Green Tea Sherbert: January 2021

Happy 2021!

Dear Friends and Family,

We wanted to wish you a greatly improved 2021!

Our year consisted a lot of frantically figuring out child care, often at the last minute. The schools were doing remote learning for much of the year and camps seemed risky for the summer. We ended up going through 5 nannies for various reasons. Travis loved them all and Charlie didn't like any of them. In the Fall, our school offered a supervised remote learning situation where an adult would assist with Zoom sessions. We found that if Travis was not supervised, his Zoom sessions would turn into endless non-educational wanderings on youtube.

Uncle Chris came to visit in February for his regular Colorado ski trip. We went to Frisco for a few days during a huge snowstorm and enjoyed the deep powder but got stuck for many hours on the highway due to avalanche conditions.

Steve's parents came to visit for the boys' birthday in March, but had to prematurely go back home because Canada requested that their residents return home. Steve's Dad managed to get pneumonia and had to go to the hospital twice. The symptoms present like Covid, and the Covid test is not

Travis enjoys collapsing big Jenga towers

very accurate so we all thought he may have Covid. This was obviously very frightening for us but after some antibiotics he has managed to make a full recovery and is now hiking, playing tennis and even decided to start a new job. Steve's Mom says he started a new job because he misses going to meetings and talking to people.

Covid has been tough on Steve's Mom because many of her activities like Tai-chi, Zumba and cards have all been cancelled. However we have noticed an uptick in baking. We hope the baking continues until we can visit next.

We managed to get in a few camping trips with friends to Ceran St. Vrain, Lake McConaughy in Nebraska, Steamboat and Jefferson Lake. Booking official campsites during Covid has become as competitive as getting Rolling Stones' concert tickets.

For Thanksgiving week we did a long mostly socially-distanced road trip (1900 miles) to the Grand Canyon and Sedona in Arizona. There were definitely some different attitudes to social distancing in Arizona. However, we really enjoyed the warm weather in late November, the close proximity to hiking and mountain bike trails, beautiful scenery and good food.

For Christmas break this year, we decided to paint much of our house. It was tough physical labour painting all day for many days , but we slept well and it gave Steve a sense of purpose.

Grand Canyon

Travis (5) is now in Kindergarten. He is becoming a real extrovert. He loves telling jokes, posing for pictures and giving hugs. Charlie's friends all seem to love hanging out with Travis too. He skis and hikes if we give him enough gummy bears and M&Ms. We hope to get him enrolled in soccer as soon as possible.

Sedona, AZ

Sharon has been giving us all haircuts

Charlie (8) plays on a soccer team with some of his friends from school. He loves to ski and will go biking with us if the spirit moves him. During Covid times he has become a real bookworm. He would highly recommend the Percy Jackson series. I like that the book discusses Greek Mythology. I am hoping we can one day turn this into an excuse to visit Greece.

Steve and Sharon are working from home until at least the Summer of 2021.

Steven's work has been quite busy. His little project team of 6 people has grown to 20 now and the pace has been frenetic this Fall and Winter. The President's sabre rattling has been good for business if nothing else. Steve has enjoyed being able to go for rides during his lunch break. In the Summer he was able to do some epic mountain bike rides on the Continental Divide Trail sometimes above 12000'. These were some of the most scenic and enjoyable rides that he has done.

Sharon continues to enjoy working at Workday. She enjoys the work and the people she works with. She continues to play socially distanced 2 on 2 sand volleyball with her friends here. It's like living with a celebrity. She gets constant texts throughout the week to get games organized.