Top Nine of 2020

 Sometimes people who are very active on Instagram compile their top nine posts or photos from a year.  Sometimes they will even share how many likes each picture received in their 9 most popular posts from the year.

I like compiling my top nine pictures from each year, but I don't pay any attention to instagram or facebook when I do it.  Sometimes I choose pictures that I never posted throughout the year.

I like to choose nine pictures that I feel best summarizes our year... this year was HARD to do but I eventually found nine photos that did the year justice.

Top Row: 

1. Our Thank You Essential Workers sign that we made and then hung in our front window for months as the world changed overnight and we learned that we all could live in our own little home for as long as needed.

2. Hubby pushing the kiddos in a cart with everyone wearing masks on one of our first times out of the house after the initial stay-at-home orders were lifted

3. School at home

Middle Row:

1. Three children learned how to ride two-wheeled bicycles and we spent much of the year biking together around the neighborhood

2. The three oldest children took horseback-riding lessons and we loved knowing they were outside learning and enjoying a new sport and hobby.  They each grew so much through their time in these lessons and we cannot wait to start again this spring.

3. At home archery field where we can hold family archery practice.

Bottom Row:

1. After six months at home and in Colorado, we learned the risks that we are still willing to take amidst a pandemic.  While we do not take the COVID-19 virus lightly AT ALL, we take the seriousness and the recommended precautions VERY seriously, we learned that families take risks in order to be together.  A huge highlight of our year was our entire extended family (minus two nephews) traveling thousands of miles to surprise Hubby over Labor Day weekend for his 40th Birthday.  We will never forget both the love that our family showed, but also the risk they took in coming to celebrate this milestone with us.

2. We traveled to St. Louis after Christmas to see Hubby's family and for our children to see their cousins.  We certainly hope and pray that these cousins will be close friends for life and walk together through life's many challenges and uncertainties -- they need a foundational relationship in order to do that, and so they need to be able to make memories together.

3. In proper 2020 form, we arranged for the children to see their great-grandfather, from outside a window so as to both keep him safe and make him feel comfortable.  With vaccines being distributed, we truly hope that the end is in sight for these kind of measures and precautions moving forward.

The year 2020 was not all bad for us... we are so incredibly fortunate for our blessings throughout the year... but it was different with unexpected and unprecedented challenges.  We will take the lessons and memories of 2020 with us as we sojourn on.

Welcome 2021!