbling Brook" as we fondly call it.  We found a love for the Seahawks park and the boys discovered their love of mountain biking on the trails at the park.  
• We got creative and did social distancing/outside dinners with grandparents every week meeting in parking lots, covered garages, sitting in the back of our cars and getting takeout to support small businesses.
• We all improved our Zoom and technology skills.  Work, meetings, events, and school online are all second nature to us now.  Which will probably serve us well in the long run--especially the boys.  We get sick of it, but it's nice to be comfortable with all the new technology.
• Nathan got to have a wonderful birthday parade of family and friends come by the house to wish him a socially distanced happy birthday.  People in general got creative in birthdays and celebrating people in a unique, safe and fun way.  Snoqualmie even had a parade through the Ridge for the 2020 graduates so the community could celebrate them
• I reconnected with friends like never before--regular Zoom dates with high school girlfriends and Pepperdine girlfriends
• The boys got extremely creative in their play at home--elaborate imaginative setups which was fun to watch (see below).  The boys have grown so much closer because they really only have each other for kid entertainment.

Since we weren't going out much, the boys got to do faux hawks!

In trying to process everything at this time wondering why it was happening and how to cope with it all, this quote was most helpful for me. 

To be continued....

Ski Lessons

Our commitment to being a ski family is still going strong.  Although this year has pushed and challenged us a bit.

This year the boys did group ski lessons with other kids for the first time!  It was a little rough going at the beginning because they were so used to skiing just with us and a private instructor.  I think Cameron cried the entire first lesson because he was scared (and very low blood sugar I realized later..needless to say he's been fueled with lots of fruit and snacks every week since!).  Nathan has actually been really brave the whole time, but it took 1-2 weeks for him to feel comfortable and have fun.  Luckily both boys stuck with it and ended up having a great time. We had amazing instructors and it's been so fun to watch the boys improve and develop so much.

It's also been an interesting ski season because James had his gallbladder removed in early January which meant he had to be in the lodge for a couple weekends while recovering.  He was a trooper though and still made it up with us every weekend despite being uncomfortable and in pain.  The first week I stayed with him and we played a rousing game of Uno. ;)

This year also pushed us because I think almost every weekend there was a big snowstorm, bad drivers/traffic on the pass, and rain or snow the whole time we were skiing which made us wet and cold. I don't think we've had one sunny ski day this whole season.  Hence the fact I don't have many photos. 

In addition to taking ski lessons, we've also learned many lessons ourselves through skiing:

• We are resilient and can do hard things.  The boys especially have learned this--they can be brave and try new things and usually things turn out ok and even great in the end.
• Nathan especially learned this last weekend.  He was riding the chairlift with some classmates.  He fell down and missed the chair so he had to ride the chair up by himself.  He wasn't sure how to put the chair bar up by himself so he laid his poles down on the seat to lift the bar off and of course one pole fell off the chair. He felt terrible that he lost a pole and it was a rough, scary experience. But we all went back up as a family after his lesson to get comfortable on the chairlift again and Papa found the lost pole!
• Low blood sugar in kids is a real thing. If they are low blood sugar, there's no use in trying to have a logical, reasonable conversation until they've had a bar or banana.
• Group ski lessons are amazing for parents! James and I got in more ski runs this year together and by ourselves than we have in a long time. I feel like I even improved quite a bit this season just because I had more practice. Plus we got a mini date day out of it which was nice.
• It's best to do morning lessons and get up to the mountain early--traffic and parking are better and there's nothing quite like skiing fresh snow!
• Ski lessons are awesome because they force us to get up and outside in God's beautiful creation, to do something active, and to spend quality time together as a family.