January and February

January was pretty uneventful once I returned from getting Adele settled in New York. All of us just spent our days in regular life, and thankfully our regular lives are good! February was pretty much the same, except for a few highlights that I'll post about separately.

Geoff continues to work from home. He is learning a lot from his leadership role in his current job. It is a good mix of challenges to overcome and opportunities to pursue. It keeps him very busy. He has worked through several weekends and mourns the loss of fully experiencing a ski season, but it was a dry winter until mid-February. He and C still fit in a few days on the slopes.

After a busy year in school and studying, and working through some health issues, I am finally getting some household systems in place and continue to work on projects around the house. It feels good. Life is pretty slow. Some days I long for more engagement, and other days I'm grateful for this momentary season of peace. I say momentary, because it is hard to anticipate what is around the corner these days! I continue to study and explore foot zoning and energy work, in general. Not too many opportunities to interact with people these days to actually get some practice, though.

Tennie is plugging away with online classes at BYU. She started a new TA job for a Women's Studies class, which is a well-paying, flexible job. It is a great set-up for her. She is taking a lighter load this semester, trying to take a breather after consecutive hard semesters.

Adele is adjusting well in New York. She and her roommates are out exploring when not in class. Her second semester is more demanding than her first, but she is working hard and playing hard.

Ceci continues classes at home and online. The option came up to go part-time in person, but she opted for staying at home on Zoom. She doodles during class, and I happened across some of them and was blown away! These are not your average doodles!

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One day we sat down to draw each other. Mine was a pretty basic sketch, she thought she would experiment with charcoal for hers. My experiments don't usually look like this... And she claims my scowl was because I was looking down at my drawing and concentrating. Mhmmm.

And she whipped out some mountains while I was finishing.

Ceci also has very vivid dreams and remembers them all. After telling me one day, I encouraged her to draw it out. It was about a bunch of dolphins with square, pinch-splotched heads wearing long, leather jackets. We were on nearby life rafts. There are many more details to her dreams, but we'll just keep with what was in her drawing. I think she should really draw them out and create a Wall of Dreams. It would be so colorful and fantastical!

She is doing her best to embrace life without Adele around. They hangout on Facetime often, but it isn't the same. She continues to go to the climbing gym a few times a week, which is making her very strong! She is also taking a 10-week film-making class from Columbia University and LOVES it. It is good to see her enthusiasm for the entire process of telling a story through film. Geoff is her main character and they will be filming early next month. Hopefully I can get some photos!

We had a few Davis birthdays that we made the most of from a good social distance (since Geoff's youngest sister and her husband AND their 4-month old baby twins got Covid. (Those poor parents. No rest for the weary and sick!) For Geoff's dad we all raided our costume boxes and showed up to the Zoom party decked out. I wish I could have captured everyone's costumes. It was fun. We stayed on the Zoom call for a couple hours joking around and hanging out. I did get a picture of us...

Em had a birthday and we had a surprise drive-by parade with decorated cars. We all got out and had a dance party in front of her house and hung out in wide circle of family love and support. It was fun, and she was surprised and delighted. She loves parades!

Nikki came to town and a few family members met at a park to visit and skate around on some frozen pond water.

All things considered we've had a great start to 2021. We count our blessings for health, freedom and people we love.

A Week of Love and Valentine's Day

I'm making Valentine's Day, and the week leading up to it, its own post to capture all the love. Given we are spreading out as a family, and wanting to keep our unity and love, we tried to make it a little extra special. 

We've always shared love notes the week leading up to Valentine's Day, but as the girl's got older those notes moved to texts, and I was mainly the one leaving them. That hasn't changed, but it is still a good tradition! There were good things shared about the members of our family, a little glimpse into how we see each other. So I took screen shots of those love-posts and will share them here for the family record.

Geoff wrote letters to Tennie, Adele and Ceci telling them what he loved about them and sent them all beautiful bouquets of flowers. I gave them all a sparkly prism to hang in their windows, symbolizing the color they add to the world with their bright light souls.

Ceci heart-attacked my bedroom door with little bits of love, and I heart-attacked Geoff's work space throughout the week.

And other than a heart garland, some Valentine's dish towels and this little mouse, Valentine's Day around here is decorated with love.