2020 in Review (Part 1)

 I'm a month late in reviewing 2020... but I have to get this strange year recorded. 

2020 started out with such promise! We were looking forward to Jesse and Summer's wedding on July 4. We toured their venue; we got together for some planning.

Randy had hernia surgery and spent a few weeks recovering...

We moved his mom into an assisted living facility. In the photo below, my mom (on the left in blue) is visiting Randy's mom on the right.

We had book clubs and game nights and celebrated birthdays.

We saw friends and family and celebrated weddings and even traveled.

We spent an couple hours with Laurel and Hunter while they were in Gatlinburg

We spend a night with my high school friend Robin and her husband while they were in the Smokies

We celebrated Elizabeth's son's wedding!

I visited Laurel and Hunter in Nashville for a few days

And then COVID became real. I remember this particular night so well. It was about a week before things got really bad in NYC. Randy and I were planning to go to NYC during spring break, and I remember telling my friends that we were still planning to go.

We all thought it would go away soon.

A few days later, my friends and I went to Biltmore Estates for a little getaway. It all still seemed so far away.

That was March 11.

Laurel came home for spring break, and we all went for a hike. On the way to the hike, we talked about the wedding and wondered if it would still happen. On the way there, it was recommended that gatherings stay less than 100.

On the way home, the governor recommended that gatherings stay at fewer than 50 people. The virus was officially and certainly in Tennessee. And everywhere.

And Duncan was in Peru, doing research on the Amazon River, totally off the grid. Imagine how happy we were when our boy made it home, getting out of Peru just two hours before the borders closed! Like so many students, he finished up his semester at home. Here is is climbing the house, because it's the best climbing wall we have here!

And then there was this...

Answer: YES.

And Jesse's birthday on Zoom...

And lots of cocktails.

So many cocktails.

And we worked from home, like everyone else.

And bought a lot of toilet paper.

We played games and took walks and lounged in hammocks.

We Zoomed.

We put on masks.

And that's just up until May. This is when it really began to set in that we were in this for the long haul. The wedding was off. Our trip to NYC was long ago canceled. Graduations were canceled. Concerts postponed. Cases were so low in Tennessee -- just a handful in our county. We settled in and waited.