We escaped the routine and celebrated the New Years Eve up in Traverse City. It was a good time away! Maybe a new tradition to celebrate Christmas and New Year as a family. We went snow tubing, went on some hikes, spent some time in the hot tub, played games, watched TV and football.
School and life kept plugging along with varying COVID regulations and craziness. Levi played 7th grade basketball and it was a challenging season with no wins. He learned a lot and we were thankful to be able to watch the team. Both Levi and Maci were able to have in person orchestra concerts too. We still were able to celebrate Christmas at home with a crazy work schedule that I had with mandatory shifts and working Christmas Eve and on call Christmas. Hospitals are/were feeling the stress of COVID as vaccines were mandated for health care workers and nurses are burned out. We had lots of staff quit. I have been struggling with kidney stones since September and winter had 2 surgeries and lots of uncomfortable and tired days.
Sunny day at school
We still managed to have a normal fall in spite of COVID still lingering around. Levi no longer needs a mask at school while the other kids do. There has more cases of COVID in school too. If a child is a close contact for COVID we need to monitor symptoms and make sure they do not have COVID too.
Maci was Annie Oakley for the 5th grade Wax Museum. She had help from Grandpa Koopmans to make her shot gun and we borrowed his hat. Grandma Koopmans found the wooden stump by their house for us. The rest of the costume we got at Goodwill. She had to say a speech. It was a bit different again this year because of the COVID pandemic and we had to all wear masks with in the gym. We also went out together on a Saturday afternoon and we went to Panera and got coffee. Maci found out that she loves Caramel Lattes!
