Goodbye 2020, goodbye Donald Trump, and Hello 2021!
I am ecstatic for a new year. While there are so many things I learned during 2020, and while I felt I have personally grown as a person because of 2020, I am happy to say sayonara to the Trump administration, COVID-19 (that will still take some time), homeschooling, and general uneasiness and anxiety. Goooooodbye foreva!
I don't even know where to start this update. It has been months since I last posted and so much has happened. We survived coronavirus, isolation, and quarantine. We are definitely "corona privileged" as they say, so I can't complain, but I will say it was still a challenge for our family. Natalie ended up getting coronavirus shortly before Christmas so we had a different holiday celebrating without them this year. We did get to see them once they were done with quarantine and had a fun, slightly delayed Christmas with their family.
Christmas. It was great. Everything I could have hoped for (besides not being with Brock's family). The kids were so happy, we had the spirit in our home, and we were able to focus on Christ with our kids and in our home during the holiday season. We were all spoiled rotten this year (lack of vacations and Mitch's bonus is part to blame) and we are all delighted with our gifts. The best was when we donated an extra large sum of money to the Cambodian children's orphanage that Mitch communicates with (he baptized the woman who runs the orphanage while he was on his mission and knows the good people who help run the charity we donated to) and seeing the look on our kids' faces when they saw how much we were donating. Not trying to toot our own horn here, just trying to remember the impact that (hopefully) had on our kids and their excitement to "help so many Cambodian kids" as we sat down as a family and decided together how much we should donate.
Back to Halloween--we had just gotten out of quarantine so the timing worked out well for that! To avoid trick or treating to our elderly neighbors, we had a trunk or treat in our culd de sac. I was really worried that we wouldn't have a good turn out, but we had a GREAT turn out and most everyone came! It was awesome and I'm grateful for our good neighbors.
We'll just skip Thanksgiving since everyone else seems to disregard it anyways, haha. No, I'm kidding, kind of. Thanksigiving was wonderful as always. We had a dinner with the Botts and one with my family. Grandpa Kermit came from St. George and Jordan from Idaho and it was nice to see them both.
On December 3, 2020 my Grandma Miles passed away.
I had a hard time with this.
I cried for days.
Even though I knew it was coming.
Even though for years she has not remembered me due to dementia.
Even though she was 92 and lived a beautiful life.
Still, I cried and cried.
I miss her more than I can say. I'm tearing up now just typing this.
But.... I am happy for her. For grandpa. For her brothers and parents that she adored.
I know I will see her again someday.
In the mean time, I get to live with the peace and blessings of the gospel in my life, which is something I may not have had she not taught me the gospel. She took the time to teach me the doctrine, read me the scriptures, and bear her strong, faith-filled testimony to me. I sat with her and grandpa in church every week for years. Her example will always be with me. I owe her so much and will be forever grateful that she took the time to teach me and show me her love for God, our Savior, the scriptures, the temple, missionary work, and family.
I felt this again when Mitch, the kids and I visited the site of the Layton temple. It is still under construction, but you can do a "tour" and learn about the temple. I think even the kids felt the spirit while we were there and they both said they want to be married in that temple someday. It will be completed in 1.5 years and we are so excited to have a temple less than 10 minutes away from us!
The other biggest news is that I got a job as a school counselor! I felt inspired to follow the suggestion of the school counselor I worked with at my last job, which was to call the head of school counseling for our district and ask about applying now before I've officially graduated. In my conversation with him, he mentioned a part-time position coming available that same day at a junior high school. I debated for two days and finally felt inspired to apply. Long story short, it all worked out and they chose to hire me, despite the fact that I don't have a license yet and am not done with school. But I feel blessed to be there and grateful that I got the job. Someday I'll get the nerve to ask why they chose me out of all the people they interviewed, but for now I'm just delighted. I have worked two weeks so far and I absolutely love it. I feel more like a missionary than I have since my mission in my role as a school counselor ... as each student walks into my office, I pray in my heart to know what to say and how to help them. Truth is, when they walk in, I have no idea what they're going to tell me. It could range from "I need to change a class" to "I'm suicidal" and everything in between. I have my schooling, my training, and my textbooks, but most of all I need the spirit! I have felt truly inspired while there and have felt very strongly that this is exactly where I need to be right now. It makes it easier to wake up early, spend time away from my kids, and have less time to myself when I know that it's the right thing to do and that I am hopefully making a positive difference in kids' lives.
Mitch still loves his job. He's turning 40 this year! I still feel bad we were never able to have a graduation party for him when he finished his doctorate (stupid covid!) so we had talked about having a big party when he turned 40, but we can't even do that yet. Vaccines are out and are starting to be given (I get mine tomorrow as an employee of our school district), but it still won't be safe or kosher to have a big party in March. I'll have to find another way to celebrate Mitch.
We bought a boat last weekend! We are so excited! It's a new-to-us ski boat and I can't wait to try to surf behind it! I've never tried that before and have always wanted to. I think we will make so many fun memories in that boat.
I know there's so much that I'm forgetting. I didn't want to write about January 6, 2020, the day Trump's right-wing supporters stormed the capitol building while Congress was counting votes. But I will.
What a disgrace to our country. I will just say this: Trump is the closest thing to a dictator our country has ever had. He scares me. I have never voted for him and I never will. He was impeached for the second time yesterday. I listened to the entire two hours of debate before the official vote. Ten Republicans voted to impeach him. This will go down in the history books and I want to note that I never, ever felt good about Trump. Despite what his supporters may say about the good he did, when I think about my 5th grade daughter learning about politics in school this year, so excited and interested in it all, I cringe to think that part of that includes Donald Trump, a man that I don't want my daugher to see as an example of a good president. I don't want her to think that bullying and calling people "losers" is acceptable behavior from anyone, let alone the man that is supposed to lead our country. I find it ironic that in our schools we are teaching students how to disagree respectfully, find common ground, and work together to come up with a solution. And yet Trump and most of the adults in Congress can't even do that. What a terrible example to our children, the future of our country. I hope that 2021 and the Biden administration can fix at least some of the divide and hurt that our country is experiencing right now. I don't love the Democratic party (I'm an Independent), but I am hopeful for our future.
