Happy Holidays!  And what a year it’s been. I recall New Year’s Eve 2019, our family stood on our balcony at the Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas, watching fireworks explode over the ocean. For New Year’s Eve 2020, we stood on our front porch with Lysol wipes, waving down our lost DoorDash driver. At least this year he knows where we live, and what we like on our pizza.

In January, after years of thinking about it, and with the encouragement of my family, I finally enrolled in the Delaware School of Real Estate, taking courses 3 nights per week via live Zoom classes, wearing what I call my “Pearls & Pajamas” uniform -business blouse on top, sweats on the bottom. Ana chose to return to in-person school rather than stay virtual, which was really best for all involved.  She needed more time around people who could truly appreciate her mastery of a million different TikTok dances. Collin, however, chose to continue attending school from the comfort of his room, rolling from his bed to his desk and back again between the hours of 8am & 2pm.

In February, Collin presented us with his second speeding ticket of his 8-month long driving career. I had a feeling he’d get another. Every time he walked through the door, I’d not so jokingly ask, “Did you get a speeding ticket today?” Honestly, the anticipation was killing me.  He likes to point out that he may be a fast driver but he’s a good driver, having never caused an accident. And I like to point out that he failed to notice a marked STATE POLICE vehicle clearly parked on the shoulder of Route 1. Twice.

In March, my mother and I flew to Florida to attend my Aunt Charline’s wake. Never one to miss a good party, it came as no surprise that, not only was Aunt C very much alive, she arranged for her funeral to be held at a bar that keeps 12 flavors of daiquiri on tap. In lieu of a body, the casket was filled with donations for the local animal shelter. There were so many cans of Alpo, it took all 6 pallbearers to carry it out.

For Spring Break, Brian and the kids thought it would be a fabulous idea for us to zigzag around Florida during the busiest time of the year with ZERO hotel reservations, leaving us fancy free to visit various beaches with the kind of joyous spontaneity only ever successful in romantic comedies. Not wanting to be a killjoy, I decided to pack up my anxieties and go with the flow. The beaches were beautiful, the weather was gorgeous, the food was fantastic, and the accommodations…well, as the 4 of us lay perpendicular across our shared bed at the Holiday Inn off State Road A1A, I couldn’t help but to think how undervalued killjoys are. What kind of person can’t appreciate a well-planned stay at an oceanfront Marriott?

Ana turned 12 in April. She missed out on a birthday party last year due to the national Covid quarantine, so I fully expected her to embrace party planning this year. We floated some ideas around- roller skating, trampoline park, bowling, etc. She couldn’t make up her mind, so she did nothing. According to Ana, making no decision is better than making a bad decision – a personal motto I hope never goes on her resume. We got her a skateboard, a volleyball, and cash money to ease our underlying feelings of guilt. 

Collin had his Zoom court date for his speeding ticket scheduled for mid-May. The days leading up were spent mounting his defense, practicing cross examination questions, and debating which closing argument to use. But when the moment came, the judge simply asked if he was guilty, “yes, but…” then cut him off with a “That’s a $112.50 fine. You’re dismissed” and logged off. Collin handed me $113 cleverly wrapped in his Distinguished Honor Roll report card.  I kept the change.

In June, we packed our clothes and went to our house in Bethany for the summer. Collin began his 4^th season working at Candy Kitchen on the boardwalk, Ana resumed her “I’m so bored” campaign despite BEING AT THE BEACH, I started studying for my PA Real Estate License exam, and Brian set up his office smack dab in the middle of the family room so we could all experience the joy of live conference calls and supply chain issues.

We made a gradual return home in mid-August. Football practice had shifted to full time for Collin and Ana’s travel soccer began their traveling, and I dug into my new real estate career (now licensed *call me*).  Ana also decided she was going to try out for the middle school volleyball team, and began preparing by watching YouTube videos to come up with her signature serve. Learning the rules of the game was not a priority.

In September, when school was in full swing (Ana in 7^th, Collin in 12^th) it was brought to my attention that while we were building sand castles all summer, everyone else had been touring colleges with their high school senior. Oops. He’s our first kid, things were bound to fall through the cracks. I asked Collin to give us a well-researched list of the colleges he was interested in so we could visit them before submitting his applications. He gave us a list of 8 colleges, 5 of them were solid choices, and the other 3? Unless you have a 5.0 gpa and list “Donating bone marrow when not interning at NASA” as an extra-curricular, forget it.  But his “you never know unless you try” optimism was contagious, and so we submitted all 8 applications and essentially threw away $400 in application fees. Visits are pending upon acceptance.

It was a great month for the kids and their sports. Ana made the volleyball team and was actually pretty fantastic!  She had settled on a cool 3-bounce-fist serve. And Collin was named a Captain for the Varsity Football Team.

Collin turned 18 in October. His first order of business was to find out if he could sign his own early dismissal notes for school. He could not. But he could finally take himself to the dentist. No more waiting rooms for me.

The day after Thanksgiving, the four of us jumped in the car and headed to Boston to visit Collin’s #1 college choice, Emerson College. It was a terrific 4 days- walking around the town, visiting the aquarium, shopping around Quincy Market, and eating, eating, eating. The college was great too, located right on Tremont St.

We returned home from Boston on November 29^th, and on December 1^st Brian didn’t feel so well. Can you guess where this is going? On December 2^nd at 6:40am I received a text notification that he had tested positive for Covid. I jumped out of bed and stared at him, his host body exhaling all over our sheets. I threw a towel over his face and backed up 6 feet before giving him the bad news. He decided to pack up immediately and head to our beach house to isolate until we knew if the kids and I were infected. Although we had just spent an entire weekend sharing a hotel room the size of our bathroom, somehow, we remained negative.

Poor Brian returned 12 days later, 10 pounds lighter and disheveled but on the mend.  Unfortunately, he missed Collin’s football banquet. It was a great event – Collin was awarded All League First Team and received the Sportsmanship Award!

Christmas this year was low-key- just the 4 of us, playing board games, sitting around in our pajamas, and sourcing At-Home Covid tests to have on hand for next month.

Before this year closes, we’d like to send out a big THANK YOU to those who got us through this year – DoorDash, Amazon Prime, Curative Testing…and of course YOU, dear friends and family! Thank you for being a part of our lives. Whether near or far, yesterday or yesteryear, you are always in our hearts. May your 2022 be filled with an abundance of love, laughter, health, and happiness.

Love,

Brian, Kim, Collin, and Ana

10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1… January 1st!

Glorious fireworks exploded before us as we stood on the oceanfront balcony of our Atlantis Resort suite.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR! I PREDICT 2020 IS GOING TO BE THE BEST YEAR EVER!!!” I shouted, adjusting my tiara and clearly forgetting my ability to jinx an entire planet. And my jinxing powers are legendary. Back in March 2018, I forced the family to visit Hawaii Volcanos National Park promising, “It’s perfectly safe!” Kilauea Volcano would erupt 49 days later, destroying hundreds of homes and changing the landscape forever. After examining the data, scientists would say, “It appears signs of trouble began mid-March.” So as resort guests continued to cheerfully ring in the New Year around us, the kids placed their party hats solemnly over their hearts and threw their noisemakers into the water below, giving our 2020 hopes and dreams a symbolic burial at sea. Brian recorked the champagne.

Upon our return home, I took crummy January as the perfect time to start the chemotherapy cream my dermatologist prescribed to treat my sun damaged face. Years of basting myself in a tanning solution made of 90% baby oil & 10% iodine kept me looking like a beautifully roasted turkey for most of the 90’s, but now it was time to pay the piper. I knew the cream would blister me up horrendously for about 8 weeks, but that was ok, come March I’d emerge like a fresh-faced butterfly from her cocoon, just in time for our dream trip to ITALY!

February – Like all of our Februarys, it was spent hibernating and whining about the gloominess and non-Caribbean like temperatures. Despite being born and bred in the Northeast, Brian and I are not people built for this particular adversity, and we’ll never understand the excited Facebook posts of friends tagging themselves in outdoor activities featuring snow and requiring gloves: skiing, snowboarding, sledding, …building snowmen with their children. Yuck.

The one bright spot during those dark winter days was the planning of our trip to Italy. Venice, Florence, Rome! Pizza making, pasta making, wine tasting! The culture, the excitement, our first trip to Europe! As I pushed the “Confirm” button on our final payment, I announced to the family, “I PREDICT MARCH IS GOING TO BE AWESOME! IT’S THE BEST TIME TO GO TO ITALY!” Then I downloaded the Duolingo app, determined to learn Italian.

March – “Arrivederci, Italia.”

Not only did the United States cancel our trip of a lifetime, but our destination turned out to be the European epicenter for the Covid-19 pandemic. Thanks to my Duolingo app, I was able to tell the family of the terrible news in flawless Italian. Not that they understood, they hadn’t bothered to open the app.

Instead of fighting the crowds in Venice, I found myself fighting for toilet paper & disinfectant in the aisles of Costco. I thought back to those doomsday prepper shows. What would our family need to survive? Bulk quantities of top shelf vodka and Double-Stuf Oreos for sure. But what about real nutrition in the face of a possible food shortage? I tossed a year’s worth of canned chicken and tuna pouches in the cart, despite knowing the kids would rather turn to cannibalism.

April – Ana turned 11 and celebrated it in true quarantine style, alone. Actually, we spent part of the day delivering individual cupcakes to friends’ homes and waiving from afar, then headed back home to Zoom with those friends and sing Happy Birthday. Then she shut the laptop and was alone. With us. Again. For the 38th day in a row. She’s expecting big things next April.

May – We decided to change up the 4 walls we were staring at and headed to our beach house for the summer. There was so much more to do there without coming into contact with deadly germ-infested people. We hiked, biked, kayaked, played tennis, and golfed. In fact, I did all of that and painted 2 bedrooms in the first weekend alone! That’s how I ended up with two herniated disks in my neck. Silver lining – the pain was so intense that I lost my appetite for weeks and dropped the 10 pounds I gained in March and April.

June – Some of the quarantine restrictions were lifted and Collin was finally able to complete his driving lessons and get his license! He also bought his first car! And then…and then…he got his first speeding ticket! What a whirlwind 2 weeks that was! Despite our Covid concerns, we allowed him to return to his summer job at Candy Kitchen, but we eyed him suspiciously after every shift, knowing he could be a Corona carrier. The poor kid couldn’t so much as cough in the house without us calling him Superspreader and sending him off to gargle with Lysol.

July – Tired of crying on the couch in pain while my family enjoyed every outdoor activity without me, I finally made an appointment to get Cortisone shots in my neck. Because it involved a “major” body part and was being performed at a “surgical” center by a spinal “surgeon”, I felt it appropriate to tell my family that I was having major surgery and inform them of my final wishes “…should things take a bad turn”. Brian pointed out that it was actually a simple procedure and that I should stop scaring the kids. And I pointed out that if their sympathy had been more forthcoming, I wouldn’t need to take such drastic measures.

August – As the summer was winding down, we had a contractor begin renovations on our kitchen back home. The particle board drawers were crumbling and the laminate doors were peeling. Almost everything was being held together by either Gorilla Glue, crazy glue, or hot glue. Brian knew it needed to be done, and I told him August would be the best time to do it, we even received a quote back in the Spring, but he said he didn’t want to be involved. And I quote “I don’t want to be involved.” And so, I honored his wishes and never mentioned it again…I just went ahead and did it.

We were about 3 weeks into the renovation when I realized Brian mistook my tight-lipped silence as me having put the kitchen project on hold.

“Look,” he said, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but with Covid and how that might effect the economy, we should wait a couple years before redoing the kitchen. ”

“Oh, um, ok”, I replied.

Meanwhile, back home:

I was in a pickle, and he was in for quite a surprise. My mother had plans to turn her guest room into a storage room, but said she’d hold off in case I needed a place to lay low.

September – With Ana’s soccer and Collin’s football starting back up, we moved everything back home. The kitchen was beautiful, although Brian still didn’t want to talk about it. But I know he loves it. The kids started virtual school. Collin loves virtual 11th grade, as it provides many napping opportunities. Ana, however, needs other fellow 6th graders to talk to throughout the day. I can handle only so many Tik Tok discussions in a 24 hour period.

Collin and I had to appear in traffic court this month to answer for his June speeding ticket. I was ready for a judge to rightly throw the book at him, but that’s not how it went. Not at all. I watched as Collin, a man of few words, stood before the court and became an effective orator, capturing his audience by weaving a mastery of a story. This story had it all- semitrucks, rocks, tailgaters, an unsympathetic police officer, fear, love, loss. In the end, the overarching theme was one of self-preservation. After the applause died down, the judge taught him how to use the argument of Mitigating Circumstance and completely dismissed the citation. I walked out feeling both irritation and awe.

October – This entire month was spent either scheduling Covid tests, sitting in line for Covid tests or being in self quarantine for being a “Known Contact” of a suspected or confirmed Covid positive person. Ana’s soccer team was able to get in a few games and Collin’s football team managed to scramble around and find 4 other teams to play who weren’t in quarantine. I never thought I’d say this, but thank goodness for sports! It gave our kids (and us) a desperately needed sense of normalcy and comraderie, even if just for a little bit. Collin turned 17 on Friday the 13th (of course, 2020), and we hesitantly let him hang out with 3 friends gasp to celebrate. And then we observed him for 2 weeks for signs of the ‘rona and never let him out again.

November – November was a rinse and repeat of October, only colder. For Thanksgiving, it was only the 4 of us at the beach. The menu consisted of grilled burgers, zucchini, potato chips, jalapeno margaritas, and a pecan pie just to keep it traditional.

December – December has been October & November, only even colder and now darker. The kids’ sports are over, there’s no dining out, no holiday parties, no hanging out with friends, but hey, at least we have all this quality time with our family, right? Hahahahahaha. As I write this, we are at day 284 of 24 hours a day togetherness. I can assure you that our time ceased being “quality” somewhere around May. Half-played board games and unfinished jigsaw puzzles litter our dining room table, abandoned in a moment of “Oh my god, is this pandemic really still happening?!?!” Time is only measured in “quantity” now. HO HO HO.

I’d like to finish this letter by doing the world a favor, trying to fix what my family believes I started New Year’s 2020. Here it goes:

I PREDICT 2021 IS GOING TO BE THE WORST YEAR EVER!

I hope that worked.

As this year is coming to a close, we want to say thank you for being a part of our lives. Whether near or far, yesterday or yesteryear, you are always in our hearts. May your 2021 be filled with an abundance of love, laughter, health, and happiness, but not Covid.

Love,

Brian, Kim, Collin, and Ana