2020 Christmas Letter, part 2

 Last Friday, I shared with you how the first six months of 2020 went for me. Here’s the rest of the story.

I suppose one of the brightest spots of the year was that the first part of July, I self-published my novel, “The Truth Beyond the River”, on Amazon.com. If you haven’t read it, now’s the time. You can buy it as an e-book or paperback by clicking here. Or shoot me a message and I’ll get one in the mail to you.

The weekend after the Fourth of July, we’ve attended Lifest Christian music festival for many years. This year, as you may have guessed, it was canceled.

Camping in Michigan’s UP, however, was not. Unfortunately, all of the museums and other indoor places of interest were closed. The Upper Peninsula is all about the outdoors, though, and we enjoyed a lot of that. Unfortunately, the morning of our last full day of camping, I woke with a kidney stone. We packed up – okay, Hubby packed up while I writhed in pain and we headed home a day early. After all, this is the year 2020, when very few things are going to go smoothly.

I had another week’s vacation in August. We had a quiet week, working around the house. Then I spent one afternoon with a former co-worker taking a walk around a park in town.

Another day, Hubby and drove to the southern part of the state where we met up with his brother and sister-in-law for lunch, outside, of course.

But the most exciting thing that week was the addition of two fur babies to the family. Emma and Gizmo, who are a whole letter of stories by themselves, but that is for another time.

Then September dawned, as did the reality of the pandemic in my little corner of the world. Though the number of positive cases was going up, school started, with many modifications. With all the changes Hubby had to make just on his bus, I can’t imagine what it’s like for those teachers in their classrooms.

His brother and sister-in-law did come up for one weekend and we visited Timm’s Hill, the highest point in our state.  

For some time, we had planned on a family vacation at a cabin up north for the end of September. We did discuss canceling it but decided that the risk was low as we had mostly outdoor activities planned and very little contact with other people. (I’ve just finished blogging about that here, so I’m sure it’s fresh in your memory.)

One of the reasons we took that family vacation when we did was because I had asked for that week off nearly a year ago. A friend and I had signed up for a volunteer trip to Cambodia this fall, which like so much else, did not happen. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we can go next September.

But all of the bad things which had happened this year up to that point paled with the events of early October. Hubby’s mom fell down her basement stairs on the 8^th and broke her hip. They took her to surgery the next day, but she never recovered from it, passing away later that evening.

What more can I add to that? It’s been a sucky year. The final bright spot I’ll share is that two weeks ago, Hubby and I bought a new (used for us) camping trailer. At least if this pandemic continues to drag on, we can take off and go camping somewhere in comfort.

Wishing you all a safe and healthy Christmas with dreams for a brighter New Year. 

God bless. Chris