Highlights of 2021

 Wow - I find it hard to believe that I haven't blogged in 10 days!! My goal has been to blog more regularly in 2021 and for most of the year, I succeeded. We rang in 2021 with high hopes of a covid free year. 

Covid hung around though so we participated in a drive by birthday party for our neighbor. We really enjoyed the golf cart this year!

January also brought the death of my aunt. She died of covid. Mark and I represented the family by attending the funeral and I actually took a selfie and sent it to one of my sisters. (yes - I just noticed the table in the chair -- I evidently had set the roomba to run while we were at the funeral!)

On another note, Mark was able to get his first covid shot in January.

My Aunt Faye on the left pictured with my
sister, Becky, and our cousin, Cindy

February included more zoom meetings, time with grandkids, and a tiny snowfall.

March included my first covid shot and I drove about an hour away to get it. We also celebrated granddaughter #1's 5th birthday! We hosted a driveby baby shower. 

April brought Easter egg hunts and Easter Sunday. We hosted our Easter worship service at a local football stadium.

We also went out of town for the first time in 18 months and stayed in a hotel and went to a rehearsal dinner, wedding and reception.

I also participated in the April A to Z challenge!

May brought our first opportunity to return to in person Sunday School! We also went to Mississippi and stayed overnight and went to another wedding.

We also hosted our supper club in person at our house!! In May we were also able to attend our granddaughter's dance recital.

June brought a family trip to the beach and we celebrated my 63rd birthday. We started up our Tuesday night Young Professional group IN PERSON. Our sweet friend, Julia Alton, moved to Kansas City and we attended her going away party.

The first half of the year was filled with lots of happy moments. Right at the end of June, my sweet mother-in-law fell and broke her hip.

July brought granddaughter #2's 2nd birthday. Birthday weekend included a trip to the Montgomery zoo. We also celebrated my mother-in-law's 96th birthday.

August brought a neighborhood block party - fun! We also attended the commissioning of one our young adults - she is now a JAG! We celebrated Mark, George, and Bill's birthdays. Our son-in-law Scott had a birthday. Mark and I tried a new restaurant - Sol Y Luna.

September 1 brought Bob Goff to our church and he was amazing as always. 

In September my mother-in-law let me "borrow" her cheese straw (cookie) press. It is a true antique. It was her mother's before her. I finally mastered cheese straw making!! In September we also hosted our first neighborhood supper club and really enjoyed making some new friends!!

In this second half of the year, Mark and his siblings began spending nights with their mother. I stayed twice and then realized that I cannot work a full time 40+ hour a week job and stay over there. I sleep with one ear open the entire time. Mark has been very gracious and has stayed two nights a week in my place.

October brought several exciting things. We had an IN PERSON women's retreat at Camp Sumatanga which is about an hour away. I was the closing speaker.

We jumped on a plane and flew to Ireland and had a magnificent time. Oh my goodness - we both could live there we loved it so much. We booked a trip with totaly strangers and then fell in love with all of them!! If you are interested, you can read ALL about our trip to Ireland beginning here.

We celebrated Halloween in our neighborhood with fun decorations and over 1,000 trick or treaters.

November brought the death of our son-in-law's grandmother so we made a quick trip out of town to keep granddaughter #2 while daughter and son-in-law attended the funeral. We also celebrated All Saints day at church which is one of my favorite Sundays. I attended Art in the Lot at our church and bought a few fun things! We celebrated the birthdays of our son, daughter, and daughter-in-law. We had family photos taken in the park in front of our house and we celebrated Thanksgiving.

During all of this time, my sweet mother-in-law continues to decline BUT we were able to bring her to our house for Thanksgiving dinner and she did quite well!

December brought it all - right at the end of November, Mark's boss of 38+ years died. He was 90. We attended his funeral together. He was a fine man. 

We attended a local play and we decorated for Christmas. We attended some extra services at church and celebrated with family!

Check back tomorrow for a Christmas recap!

I feel like with covid still around, we were still able to spend some time with family and friends. I end the year and begin a new year with thanksgiving for so many blessings in our lives!!

Also, I've just touched on a few things each month -- the things that "look good." Just like all of you, there are things that never make it to the blog - the everyday mundane things - the times our feelings get hurt - the times we don't act as we should. Life is a beautiful thing even with all of the ups and downs and ins and outs.

I read about an Irish tradition and we did it last night -- we opened the front and back doors of our house and pushed 2021 out the door and welcomed in a new year.