What a Couple Weeks.

Somewhere in there, I got 24 hours off and raced to Arkansas to get the kids, because- we missed them. They had had a blast in the Natural State.

We drove all night, hit two blizzards and an epic traffic jam, and made it home just in time for me to go straight to work. Stopping only to avoid traffic with a quick stop in Memphis to walk Aunt Jackie's dog. (Or, maybe the other way around.)

We made it back in time to say goodbye to the kids' only DC friends- who are moving on short notice- so suck it 2021. Seriously.

I worked for the next week+ straight. Dealing with this, and everything associated with it.

Seth didn't want the kids caught up in any potential revolution. So we dispatched him, Jayne (who had flown in to save the day, as per usual), and the kids; to what my reservist Mark had described as his "mountain cabin."

Uh, it had a hot tub. A huge hit with everyone.

And a TON of snow. Lucky beasts.

Plus a pool table. 

It was a real struggle to get everyone home, after a fortunately quiet inauguration.

We eventually managed it, and even pulled off- in the middle of all the mayhem- Rec Center basketball/ hop hop dance. No pictures of the debacle that must've been dance class, but Jayne did manage to snag this one of basketball.

Hope everyone else is hanging in there. Sometimes we're at "just barely," but we're dribbling.

Some Misfortune and an Impromptu Road Trip.

It takes two and a half tanks of gas to get to my parents' house in Arkansas in the Subaru.

And one overnight at a moderately sketchy hotel in Tennessee.

It takes about a half hour to jog home from the East Falls Church metro with a backpack full of reference documents and dirty socks.

It's been a pretty crazy week and a half. Also, 2021 can suck it. (Did I mention that Finley broke her ankle? Making three Nieman ER visits in a single week. More on that in a minute.)

After a pretty typical week-between-Christmas-and-New Year's, which included cooking projects

and science projects

and "Puss in Boots" costumes,

as promised we headed to the Ryans' new house in North Carolina to see the kids' best buddies. We were so excited about keeping up what had become an annual tradition.

Unfortunately, I woke up in the middle of the night with chills and fever, and drove myself back to DC alone after an ER trip with a negative COVID but a positive strep test under my belt. And spent a rough couple days gulping meds 

and missing all the fun.

Then all hell broke loose. Seth somehow got the kids and  the camper home before he needed to be raced to the ER himself, with an infection in his residual limb and a bonus bout with strep. He was in septic shock by the time we got him to Walter Reed. 

I took the week off to hang out with the kids while he recovered in 4 East, our old home- thanks to COVID protocols, without visitors, which was tough to explain to F+F. Our quiet week at home lasted until the Capitol got stormed and I got hauled in to work, leaving the kids with a neighbor.

Something had to give, staring down the barrel of what promised to be a doozy of a next week at work, a wild two upcoming weeks in the National Capital Region, and remaining uncertainty about when Seth- who was feeling better after a week on IV antibiotics but was definitely still not back on his feet- would be released from the hospital.

So that's how Friday night found F+F and I making the long trek to Arkansas on the spur of the moment. I love having kids who don't mind a good road trip. 

I flew back last night, and the kids are having a blast (with the last remaining scraps of snow on the mountain) in Arkansas. 

We miss them terribly, but we're happy to know they're safe and having fun while we wrap our arms around a nutty week.

Seth managed to escape Walter Reed with the help of an old teammate while I worked a long day today, and is resting in our hastily-constructed and only semi- wheelchair- accessible recovery area on the first floor. 

We're not sure what the next couple weeks look like. Nobody is. But we're keeping our heads above water, grateful for our friends and family without whom we wouldn't be, and hoping everyone is doing the same.

A Very COVID Christmas.

We found it right at dusk, after temper tantrums, wrong turns, giving up at least twice, and more muttered curse words than I cared to admit. It wasn't precisely what we were looking for, but it would do. 2 hours and 20 minutes after having left the house on what I thought would be a quick run out to test what Ford calls his new "sleigh" from Grandpa, we finally found some snow.

And I don't know if it was a metaphor for this entire year, with its twists and turns and frustrations and unexpected joys, or just a stroke of good fortune. But when we finally happened upon Lost River State Park around sunset and found not only a couple miraculous inches of snow, but also enough moonlight to make it sparkle (and not a soul with whom we had to share), we felt like we had won the lottery.

It was a beautiful end to a Christmas week that had been one for the recordbooks. It had included football and park-hopping,

a very-Barcroft Santa in a Lincoln,

this much excitement over our own "Santa's workshop" and COVID Christmas shopping,

and a very-2020 work party.

We took our first real leave in who-knows-how-long and spent a couple days at a ski resort we had never heard of 

which boasted one of the world's shortest and iciest runs

but also a really terrific kinderschool

at which Finley managed to twerk on the carpet ride while on a snowboard (not to our surprise), and Ford finally got his yearned-for and totally unnecessary "ski sticks."

We also froze to death in the pool, but wore tank tops in the lift line. 

It was quite a getaway. We made it back in time for me to turn into a completely insane person, decide I had not done enough preparation for our first solo at-home Christmas, and- in addition to baking everything in the house, with mixed results- drag the kids to Cabela's on Christmas Eve (among other stops on my frenzied Christmas shopping tour.)

And Christmas was magical, even without the family and friends we missed desperately; complete with Belgian waffles and matching PJs and so many cups of coffee 

plus a run in to the city to see the National Christmas Tree, because I am an insane person,

and Christmas dinner with the extent of our "Barcroft bubble." For which we dressed, inexplicably, like this.

I feel like Finley spoke for us all, by the end of the day.

We survived COVID Christmas, all of us, so cheers! We hope everyone managed some joy.