2020 in the rearview mirror

 Well. It has been a while. The days this fall have mostly been a blur of repeating boredom due to the pandemic we all know so well by now, and I have not had the blogging-mojo to share anything for some months. Nevertheless I would really like to say a proper goodbye to 2020 in order to prepare for 2021. Previous years I have done this month by month, but since time this year has been this ever expanding and contracting weird substance, I have decided it makes more sense to go by seasons.

So here we go:

Winter 2020:

One of the things we truly looked forward to in Pennsylvania was the absence of Michigan winter. Both in terms of cold and in terms of hours of actual sunshine. But whatever benefits comes from the milder winters are truly made up for by the lack of resources to deal with the roads. And when you live at the very back of a development on top of a hill, well - if something is brewing we always get the worst conditions. So waking up to this view kept us inside all day

Nevertheless we still made it outdoors for an - ehm - "fun" paintball experience, where some people in the household (especially the one wearing a bright pink winterjacket, which is a very easy target) feels like they don't need to do that ever again! Others had plenty of fun though

We usually never, not even a tiny little bit, celebrate valentines day, but this year we went out for a fun king crab dinner with my colleagues.  Little did we know that our fancy dinner, would be the very last fun dinner at a restaurant for quite some time. It was a very authentic Chinese restaurant and even back in mid February it was kind of empty as an omen of what was to come.

 Spring 2020

Spring had barely made it to the east coast before everything shut down. And from one day to the next we were all home. A lot! One of the things that has helped us immensely in terms of getting out of bed every day, when everything feels the same, are the daily dog-dates we have with Ruby and her owner at 7:15AM every weekday morning. 

And when most indoor places were closed down we opted for the outdoors. We have discovered SO many of the local parks and nature areas, and here are a few of the favorites:

We even got adventurous in the pond right next to our house, greatly helped by our neighbor who donated a kayak and got us hooked on local lake-life to a point where Luca and Kristian would get up at crap-o-clock many a Saturday morning to go fishing with him

Summer 2020

Then summer rolled around. We had many, many travel plans. Luckily I had decided to wait a bit before any tickets were booked, but needless to say Ulrik didn't get to go to Nepal, Luca didn't get to go to Denmark, and Teresa and I never got to go on our big adventure together either. 

There were things to celebrate locally though. Such as Teresa's high school graduation:

and also we got to know Delaware river quite a bit better

And even managed to squeeze all of us into our busted old minivan and drive off for a slice of Michigan summer, complete with lots of driveway dinners and boat-rides.

It was also the summer were Teresa left the nest to move back to Denmark and complete the senior year of high school in the Danish system. Here she is - all packed up and ready to go:

Fall 2020

Fall in Pennsylvania is absolutely gorgeous and we soaked up the cooler temperatures and ventured a bit further out to visit the ocean and trying out some tikihuts at a local show garden

 We even got to drive all the way to Vermont to spend a weekend in the mountains with some of my colleagues. It was stunningly beautiful and we managed to get there just as the leaves were changing and the sun was shining. Here is the view from the creepiest fire tower I have ever climbed in my life:

And then we watched the nerve-wrecking US election. For the first time in my life I chose to spend time on a presidential debate and, well, I think those of us who watched this were left speechless. But the relief when the results finally came in after days of endless waiting was huge. 

Luca went back to school 2 days per week after about a month of online only classes. Playing flute in band called for some alternative solutions, so here he is with his instrument PPE

 I also got to feel very fancy at work upgrading to a N100 mask as I was working with chemotherapeutic agents:

In the middle of all this Kristian had to rush to Michigan to retrieve Ulrik as the virus started to get out of control on campus. As of right now it does not seem like he will be back until fall 2020, and we get to enjoy some of his work here at home

Winter 2020

Now we are here. The winter of 2020 where everything seems to be going haywire with virus. We are keeping to ourselves - especially if there is a sudden winter thunderstorm rolling by.....

We have had a single snowstorm so far but has also managed to be out and about a little bit despite the cold. We can highly recommend a day trip to Jim Thorpe (picturesque town in the mountains)

Also we got to visit drive-through Christmas lights. An event we didn't even know existed until our neighbor got us tickets

Happy new year from all of us here in Pennsylvania. May 2021 bring plenty of opportunities to get vaccinated and spend time with family and friends again (but also still plenty of walks for all the dogs out there)

Finally fall

The transition from summer to fall is different here in PA.When we lived in Michigan I would dread the end of august where some leaves would start to turn, and in a heartbeat it would all be over and everything would be cold misery. Here in Pennsylvania the summer is looooong and HOT and humid. To the point where you literally ache for just a little bit of chill in the air, and when fall finally arrives it is the best! One thing I did not notice last year are the yellow flowers taking over nature areas

They are literally everywhere. There are even whole fields full of them and in the golden September glow of the evening sun they are magnificent.I have promised myself that I will try and be outdoors as much as possible, because this...... Dog paws and rivers and yellow leaves❤️

Otherwise school is back in full swing. We have installed Luca at the kitchen table (to get him out of the basement.......) and it works quite well.Here he is taking a science class while being super unimpressed with sharing the work space with a real life scientist. Sigh

One of his classes is ceramics and we have cracked many a dumb joke about “ha ha. Are they just gonna send an amazon link to a lump of clay or what?”. Turns out they are packing up supply boxes with clay and tools etc so they can make something at home and bring it back to be burned in the kilns. So overall - despite online schooling - our school district seems to be well prepared.

And I have undergone a significant transformation myself. Every year I have rolled my eyes at those crazy Americans who decorate their homes for fall/Halloween/Christmas/valentines/Easter/whatever like there is no tomorrow. But here in 2020 I literally have to restrain myself from spending hundreds of dollars on decorations. I crave burnt orange and pumpkins and stupid “apple picking this way” signs and fluffy blankets and pumpkin spice everything.

Oh my gosh. Shouldn’t have googled those images! Gotta go shopping. Bye 👋

Back to school. Sort of......

September is here! The nights are full of buzzing insects, loads of toads, and velvety darkness with a hint of cool. Overnight it seems the trees have shifted from green to green-with-a-tinge and you can pop the seeds on jewel weeds. But that’s as far as usual goes otherwise

The beginning of the school year is usually a whirl wind of preparations, last minute shopping for that binder you never knew your kids needed, doctor visits to fill out health forms for school sports, and the agony of waking up in time to catch the school bus. This year? Not so much. We have prepared by having Luca plug in his laptop and update it. His first lesson on the first day of school will start with the arrival of a link in an email 7:30AM on Tuesday. And that’s it! That being said though, it does seem like his middle school has went above and beyond to ensure good teaching, social interactions online, teacher follow ups etc etc, and I think they will do great considering everything is online. They planned for a hybrid option with kids being allowed in school some days, but they quickly realized that the teachers would be spread too thin.

Ulrik on the other hand is back in Michigan. Umich decided to open their campus and even though I am not worried about Ulrik contracting Covid, I doubt they can keep campus open until thanksgiving as planned. He is aware and will try to get as much done in the studios and the few in-person classes as he possibly can. This gave us a chance to be back in Ann Arbor and since working from home is a legit thing these days, we could stay for the week. We have good friends that opened their doors for us with no restrictions. We figured that if one of us actually had the virus and we were sleeping inside their house, face masks and distancing won’t be sufficient anyways. It felt SO good to be able to hang out without restrictions❤️

We celebrated Ulrik’s birthday early with take out dinner and a boat ride with cake

We got to install the joys of flute playing in a new generation of kids (which may or may not have ended with me chasing an angry 4 year old who insisted on torturing everyone’s ears and mental health by her mad recorder blowing skills🙉. Ahem)

And we got to buy dinkelbrot at Zingermans. Best bread ever! Period!

The only one who does not regret being back in the too-quiet house in Doylestown is poor Bailey. Households with crazy puppies are not his thing. Here he is. Trying to hide. Guess who found him anyways.....

Being back I am preparing mentally for a looooooong quiet winter. With the craziest cross stitch pattern. Looks nice, doesn’t it:

Well. Here are the printed instructions:

What have I done to myself????😩

The simple life

So - how are things here in our corner of the US? Well, not exactly exciting when it comes to everyday life. I am trying my very best to embrace the simple quarantine life which has absolutely no Paris Hilton glamour:

In reality my level of glamour is to at least put on some mascara and some earrings when I go to work to complement my “I took the wrong paper bag at the reception and am now stuck with a kiddie mask for the rest of the day” look:

The days are moving ever so slowly. Especially since Teresa is no longer here to suggest stuff to do or keep us on our toes when it comes to cooking. She moved back to Denmark on the very first available flight after she turned 18. Here she is in Newark airport next to her beloved old car

But considering what the fall is going to look like for all her friends starting college in the US, I truly believe she made the right decision.

The school district here has decided to move forward with online schooling only. Luca is kind of disappointed as he had really looked forward to going back to school this year. We have decided to have him sit with a friend on a daily basis though, so it’s not him, himself, and Luca every day. Ulrik - on the other hand - will be going back to university of Michigan in about a weeks time. They fedexed him a Covid test which he will have to swab Monday and return same day to the university, where they will run all the tests. I doubt they can keep campus virus free, but we’ll have to wait and see.

We are trying to get outdoors as much as possible and enjoy the rivers and woods and rocks

We have gotten ourselves a bar cabinet from the local secondhand store, which I upcycled with some golden koi fish

And I am following the upcoming election a bit more closely than I would usually do for US politics. I really really really hope that my newly purchased deck of cards will be a crazy souvenir for a long lost precidency when 2021 rolls around. On a positive note this deck of card was on sale at the gopshop so one can always hope that’s an omen of defeat.