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!

Ooooooklahoma! and the Runup to Christmas.

If I thought the "Finley's birthday-to-Thanksgiving" turnaround resembled a slip 'n slide, Thanksgiving to Christmas was a luge run. 

Impossibly, we are already in the last minute sprint to stocking stuffers and fighting crowds for Santa's list items and gift wrapping. And naturally, our holidays at home are anything but relaxing, with December work requirements sneaking up on both of us. 

Thank goodness for these two, who have held the fort down on everything from dogwalking to Sunday school to school mismatch days.

Seriously, public schools hate parents. On top of alltheChristmasthings, we needed costume week?!

 

Finley got promoted at swim school and is now on the Swim Force team. Naturally, we celebrated at Pistone's.

Seth went to Finland for work and fell in love with all things pickled fish and saunas.

F+F became fully vaccinated, and took their grandparents to the zoo to see the bison.

Finley cut her own bangs, and went Christmas shopping.

Ford routinely and voluntarily appeared in public in this outfit.

Jayne and I explored the instagram-able hell that was Enchant DC with friends.

And we took Grandma and Grandpa to the always-stunning Kennedy Center for their first time, and an excellent Veterans' salute concert. Not to mention the debut of these sweet holiday outfits.

Then it was off to Oklahoma so I could attend the stupendous Miranda's wedding, and the kids could spend a few precious days in Tulsa with Ana & Ata while Dad was in class.

We discovered the- no kidding- world's best Christmas lights at a megachurch in Broken Arrow,

explored the quirky and fantastic Tulsa Zoo-

which featured a very underpublicized baby Tiger and a surprisingly aggressive goat-

and were reminded just why we love traveling to new places, stumbling upon (OK, after Mom researched it) the absolutely incredible Gathering Place (click the link, it's something else.) 

Home of the actual World's Best Playground.

Photos don't do it justice. Tulsa was a pleasant surprise, and we loved every second of our time in Oklahoma with Ana & Ata. We can't wait to go exploring with them again.

Now we're recovering from our whirlwind trip, trying to get in some holiday downtime, and doing all the holiday baking.

And at least one of us is snuggling with the cat.