If it’s any indication of what kind of year 2021 has been, today is Halloween and I am writing the first blog post of the year. I’m TEN months behind. Between Covid, hybrid school (which, although better than nothing, isn’t much), parenting four kids, computer/software problems and life, the blog has fallen to the back burner. But I’m back at it again and hoping to get caught up quickly. So without further adieu…

Here is what we were up to in January:

Silas spent New Year’s Eve with Nana. Jonathan went to visit and bring him home the next day.

Dance party at home

FaceTiming with the Smiths in Singapore

Christmas tree pickup with Scouts

Jonathan made himself this handy workbench

Power outage!

Snowshoeing with Boy Scouts

Avery, running on the Snoqualmie Valley Trail

Kieron loved his new bomber jacket

I ordered this adorable unicorn scarf online. Sometimes things don’t arrive as pictured though, and I got a kick out of what we were sent, see below. We sent it back, of course!

No way I was going to let Layla go out with this on her head!

More dance parties

Jonathan took the kids skiing a few times this season. He takes two at a time when they go. Looks like they had a lot of fun!

Still getting  caught up on the blog. There were a number of shots of the TV from January, and as I go though them I can’t help thinking to myself, “wow, that was so scary and I can’t believe we made it through with our democracy intact.” This deserves its own post. In November a lot of us were worried Trump wouldn’t leave office without a fight. But I didn’t see an attack on our Capital coming. Even leading up to his “rally” I never guessed January 6th would turn out the way it did. The biggest surprise to me was how unprepared our Capital Police and National Guard were.

It’s interesting writing about this ten months later. I had been texting my Aunt Julie when The Insurrection started. Out of curiosity, I went back and looked at our thread from that day. She said, “Are you watching?” I replied, “Yes!” We both watched in real time, texting things like, “I can’t believe this”, “Pelosi, Pence, Schumer, they are all in danger”, “Where is the teargas? Rubber bullets? National Guard?!”, “I can’t believe what I’m seeing”, “Omg, they’re breaking windows”, “I’m sick to my stomach”, “I keep imagining how this crowd would be treated if they were not white” and on and on. How anyone can look back on this day and not be disgusted, saddened and angry is beyond me. Here are a few shots I took of the TV while we watched.

What in the actual…?! This was not a protest. It was an attack on democracy.

Whew! Counting the vote.

Cheers to Biden and politicians willing to do the right thing.

Tired dog doesn’t know what she missed.

Oh happy day!

Teared up watching this with my kiddos, especially Layla.

We had our good friends, the Lotts, over to ring in the New Year. Silas went to Nana’s to celebrate. Here are a few shots from the night.