Some 2020 Highlights

2020 wasn't so shockingly different (or difficult) for our family. With no health concerns, no job loss or increased financial strain, and only a short spell really of school disruption (followed by a few other short spells here and there for various of our older kids), we drifted through the months about as cushioned as a family might hope to be during a year like this. I think too, the sheer amount of people around here made us feel things a bit less keenly: even during schools closed and quarantines in place, there was just such a typical flow of activity and people around here that we didn't feel the isolation that many have had to deal with. Oh we missed family gatherings and our church congregation, trying to do school in the spring with different agendas for every kid was exhausting, we were disappointed about the missing social aspect of Daisy's first year of college, we're sad to speak to everyone through face masks, and the political climate of the year (and division among loved ones over it all) was upsetting and discouraging. But it was still a year, for us, of many things feeling ordinary and of many things being ... much much better than ordinary!

A few highlights:

We got two pygmy goats for a spell. The kids were home (thanks to Covid) to hold and bottle feed them every day. And, when the goats got too rambunctious for our yard, they spent a few months in Mike's parents' backyard in a large enclosure Mike built. The kids loved going over to continue feeding them and those backyard stops gave them a way to regularly see their grandparents without putting those grandparents at too much risk.

Perhaps the greatest thing of 2020 was that we got to have all ten of our kids unexpectedly together again! 2020 was supposed to be the year we wouldn't see Abe at all. But suddenly, and unexpectedly, he was being sent home! (He wrote about the shocking development here.) While, when we initially heard the news, we all felt heartsick about Abe leaving El Salvador, ... we couldn't STAY heartsick! We got to have him back! General Conference and Easter and a decent chunk of summer had us all together again. It was such a happy time. And, already, I feel unfairly blessed that I will get to experience that airport pick up TWICE! It was in that category of life's very happiest moments -- one that you can't play up too much because it's JUST THAT WONDERFUL.

Abe and goats combined for a happy Easter together as a family. And we had all the other usual happy holidays as well. (Some Christmas Eve, Halloween and Thanksgiving pictured here along with the Easter. I love Halloween queen Mette: sitting there dispassionately considering who to behead next.)

There were big Sunday dinners and outings with just the kids (who can do that sort of thing even without their parents these days!) -- hikes for the girls, Abe taking all his siblings rock climbing, etc.

And there were trips to Bear Lake, and Willard Bay, and The Farm.

After nearly three months at home Abe was sent back into the mission field -- this time to Las Vegas, Nevada. I mentioned the two marvelous homecomings I'll get to experience, of course, that means I also had to experience two heart wrenching goodbyes. But! He's gotten to experience two completely different missions -- all the while finding ties by connecting with people from El Salvador in Vegas -- and he's been so happy and shared so many great things, that I can't be anything but grateful for these two years for him.

Daisy graduated from high school (without any real despairing over the Covid circumstances that robbed her of much of the end of year celebrating) and headed off to BYU on a scholarship. (One could argue that that last point wasn't exactly a happy development of 2020! We miss having her here! But we are proud of her and it is always rewarding to see your kids grow in independence and adapt and thrive.)

We got outdoor lights. :)

And these truck-bed seats.

The kids (and Mike) had a splendid trip at a not-at-all crowded (Covid restrictions) Lagoon. The first time for many of them (and years since last being there for the rest).

The kids got to return to school in the fall. (Something not everyone, even within our own state, was able to do).

Mike and I got to escape TWO times for a night or two away with just the two of us (actually, now that I type that I realize that one of these vacations was technically 2021, but, since it was meant to celebrate our 2020 anniversary, I'll count it here anyway). 

We got to experience this little spriteling as a one-year-old. Completely ours. With limited time in church, no nursery, very few family gatherings, and only her older siblings ever tending her, this year was spent just being the beloved littlest person in this family with the outside world fairly unknown to her. (Loss for the outside world!)

There were a million other good things of course. Some I'll likely remember just as soon as I push "publish". And others that simply weren't photographed -- Goldie getting her driver's license (I was greatly looking forward to that once our other two driver's [Abe and Daisy] were no longer available) for example. Hans turned 3 (early in 2020, he's just turned 4 now), Starling turned 1, Daisy turned 18, Penny turned 13, Goldie turned 16, Summer turned 6, Mette turned 5, Anders turned 9, Jesse turned 12 and Abe turned 20. And many other good things well worth celebrating.

21st Anniversary

Thursday night (after our youngest kids frantically scribbled out last-minute goodbye pictures, and sobbed and hugged us as if we would most likely never be returning, and our older girls tried to distract them as I shouted last instructions, and Mike and I pried desperate little arms from around our knees) we hopped in our car and headed off for a slightly belated 21st-anniversary celebration.

Mike had picked up several books on CD from the library. Of course then we remembered that our car has no CD player. Probably everyone else on the planet has a list of books all waiting to be listened to on one app or another. Audible? Is that what people use? I don’t know. One only needs spend five minutes in my home to see why it would never have occurred to me to procure some handy means for listening to books.

However, as luck would have it, I quite suddenly recalled The Last of the Vikings (an old book by Johan Bojer about a small Norwegian fishing village). I’d read it early in our marriage when Mike’s dad had lent it to me for something to read during my small breaks at the lab where I worked, and I’d thought then, as I’d read, that it was a pity I wasn’t reading it out loud with Mike. There was something about it that I couldn’t quite put into words but knew Mike would appreciate. And now, nearly 21 years after that first reading, it seemed here might be the opportunity to read it afresh—and this time with Mike. After struggling to remember the exact name (“something with ‘Viking’ in the title I think”, I’d said to Mike), and pulling up a few things that were definitely not what I was after, I found a translation on Google books.

And so I read aloud—which is something we did often earlier in our marriage. (Harry Potter on our first married camping trip, and at night in our tiny basement apartment as I snuggled newborn baby Abe to sleep; Lorna Doone on our drives between Utah and Washington; and Watership Down on a drive home from a work trip I’d accompanied him on.) We drove (and read—except for when the roads were very curvy) through the last bits of normal nighttime right into the heart of very late nighttime and eventually arrived at our hotel in Moab, UT.

And then we slept.

Ah such sleeping. True no first night in a foreign bed is ever totally free of turnings and half-wakings, but our bed was comfortable and the blinds kept our room very dark far into the morning, and there were no kids padding about before dawn crying and fighting and making loud messes. (Though on the second morning there actually were several kids doing just those sorts of things in a neighboring hotel room, so things were not completely removed from the realities of home life.) It’s strange to think that at some future day sleep will not be such a luxury. But for now! ... It factors significantly into anything that might even remotely be called a vacation.

We spent our first day hiking Delicate Arch (and going to a movie and dinner, and checking out a small RadioShack—surely one of the few still in existence—where we chose a few items from the drawers full of small components that we knew would make Jesse’s pulse race with excitement).

The only other time I’d been to Delicate Arch was on our honeymoon. (It’s such an amazing place; one where you simply can’t stop exclaiming over these natural structures whose existence simply does not make sense.) And it was strange to be taking the same hike we’d last taken together 21 years earlier—as newlyweds who knew nothing of anything ahead. In some ways we didn’t seem so very different to me. But in other ways it was amazing to think of all that had changed and come into our lives and been experienced since then. (And it had me wondering over and over about what all the living of 21 more years together would bring.)

One very small thing that had changed was my fear-of-danger! I don’t recall noticing or thinking much at all about the drop off on the backside of the arch or the deep bowl in front of it. And if there was snow that made anything slippery 21 years ago, I certainly was oblivious to it. But the thought now of those little hands clinging to me as we left and of ten potential little orphans had me far more cautious this time around! (Though I ought to add that that same change had not come to Mike. The thought of parentless children, as far as I could tell, never entered his mind for a moment. Everything was perfectly safe as far as he saw it!)

On our second day we’d planned to just explore more of Arches, but Goblin Valley was only an hour and a half away. It’s possibly Mike’s favorite place in all of Utah, and I’d never actually been, so we determined to go there.

And what a place! This whole trip I could not stop thinking of how miraculous it is to live so close to all of this alien beauty. I kept imagining it centuries earlier—existing with perhaps nobody even knowing it. There were plaques and pamphlets explaining how everything was formed. But they were just words. Say what they would about ancient seas and erosion resistant rock atop softer sandstone, it was clear to me that there was no logic that might explain any of it. It was impossible. And yet there it was.

It was the perfect time of year to come. The place was virtually empty. One small family was leaving the little valley all full of goblins and their castle-cliffs just as we arrived, and we saw a man sitting thoughtfully on one of the stones, but before long we were the only ones in the valley at all.

We wandered back and around to where Mike had discovered a little cave when he came with Abe and the Young Men a few years ago. I never like to go in caves, but this was very short with a crack up to the sky, so in we went.

We then wandered even further back to the most secluded spot we could find and climbed on some rocks. The sky was every bit as blue as these cell phone shots could capture. With it being winter there were no sounds of buzzing insects. No birds flew by. There were no rustling needles or leaves or grasses whatsoever near where we’d wandered. No wind. No voices or footsteps. And traffic was miles and miles away. I had never, in 44 years of living, experienced such silence. Even as I try to imagine it again, I falsely put some type of buzzing or rustling in. But there was none. My brain just can’t seem to quite figure how to recreate zero sound. Nothing. Utter quiet. I felt a bit as though if I could just always be in that setting to pray—right on that frequency with no static to distract—every prayer would shoot directly to heaven. And every answer would come back just as quickly.

It always feels a bit of a loss to be in beautiful places with neither my big camera nor my little photo subjects livening up the scenery. But I did snap quite a few photos with them in mind. Things such as this turtle:

And this duck:

And this strange little creature that might belong on a Mario game:

Anyway, it was a lovely two days. We drove home after Goblin Valley (stopping at multiple restaurants between Provo and Ogden in hopes of finding one without an hour and a half wait) to a house where kids had been tucked in and everything had been tidied by our three oldest girls (who’d managed things perfectly and even taken their siblings to parks and for ice cream, etc.).

And I feel I should end this with a sentence like, “And I felt renewed and refreshed and ready to take on life again”. But in truth any break presents such a sharp contrast to the reality of life’s routine demands that I always find re-entry rather shocking! Haha. But worth it all the same. The break and the re-entry. :)