The Long Covid Winter

I hope you all haven't forgotten about us!  I know.  You probably had a long, Covid winter, too.  But there's finally light at the end of the tunnel! This post is going to cover the long winter months of January, February and March.

Natalie pretty much sums up this pandemic with this what-the-heck look.

But the winter/year of 2021 actually started out OK!  I came in second place in fantasy football and I only realized I was playing on about the 5th week!

And then... there was Steve Kornacki, back in action with his Gap khakis, telling us that Georgia voted for two Democrat Senators in Ossoff and Warnock.  Of course, this was the day before there was an insurrection at the nation's Capitol building while Congress was trying to confirm the electoral college votes that were in favor of Joe Biden.  A bunch of idiot domestic terrorists decided they could just storm the Capitol, break windows, raid the Senate chambers, poop on the floor of the hallways, beat up police officers, chant "Hang Mike Pence," and put pipe bombs outside of the DNC and RNC - all because they believed the election was "stolen" from Donald Trump.  You know. Despite there being zero evidence of that.  And D.C. wasn't prepared for it, even though a simple person like myself was very concerned it would happen sometime before the inauguration. In the end, five people died and there was $30 million worth of damage done to the Capitol.

You know what can make you feel a little better when people try to kill democracy?  Seeing your favorite principals from across the ocean, even if it's on video!  I was feeling very homesick for Vilseck High School, so I watched Shawn and Marc do a little Facebook live and it made me feel like I was home again.

We bought a C2 rower too!  It was on major back order, but we finally got it about a week into the year. Our goal this year is to row 365,000 meters in 2021. 

We also got maybe Todd's favorite post-Christmas present that he got with our Amazon gift cards from my mom - a new cappuccino/espresso maker!

And because Trump didn't do a dang thing regarding those who were rioting at the Capitol (and in fact, encouraged those who were there), he was AGAIN impeached.  Only President to ever be impeached by the House twice! 

But ALAS, some normalcy!!!!!  Our first female vice president!

Everyone was excited when Joe Biden to the presidential oath!

One of the funniest things that happened on Inauguration Day was that a photographer snapped this picture of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, which became a series of HILARIOUS memes that I am still laughing about months later.

People stuck him in various TV show or movie memes. No captions needed. Here he is as Bran Stark in Game of Thrones.

And of course, with Jay and Silent Bob in the movie Clerks.

One of my favorites was Bernie in the cast of Hamilton!

To pause briefly in our series of Bernie mitten memes, Natalie got her braces off at the end of January!  And I got my permanent retainers removed!

Who knew Bernie became a member of the cast of Schitt's Creek!

This is my ALL TIME favorite show - Ted Lasso!  This is something we watched (TWICE) during the long Covid winter.  I was so happy Bernie became a member of the Diamond Dogs!

I did a lot of walking over the winter (because really, what else was I going to do? My barbell is in an unheated garage! That metal is cold!)  Every once in a while I see some turkeys. These guys were totally not afraid of me.

I ALSO got a new job in March!  I am finally at the mothership, working at the FEMA Region 1 office in Boston!  One of the questions they ask you for your background check is this one.  How do I answer this?  I've been to like, 42 countries in the last 7 years!  Do I need to provide dates of travel for every single time I left Germany?  Some places I went to multiple times (ie: Italy!)  They did not think of people like me when they made this question!

YES.

We were also so happy that Bernie could be a part of the new BTS concept photo series.

Unfortunately, sometimes in our little bubble we could forget that there was a pandemic going on. Until you went to the grocery store and they were out of frozen vegetables again.

One of my family members sent me this over the winter.  It's a picture of my grandmother back in the 1970s (in case you wanted to know where I get my super white hair - that's all natural!)  She used to run a mobile library out of her car in southern Indiana.

We got a little snow this winter, although it really wasn't too bad.  We got more snow than last winter but if you lived through the winter of 2014-2015, nothing ever will compare to that year of winter hell!

My garden is under there somewhere.  I think we got almost a foot with this one.

Oh what?  The Tampa Bay Bucs went to the Super Bowl this year? Would that have anything to do with the fact that Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski now play for the Bucs?  Gotta make the kids represent!

However, this is what the youngest thinks of football.  And snacks.

But LOOK!  The Tampa Bay Bucs WON THE SUPER BOWL!  This year is already infinitely better than 2020!  The last time the Bucs won the Super Bowl, I was on a third date with a cute lawyer from New York.  It's been a few years!

There's nothing else to do, so let's dress Natalie up like it's 1983.  I taught her the art of teasing her hair.

Mmmm. Valentine's Day goodies.  Todd keeps stealing all of my Bud Light's out of the fridge (not that I drink Bud Light very often, but sometimes I just want a cold, generic beer!) so he bought me a 24 pack of Bud Light. That should last me about 4 years. 

I didn't even know they made Maker's 101!  Yum! 

Sometimes on my walk, I come across the neighborhood dogs.  Everyone knows Toby and Bean and they're so cute playing on this big old snow bank!

In February, the deer started coming out looking for food.  Stay back there, and keep your ticks away from my yard!

I had to go to FEMA to get fingerprinted but then the garage wouldn't let me out.  They don't give you a paper ticket - you just use your credit card but it didn't seem to want to read my card on the way out. I had to call security (twice) before they finally showed up and let me out!

Meanwhile, when I was at FEMA, THIS was in our living room.  Todd thinks he came in on some of the wood from the outdoor woodpile. I won't go into the details but let's just say he's not in our house anymore.

Here are some updated early March United States Covid numbers.

I got a new puzzle, too - this one of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a city we went to many times when we lived in Germany!  This puzzle is CRAZY hard.

Aunt Betty is already legendary, but this was an EPIC Facebook post!  I need to know more about doing shots in a Mexican bar while watching one of the students from the school she taught at (Thayer Academy) set a world track record!  What?!?

Damn it, it's getting worse.

On a somewhat warm day, Todd and I joined our neighbor Brendan by the fire in his backyard. Looking forward to doing more of this as it gets warmer!

I finally started my new job at FEMA!  I had to go into the office for the first day (to get my computer, PIV card, etc.), and Natalie wrote me a cute little note.  She's the sweetest!

Bob Kraft sent the FEMA regional office a little video thanking us for all we were doing regarding the Covid testing and vaccination. 

SPEAKING of Covid vaccines... I got my first shot during my first week at FEMA!  As a FEMA employee, we are deployable at a moment's notice for any disaster around the country.  We have to be ready, and that includes being vaccinated.

HELL YES.

You might remember that whenever we went to Da Teo in Auerbach, they would always give us these little amaretto mocha balls after dinner (although with a shot of limoncello).  I really want to recreate them because they were SO good.  They came out ok.  Definitely edible and yummy but not QUITE like the ones at Da Teo.  More amaretto (maybe next time use the fake amaretto flavoring instead of the real thing) and maybe a bit more coffee.

The first signs of spring popped up in the garden!

And I could see the first signs of spring all around the neighborhood!

Knowing I had gotten my first vaccine and that Todd was going to be going in a few weeks to get his, I went ahead and got tickets to see Snow Patrol in September.  Of course, they were almost immediately postponed to 2022. Oh well.

We had a warm day at the end of March - and warm days mean pina coladas. YUM.

We took the giant Jenga out for a spin on the back deck (which is getting refinished this spring.)

Natalie doesn't know what to make of this play.  She's a great Jenga player but she lost this round! 

Until never again, winter of our discontent!  Bring on the spring and vaccines!

December 2020 Fun (WE DID IT!)

 We did it, y'all!  We made it to the end of 2020!  Good riddance!  Can I travel yet?

NOT SO FAST.  Gotta get that vaccine first.  In the meantime, we spent a quiet December in our new home. 

Well, the kids had fun this month as we got a bit of snow early on in the month.  This didn't even compare to what we got later in December!

It was mid month when we hit 300k Covid deaths in the United States.

December always brings low sun angles so sometimes it makes for a pretty sunset.  You know. At 4:15 pm.

Santa down!  Santa down!  We had a really windy December.  We only averaged below a 10 mph wind speed for 11 days of the month- and of those 11 days, we only averaged one day that was below 5 mph. An 8 mph wind doesn't seem like much until the air temp is 27.

There was a rare astronomical phenomena right around Christmas when Jupiter and Saturn were so close together in our early evening sky that they appeared much brighter than usual.  It's been almost 400 years since this last happened and it may even have been the source of light known as the Star of Bethlehem!  Of course, we didn't actually get to see it because the entire week of Christmas was cloudy. This was taken the week before (and you can't tell from this picture but the only visible planet was Jupiter.  Saturn was off to the northwest of it a bit.)

We did get a neighborhood visit from the Big Guy as he went up and down almost EVERY street in Ashland with brightly lit and loud firetrucks.  We went down to the Tally house to watch (here with Aiden and Jackson).

Hello Santa!  I think it was funny he was on a boat on a trailer.

The firetrucks were super loud, and you could hear them zig zagging all over town for several hours before they got to us.

Todd has been very into making his own pizza lately (Wegmans crust is die BESTE!) so after Santa rode through town, we had some for dinner!

Man, I thought these days were over but apparently they're not.  The kids still will not touch him.

I needed to get a few things at Trader Joe's but the governor put new limits to the human capacity of stores so Trader Joe's had set up a, "1 person leaves, 1 person can go in" policy.  The first time I tried to go, it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella, so even though I had to wait about 10 minutes to get in on my second try, at least it wasn't raining and the store wasn't crowded at all.

Y'all.  Have you ever seen such a nicely folded fitted sheet?  Todd did this!  Sure is better than the balled up mess that I usually make.

We got a decent snowstorm (especially for December) in the week leading up to Christmas.  We went to bed and it looked like this.

We woke up, and it looked like THIS!

Todd and our neighbor Mike, like two ships (men), passing in the night (snow).

I took this one as a zoomed in shot of how deep the snow was.

My OCD is off the charts here.

Kids, go out there and shovel the new walkway.  I'll say it again... isn't this why people have kids???

Always Daddy's girl.

Grant finally got to go use the new snow tube he bought with a gift card from Nauni and Uncle Gordie for his birthday.  He's like, knee-deep in the snow trapsing across the yard!

So apparently there's this meme where when people make terrible gingerbread houses that fall apart, they say, "If your gingerbread house fails, just add a dinosaur!"  Ours actually came out pretty good, but after leaving it on the counter for two weeks with everyone breaking off little pieces here and there - this eventually happened.  So we added a dinosaur!

And in December, THIS finally happened.  It was only a matter of time.

We also had our Pillsbury Dough Boy jump off of the top cabinets not ONCE, but TWICE!  Once when Grant was alone in the kitchen, and once when I was alone in the kitchen.  He was up on top of the cabinets, wedged up there between the cabinet and the ceiling and suddenly... he was on the floor!  We secretly think Buddy, our Elf on the Shelf pushed him.

One of the hardest things about this holiday season was knowing we couldn't go to any Christmas markets (not that we could go if we still lived in Germany.)  But at least we were able to find some Glühwein (thanks World Market and Trader Joe's!) and enjoy the hot beverage in some of our favorite Christmas market mugs.

We make these Christmas cookies every year and the kids do the decorating.  We can plow through 4 dozen pretty quickly.  I like that Natalie seems to be pondering what toppings to put on her cookies.

I swear I had the heat on in the house.  The kids had just come in from playing outside to decorate their cookies.

I think this is one of those memes...  How it started....

How it's going.

Our tree was really pretty this year.

These numbers were not so pretty, however.

A couple of days after our big snowstorm, the neighborhood kids made a snowman in our front lawn on a 53 degree day, which also happened to be Christmas Eve.  Here is Quinn, AB, Grant and Ava showing off their new friend.

The kids took advantage of the warm weather before the snow melted and went sledding in our backyard.

Natalie and AB took turns on the man made snow ramps Todd built.

Then they all slid down on their bellies!  Natalie, Nathan, Grant, AB and AT rode down on their rainbow colored sleds!

These faces ha ha ha - I love it!

Natalie and Grant were bookended by brothers AT and AB. I think AB won this race!

As the day got warmer, the snowman started to look a little sad.  Natalie, always my overly warm child, is outside in a t-shirt and snow boots. 

Oh Frosty, you're looking pretty sad!  By Christmas morning, he was gone.  I did a whole other post about Christmas Eve(ning) and Christmas Day- so you'll have to read that to find out what we did!

NOT ONLY is this maybe my new favorite bourbon... but seriously, how much better is the camera on my new phone???

OH MY GOODNESS aren't my babies 5th and 8th grade pictures SO CUTE???  I'm so glad their schools allowed them to come take school pictures even though they're doing remote learning.

Much like every other holiday this year, New Year's Eve was spent at home.  Todd made us a nice little snacky spread while we watched our favorite New Year's Eve show... Dinner For One!

Fireworks aren't allowed in Massachusetts (not to say some people don't still use them) but it's certainly NOT AT ALL like Sylvester in Germany.  Instead, we got pots and pans ready to say AUF WIEDERSEHEN to 2020.  The pots and pans are a little too loud for Grant though, so he put on his headphones!

No one looks happier than Grant to say goodbye to 2020!

Todd and the kids went outside to make some noise (and I think they were distracted by others doing the same!)

Just doing our 80s prom dance on New Year's, no big deal.

We didn't get to see them this year, even though we had tickets and whole trip to New York planned, but at least we got to end 2020 on a nice note - seeing our handsome boys from BTS!

You know I always end all of my travel posts with, "Until next time, (insert random European city here)!"  I truly hope there is no other year like 2020!  Good riddance and here's to better things in 2021!