Adventures in 2020

What a Year!

This year has brought more challenges that I could ever imagine. Even now its surreal to look back at what transpired in the spring and how much everyone endured. I would have never imagined that I would go 10 months without hugging my mom… who lives 5 minutes from us. Just wow. I pray that we aren’t living a “new normal”.

In the meantime, we did our due diligence when the pandemic originally hit, but in the end, we had to move on and begin living a normal life. Our mental health depended on it. This is a look into our year, more so a personal way for me to look back and reflect.

birthday season

Our year starts off into what we refer to as birthday season. Literally. Our birthdays are all span between January 1st and February 23rd. Let’s not forget that we just came off of Christmas and New Year’s. Oh and why not throw Valentine’s in there while we’re at it.

New making’s of a garage gym for Jason. Aiden gets his permit and being the wheel for the first time. Austin celebrates with 50 of his closest friends. Ace celebrates at an indoor trampoline park and I postpone my birthday celebrations since I captured a birth on my actual birthday.

And then…

We were just getting into rodeo season when the news began to spread about a sickness. A pandemic. Not willing to believe that we could/would at all be affected, we kept on with our lives. I cautiously began buying things “just in case”… toilet paper, paper towels, water, wipes, soap and hand sanitizer. We were planning a short trip to San Antonio for what would be Austin’s last AAU basketball tournament. We went on our way after a quick Rodeo concert and began to feel the effects of the virus.

As we returned, things were in full force. The announcement that they were canceling the Rodeo created a snowball of events that essentially locked down the country. Once the rodeo made their announcement, so did the school district. We escaped to Jason’s parents bay house the on what should have been last weekend of break and got ready for crazy. Never in a million years would I have imagined that our kids would end up being out of school for 6 straight months.

I was on the tail end of a sickness that lasted 3 weeks and continued to cause shortness of breath for a month there after. Looking back it makes you wonder…

bittersweet

This is the period that I refer to as bittersweet. We were forced into lockdown. Groceries were few and far between due to hoarding and lack of supplies. The kids were forced to do a joke of online schooling for the remainder of the “school year”. Baseball was canceled. We were forced into wearing masks. We were forced to SOCIAL DISTANCE.

A new life of boredom set in. We had nights of puzzles and games. Where my day circled around waking the boys up and keeping them on a routine. Where my social kid became anti-social and reserved. Where signs of teenage depression started to show it’s face. BUT, we spent a lot of time together. We did projects we’ve been putting off. Workouts from home.

Wine games with friends, FaceTime Bingo with my parents, Sonic Drive-by’s from friends, a beautiful Palm Sunday cross and treats and lunches sent from my parents.

As my business of birth photography went to crap (could no longer get into the hospitals), Jason’s took off and began to grow.

Birthdays were celebrated with car parades and drive-by’s. I tried to fit in “field trips” for our own sanity. A trip to the Safari… a trip to see bluebonnets. Hair so out of control that I honed in on some YouTube videos and showed off my skills.

Easter solitude turned into a surprise Easter egg hunt from my brother and his fiancé.

Eventually through all of the virtual socialization, we had to let our walls down and get back to being with those that we love. Human connection is a powerful thing.

We spend time with friends and have sleepovers.

We learned to find some good within the bad.

Run Aiden Run

Then one week Aiden starts asking us if it’s possible to do 100,000 steps in a day. Of course, being used to his random questions, we tell him now way. In true Aiden fashion, I wake up to hear him outside at 7 am. I walk out to see why and he’s already 10,000 steps in. I spent the day watching him like a hawk and what do you know… he does it!

how does your garden grow

Amongst all of the boredom and LARGE amounts of time together, Jason helped me build a space that I enjoyed. Getting to spend hours in the backyard each day was my sanity.

It started with fixing and sprucing up the garden in the backyard. I was reluctant and not exactly excited. However, when it came time to pick plants, I was hooked.

Before I knew it, we had squash, zucchini, several tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, okra, watermelon, strawberries and several herbs. With it being my first time to grow a garden, things got a little out of control, so this next year will be much better.

The garden flowed into a butterfly garden and we watched so many caterpillars start from egg to hatchling to hungry-hungry caterpillar to chrysalis. We helped welcome and release more butterflies that we can count.

school Year end

By now we are getting back into the swing of things. Literally. Austin gets baseball in full force and finishes with a ton of tournaments. Although high school summer ball is canceled, his other team keeps him busy.

The middle school decided to throw on a parade to send off the graduating 8th graders.

We notice the changes in the boys over the course of the school year.

Aiden starts his first job… lifeguarding.

Austin starts Driver’s Ed.

Vacate the premises

We didn’t originally have a vacation planned, but once we got to the summer, enough was enough of staying home. Off to Lake Travis for skiing, surfing, tubing and hiking we go. Followed by a trip to Seaside a few weeks later.

summer winds down

As we prepare for the new school year, we wonder what it will look like. Every day is a new restriction. Every day is a new challenge. Ultimately, we DO get to return to school and everyone even gets to play in all of their sports as planned.

I get to shoot a few births.

Ace gets to finish his SPRING basketball that kept getting postponed.

Aiden starts his sophomore year. Austin now a freshman. Ace begins 7th grade.

what now

Each of the boys got to have a semblance of a normal school year. With facemasks and desk shields. However… they got the ATTEND school!

aiden

Now a sophomore, Aiden decided to drop band and pick up… Physics. Yep. Physics. So he goes into the year both taking Chemistry and Physics at the same time.

He is still running Cross Country and had completed summer runs with his team to prepare for the season. He managed to make 1 Varsity meet and the rest JV. His goals are to make Varsity next year.

He’s beginning to really think about where he wants to go to college, and much to my dismay, Texas A&M is starting to fall down in the ranks of his choices.

His goal is to continue something in the science field. Possibly something related to biochemistry. Whatever that means. Lol! We are really proud of him. Oh, and he got his very own truck!

austin

Austin completed SAC camp through the school over the summer and went in running with his sports.

He started out at Freshman A QB for the pre-season scrimmage. Got bumped down to Freshman B QB for the first game. Then got moved to JV B QB for the rest of the season.

On top of that, he was also still pitching well through his fall league AND playing High School Fall baseball for Ranch.

As soon as football dies down, he tried out and made the Freshman A team for basketball.

He will continue on with his summer league next year through Premier and plans to tryout for the high school baseball team in January.

He also did a super cute Homecoming Proposal for his school and took another girl to her HoCo for another school.

Ace

Where do I start with this kid. He continues to be the life of the party in our family. One second he’s driving you nuts and the next has you laughing. He is still a tornado when it comes the house. Just recently we woke up to whip cream and marshmallows all over the cabinets and walls and floor after a sleepover. Sigh.

He did also get to play a season in football this year. He was very nervous since he hadn’t played in several years, but ended up making the A Team. He played starting WR and 2nd string corner. He was always making sure that he was “dripped” out at all of the games, in true Ace fashion.

He did tryout for the basketball team, but it just wasn’t in his cards this time. He’ll plan to do track once the basketball season is over.

what about you and jason…

Well, Jason and I celebrated 19 years together in January and 16 years married in May. I went on a decent weightloss journey and managed to fit into my wedding dress on our anniversary. Woohoo!

He’s been with his company for nearly 14 years and through COVID, it has really taken off this year. The force of learning to sell virtually allowed for the opportunity to get information to more retired teachers than ever as well as training new reps much more seemless. We are very grateful for his job and his dedication to providing for us.

My business took a big dip in the toilet this year. I celebrated shooting births for 10 years this past February, had quite a few people on the books for the summer and then COVID. I ended up having to cancel a ton of sessions, refund lots of $$$ and ultimately ride months and months without anyone on the books. I went from shooting 35 births in 2019 to 6 to date in 2020 (waiting on one more client to deliver any day now). Yikes. However, I have always told myself to embrace the slow periods… there’s usually a reason for it.

tag Heur it

What would our life be like without this crazy dog? Thank God Cinder balances him out.

thats a wrap

We are so very thankful to have had some very special people with us for Thanksgiving. I made the decision at the start of summer to get off of social media (Facebook specifically) in order to help with the anxiety I was having. I could no longer stand back and watch the hatred that I was witnessing among the masses.

So, every moment that I get to catch up with those I love, I cherish.

I can’t wait to put 2020 behind us.

I made it a mission to make memories as best as I could, but we need 2021 to start out with less hatred and more hope. I hope that everyone has managed through their own year of trials and tribulations. Love to you all.

cut!

Enjoy a span of video outtakes from the year.

coming soon…