Happy New Year and Bye Bye 2020

See ya, 2020. Can't wait to see the back side of you! Not that I'm expecting 2021 to magically be all better right off the bat, but still, things have got to get better eventually, right?

We chose to celebrate by being dumb and letting Peter and Sheri come see us even though they had "colds." Now listen. I'm just going to rip the bandaid off right here and now and say that this is a challenging post to write because this weekend ended up being not so great. We all ended up with Covid. (Spoiler alert for the next post.) And it's been a bit of a sore spot to say the least. But at the time, we discussed it, and really truly thought that Peter and Sheri just had colds, (I mentioned the part about being dumb, right?), and we together decided that we were so sad and lonely celebrating the holiday alone that it would be worth it. That was not smart and we paid the price and I'm not sure how to write about it. So I just said it. Having trouble chatting happily about a holiday weekend when we really should not have done this. 

Ok moving on. 

The first fun thing we did was finally open each other's cousin gifts. We had been saving them. They gave Emma a very cute little tiny mini-waffle maker and recipe book and Romney got the director's cut of Dune. We gave Cara a little cousins bracelet and Iva and Sam and Siena opened their presents from the other cousins, which I can't remember what they were. Oh yeah Iva got a gymnastics Barbie that she loved. Sam got a spiderman shooter thing. I was sorry Chase didn't have anything to open - he opened his cousin gift on Christmas morning. So I got him an awesome pair of socks that look like a bottle of Sriracha. I gave Peter and Sheri an addition to their collection of Christmas Caroler statues and I got these lovely tea cups. It was a treat to have a little more Christmas.

The weekend also included our regular favorites, holiday and otherwise. We of course were at the zoo. I feel the need to record the feeling that I'm a little sad about the zoo. Between the pandemic really changing how things feel there and my kids getting big and kind of growing out of the zoo, it's just not the same. But we did have a good time walking around and one of the sea lions was really active and watching him hover and dive and apparently try to be in all our photos was really fun. I even got the chance to take some pictures of this cute dad and his little toddler interacting with it and send them to him. 

We also made a trip down town to finally see the candy windows that we missed before Christmas, roam around the Disney store despite a very grumpy door-monitoring employee, and get some lunch at the food court. It was New Year's Eve and I really expected it to be obnoxiously crowded downtown but it was totally empty. I fervently avoid going downtown on holidays so I have no idea if this was normal or a special pandemic situation or what. But it was nice to not be dealing with crowds. 

 

That evening we partied it up by setting up games, putting on a movie and drinking a lot. A lot of sparkling cider that is. I did buy some crackers that burst open with paper party hats and some flying paper squiggles. We decided that we would be happiest celebrating New Years along with New York City and thus shouted for joy and jumped up and down at 10pm and then everyone went to bed. Hooray!

They had things going on the next day and would be leaving in the morning, so we said our goodbyes as they headed out. (They were staying at a hotel this year). We had this fun and spontaneous photo shoot at the door as everyone had to make the rounds of hugs. (If we hadn't already caught covid by this point this is certainly where it happened.)

We love our cousins. We were happy to say goodbye to 2020, along with the rest of the planet. We were dumb to get together. But hey, Happy New Year and welcome 2021.