I received greetings and gifts from families and friends for this big day for me and they are all greatly appreciated.  I love all the flowers, cookies and a delivered dinner for later.  They all made my birthday even more special.

    We had initially planned to go away to Pismo Beach for the long weekend, but due to the Stay at Home order, we cancelled the plan and had stay home to relax instead.  The weather was perfect, so we started with a nice hike in the morning.  I was able to put my present, new Fitbit, in use and logged the first exercise on it.  I was tired after the hike and enjoyed a nap in the afternoon. In the evening, we had our favorite grilled shrimp dinner cooked by Stuart followed with a movie night while we indulged a delicious red velvet cake. It was a very pleasant day and I look forward to a safe and fun year.

    The girls gathered together with me on Zoom Friday night prior to my big day.  Thuy had made us some shrimp toast ahead of time, so we could all toast them up to have while we chatted.  Theresa had also dropped off earlier in the day a bottle of wine along with the desserts the girls got me, so I could enjoy them in the evening.  During the call, Theresa had prepared with birthday games for us to play together and we had a great laugh with them.  This was a fun 2.5 hours. I appreciate every moment of it, and I had a full tummy afterward too.

   The boys wanted a game chair, so they received one for Christmas.  After the chair, Connor’s table became too small, thus we found him a new desk.  Connor is quite happy with it and now Logan wanted one first.

   Tonight is the last night of the boys’ 2 week break.  We stayed home every day as expected but we had a good time.  The boys enjoyed the game time, and we managed to get them to do some physical activities.  We made up this Bingo game for them to do biking, basketball, 4-squares, running or tennis to earn some rewards.  We also watched a lot of movies.  We re-watched some classics and enjoyed some new ones.  The boys really like the Muppets now.

   The boys are not thrilled to return to school tomorrow, but next semester is ready for them.

     The boys decided to stay past midnight on NYE again this year and they were thrilled to pack the evening with activities.  Lisa gave us a gift full of cookies and candies along with party hats and whistles, thus we made great use of everything that night. 

     After we ate dinner and took Buddy out for a walk, we finished up the Terraforming Mars board game first. Then the boys were off to play video games with their friends and planned to join us by 10pm to watch a movie.  We decided to watch the Muppets movie; we all enjoyed it very much while we ate popcorns and freshly baked cookies.  The movie ended just in time for the countdown.  We all cheered and blew the whistles to welcome 2021.  The boys were still full of energy!

      It was a tough year last year and thus we are happy to see it passed.  The COVID 19 pandemic is definitely the worst thing we ever experienced.  For California, it all started on Friday 3/13/2020 when everything shut down.  Stuart had already began working from home then, and the boys joined him to stay home for distance learning.  California later dealt with some of worst wildfires that led to poor air quality for weeks; we ended up stuck indoors only and could not do any outdoor exercises.  Later we had some of the hottest days and we even lost power for days.  That was a tough summer.

     Outside of California, there were also other horrible things that happened, like the situation in Hong Kong, the police brutality led to Black Lives Matter protests, and some crazy things led by our president.  Fortunately after days of worrying, the election result was what we were hoping for.  There is hopes in 2021.

    We did have a few things we are thankful for in 2020.  We, along with our extended families, have been staying safe, Stuart and I both have our jobs, the boys are doing fine staying at home, and Buddy is happy to have us home with him.  We are definitely looking forward to a safer and healthy 2021!