Happy New Year!

 Like everything else, this New Year was definitely different than the others.  We had big plans to continue with the family gathering tradition on Jarom's side of the family.  The "game" with the adults (a nicer version of the white elephant game), karaoke, lots of good food, and the polar plunge into the pool at midnight.  Most of it never happened.

Phil and Gloria were out for the sake to avoid COVID, which for December the cases had skyrocketed and people were getting it all around us.

Steve has still been sick from his treatments and Deseret was having a small surgery.

There was still hope for everyone else plus those in town to visit.

Cancel.

Cancel.

Cancel.

Tyler and Leecy got COVID.  

Jare and Sandra got COVID.  

Ammon and Vanessa had some members at home that were sick but never got tested and we asked them not to come just in case.  

That left us with Jim and Celeste's family, Anna and Katherine (who already had COVID it at school).  

Jim and Celeste decided they weren't going to come, a good thing, Madison and Jared ended up having COVID.

We slimmed the party crowd down fast.  Anna and Katherine still came and brought Anna's boyfriend and their friend Sarah "Chippy".  It was not much food but enough.  We played lots of BlackJack and Poker.  That was really fun.  We did some Just Dance and then the Polar Plunge at midnight.  It was much quieter but we still had a lot of fun.  We were glad the girls came.

In the end, I had been hesitant about having all the family over for the holiday because the Brethren had made several statements about following the restrictions given for areas during COVID (in TN they were asked to not have gatherings larger than 10 outside of church).  I felt we weren't being obedient and kind of openly rebelling.  I'd mentioned it to Jarom but I didn't have the full courage to cancel it.   Probably should have listened to my thoughts, not that it would have changed people getting sick, but it showed there was wisdom in the request from our leaders in church and government.  Many of those traveling didn't get tested so they could still fly home.  If I was on that flight I would not be happy if someone knowingly flew with the virus.  I realized my act to still have our family party was kind of selfish.

2021

This year has already been a doozy with little improvement from last year.  The politics and overall hate /division among the people in this country are getting crazy.  It's a continuous cycle of a big mess.  There is no coincidence that we studied the Book of Mormon last year.  It is preparation and foreshadowing I fear what's to come.  I saw so many similarities in our country today that we read about in the Book of Mormon.

As of lately, there had been huge complaints of Trump losing the election (especially by Trump himself), and we had the Georgia Senate race that determined whether it would go Repbulican or Democrat.  Unfortunately, in our family's opinion, the Democrats won.  It was a really tight race as well as very intense.  I thought it might be split but Warnock against Loeffler did very well allowing the Dems to take both seats.  The next thing you know (as in the next day) we've got a massive riot breaking into the Capitol and vandelising everything.  It sure didn't  help Trump in his case and due to his idiocy and sore loserdome, he will never be remembered for the the good things he did during his presidency.  It is over.  *Hopefully.*  Biden is our new president.

Here have been a few memes floating the internet to already sum up the first 9 days of this year so far.