We all survived 2020 and a lot of ‘life’ happened!
Pre-COVID….. January thru March was pretty commonplace. Work for Mark and me, married/work life Molly and Evan, work for Abby and Trevor, and college for Emily.
The first week of March took me on a work trip to Austin with four co-workers. On Thursday, I flew to Denver and met up with my SIL Theresa (lives there) and had a massage / workout. (Yes, this sidebar is leading somewhere. :) Friday, Mark, Abby, Trevor, Marianne and Steve drove in. There was a party Saturday for niece Claire who was heading off to Army boot camp and Sunday, a bunch of us went to Copper Mountain to prep for our smaller group going on Tuesday. Emily wanted to learn how to snowboard. Marianne, Emily and I stayed in Co and the others returned to KC.
At Copper, Emily took a snowboard lesson, and I decided to refresh my skiing skills (limited to non-existent to begin with) and took a lesson as well. Theresa & Marianne skied and Claire snowboarded. It was a fun day! We followed up the next day with massages - which was at a gym / facility in a Denver hospital…that ultimately had the first C-VID case in Denver.
Marianne, Emily and I flew back to MO on Thursday. Sitting in the airport, Em needed to cough to clear her throat and was paranoid that everyone was going to stare her down because C-VID was just becoming widespread news.
The returning weekend went as normal (errands, etc.) and Emily returned to school. I went to work (virtually as I had always been) on Monday.
THEN Mark got a text from Marianne… thus the beginning of C-VID impacting the Goulding’s life. Anyone who had been at the ski resorts needed to self-quarantine for two weeks. Grrrr.
Mark and I had to report out to our work leadership which went all the way to the top of the food chain…. Mark packed up and returned home to work…only to return to the office once and then months later to turn in his things for retiring and pick up personal belongings in December. I never returned to the office…mostly because I had cleaned out my office the year before and had a ‘portable office’ to go. Emily returned home from school, and as it turned out, would only be going back to clean out her apartment. School went virtual, and it was the end of being empty nesters for a while.
Well, none of us had C-VID (from the party, mountain, hospital or airport contacts). We managed to get out of the two week quarantine, have three days of ‘normal’, the the country started shutting down and everyone started panicking over ever germ. Yes, I too went a bit overboard at the beginning. (Note, the last post or so about how to sanitize everything coming into the house!)
The next couple of months was grocery shopping for my mom, researching all I could about C-VID, and making masks for family, friends, and donation. I think I made around 500 then had burnout. Work continued and being in the ‘employee engagement’ area, C-VID impacted how we worked, our surveys and our travel. Austin would be my last work trip. :( However, a few of us did start the zoom happy hour events! Lol
While C-VID didn’t really impact our family’s health, a whopping concussion affected mine. Short story - I fell while jogging in the rain on a wooden bridge. (I KNEW better than to do this!!!) I ended up with a pretty big concussion that sidelined me for five weeks. (I’ll have to sidebar that story later.)
C-VID didn’t stop all of our fun. We still saw family, attended some social events and kept in contact with family and friends - in person and via zoom!
Great things also happened in 2020 as well! Our rainbow granddaughter, McKenna was born, and Abby & Trevor got engaged! We celebrated Thanksgiving with immediate family, my mom, and Trevor’s parents and spent Christmas with all the kids.
