Holidays at Home and COVID New Years.

We are officially out of quarantine. Ten long days in the house with four sick adults, two active dogs, one insane feline, and these hooligans:

Grandparents, grace, and grapes (wine) got us through. We celebrated with the doordash of our dreams, from Liberty Barbecue (courtesy of Aunt Nicole.) And a Costco run. 

That was not how this frenetic holiday season was supposed to end. We had planned to ring out 2021 at the beach with our friends, the first real downtime I had scheduled in... as long as memory serves. Instead, the day before we were supposed to leave found the kids and I coughing and sleepy in an early morning COVID testing car line.

We were positive. I moped for days. We missed out on our beach trip and spent New Year's quarantining. 

At least it was with some of our favorite people.

And somewhere in there we got a snow day. 

Which stretched into two and was absolutely magical.

Christmas at home, even with the addition of the elf,

was also terrific. Even with non-matching PJs (to my eternal chagrin.)

Mixed in with work and late night Target runs and a quick trip to Tulsa,

which provided a great excuse to see Ana & Ata (!!!)

as well as to see this funny, quirky zoo and the world's best playground-

and also the world's best Christmas lights. (Photos really don't do it justice.)

Other highlights of our occasionally wonderful/ occasionally terrible holiday season which were spent- for the first time we can think of- entirely within a few miles of our home... included the Washington Ballet Nutcracker with Grandma, and the National tree. (This isn't it. This is in the lobby of the Willard, and it is a much nicer tree.)

And duck hunting.

Also, it turns out the world's best trained service dog likes holiday pillows. 

Although it was not great for our furniture, quarantine did prove to be good for empathy. And bike riding.

(Even for this guy.)

We've had lots of moments to appreciate from our long quarantine,

and more than a few we'd love to forget (this cute photo represents the many, many photos we didn't take of "go to your room!")

2022 has to be better than 2021. Has to. Although we started it with COVID and without Betty White. Not a great sign, but we remain ever hopeful. Cheers!