Ending 2020 with a tired smile (Dec 2020)

Hi everyone!

When you read this post, 2020 would have officially ended and I personally am glad to see the end of it. Just so no one panics when reading this, firstly please know that Josh, Wally and I are now fine. We all got COVID but Josh and I are fully recovered and Wally didn’t show a single symptom.

Josh got COVID late October while away on a trip. Strangely, when he returned, Josh didn’t transmit it to either Wally or myself (we both returned negative tests then). It was a difficult 2-week quarantine but eventually we were all able to return to work/daycare. However, a few weeks later, Wally’s daycare was shutdown because one of his teachers tested positive. A few days later when Wally was swabbed, he came back positive which then explained why I was feeling so crappy. Losing my sense of taste and smell a day later confirmed it.

It has been 8 weeks since Josh first came home with COVID and in that time, we have had to do two lots of isolation. California (as most of you would have heard) is not doing great so as it is, we are staying home all the time and just keeping to ourselves. The vaccine is being distributed amongst first responders and frontline workers and we already know people who have got it. Hopefully, that means vaccines for the general public may be available later this year which would be great.

Apologies for the somber beginning! Now, lets talk about all the good times we’ve been having.

Christmas Eve

To really make the most out of the Christmas spirit, we decided to open our stocking stuffers on Christmas Eve. By this point, our Christmas tree was looking very healthy.

It’s hilarious because I think except for three boxes in the back, EVERYTHING under that tree was for Wally and most of it had been sent from Australia.

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I for one was pretty excited because we got Wally his own toy remote. Finally, maybe he’ll stop mucking around with our tv remotes!

Wally wasn’t the only one who got some great presents in their stocking.

And then, Josh decided he would join the time-honoured tradition of assembling Christmas presents the night before:

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Christmas Day

As you can imagine, Wally got us up nice and early Christmas morning, clearly dying to open presents (note: sarcasm). Wally absolutely loved his new easel:

But then I think Wally got a bit dazed with how many new toys and clothes he seemed to unwrap.

And then we got ourselves dressed up in our silly Christmas jumpers and tried to get some photos (note: unsuccessful)

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Since Josh and I had such a difficult end of year, we decided to treat ourselves with our Christmas lunch. And that’s why we splashed out on crabs and oysters enough to feed a small village.

Boxing Day

The most awesome thing from Christmas Day is Josh finally got to unwrap a present that has been tempting him for weeks…. his portable pizza oven!

This thing is insane! It has its own pizza stone on the inside and can get as hot as 500 degrees Celsius. Check out the flame while the pizza cooks!

Naturally Wally approved of this latest addition to the family since he loves pizza.

I think 2021 is looking brighter already now that I can have such glorious pizzas whenever I want.

And that’s it. With a very quiet New Year’s Eve (we went to bed at 12:01 am), that was the end of 2020 for us. I am so grateful that we were not one of the ones that got fatally sick with COVID and now that’s its no longer the great unknown to us, I’m stressing way less and have a generally more positive outlook on the future.

Josh and I are hoping our lockdown will lift towards the end of January and we may hopefully be able to take a quick weekend trip to the wine country but we’re not holding our breath. I hope everyone is keeping well and I really hope that I get to see you all in person sometime this year.

Talk soon,

Sim, Josh & Wally