My intention is to write a synopsis of our year every December, and yet, for the second time in a row, I seem to have skipped a year. Whoops.
2019 and 2020 were pretty chill years for us Barneys. As I look back through my notes and our photos, the thing that sticks out the most is a flurry of new hobbies.
Genevieve took ballet lessons and now tap dance, and she’s LOVED it.
William discovered the wonders of reading, and lives for library days.
Kyle found an interest in axe throwing and fireworks.
And I have worked to improve some skills in stained glass and gardening.
2019 started off pretty pedestrian. We had just moved into our new house and managed to move in enough dirt to actually have a yard, and we eyed it through our windows all spring, waiting for things to dry out enough to place some top soil and begin putting in our sprinklers.
While we waited, I got some good news. I’d been hired to teach for BYU-Idaho Online. My class is Visual Media, which was one of my very favorite classes in college and I was eager to jump in, training in March & April and taking my first section in spring semester.
Of course it was a very wet spring. It took ages, but by July we got to work trenching and figuring out sprinkler diagrams. I can’t say laying sprinkler lines is my favorite project. Oh boy was it a lot of work, and most of that fell upon my shoulders. Who dreamed and schemed each plant and where to put it? Who built the railroad tie stairs? Who ordered 13 dump truck loads of fill and topsoil? Who figured out what all those sprinkler parts were and where to put them? Who tunneled under the sidewalk three times in order to get pipe where it needed to go? Who laid hundreds of feet of landscape fabric and edging? Who kept 40 boxwood shrubs and 17 fruit trees alive through the dead heat of summer without a sprinkling system? Who laid the patio the week before Thanksgiving? THIS GIRL.
But in the end, we transformed from empty void yard to… a yard to truly enjoy!
At the end of the summer I got my first, ever stained glass commission. I also began preparing a bunch of glass for a craft fair, sharing a booth with two other lovely ladies including one of my sisters-in-law. My glass was a flop, but the show was really fun.
It was also that fall that we found out we’d be having baby #3. We had been hoping for another baby for nearly 3 years, and I guess I went from being prepared for it to being okay if it didn’t ever happen, and at that point I started feeling unprepared again. Pregnancy hit me like a truck. I’d heard lots of women say that it’s easier to be pregnant in your 20’s than in your 30’s, but I didn’t expect three years to make SO MUCH DIFFERENCE. Holy Moley. I was sick and I was tired.
And the sickness didn’t end there. We got the flu in October, and then on Christmas day William ran a temperature of 104 degrees. Luckily, he got through it really quickly. But once it got to me it hit me HARD. It was the worst flu I’ve ever had. And that, my friends, lauded in the new year.
Oh 2020.
Baby Enoch was due in the middle of June, but I’d always felt he would be early. My goal was to make it to the proper birth month at least.
We didn’t make it.
Luckily, Enoch is a trooper. He ate like a champ (which is a big issue for many premies.) He was a little jaundice… and given the choice between eating and breathing, he sometimes chose eating… But he learned better by the time we brought him home from the NICU. He came off the oxygen a month after we brought him home… right around his due date as it happens.
NICUs are not the best place to live during a pandemic, but it did make for a memorable adventure.
So it’s been a very medically-themed two years!
As I’ve gone over everything for this blog update, I have been thinking about how many of God’s miracles for us have to do with timing. The Red Sea parted with enough time for Israel to cross, Joseph of Egypt found himself in jail alongside two of pharaoh’s servants… and so forth. I’ve been thinking about how 2020 had lots of tense moments, but that miracles come out of those tense moments. For instance, Enoch came early, but he also came the weekend following William’s last week of school. I couldn’t have gotten him through the rest of first grade if Enoch had been any earlier. My parents got CoVid, but that meant they weren’t so nervous about planning my sister’s wedding (which is happening this week.) And somehow, in the midst of the most intense pandemic in about 100 years, two of my siblings have met someone and fallen in love. :]
A few other good things of note: My brother Josh and his wife also had a baby. They were due two weeks before Enoch and came two weeks after him.
Also, Kyle liked working from home so much he started applying for a more permanently remote position. He started his new job recently and has been happy with the change.
Kyle and I decide to use our pandemic garden to try growing cut flowers and it was one of the most enjoyable decisions we made this year.
All in all, it’s been a memorable adventure, and hardly all bad.
p.s. Genevieve and William have been in a hilarious age as they improve their verbal skills. For those of you who made it all the way to the end of this post, here are a couple gems to make your day extra merry and bright.
Genna: “I have a bunch of friends who live in a junk pile. They rode a rocket into outer space.”
Ashley: “I think you’re making things up in your brainy-brain.”
William: “Yeah. Like friends,”
Genna: “Here’s first position!” *demonstrates*
“Here’s second position” *demonstrates*
“…and here’s how you reach a new level in Mario.” *squats*
William listing the things you need to sustain life: “Water, air, gravity…”
Genna interjects: “salsa…”
Genna: “When Jesus comes again I want to wear this dress and these shoes. It will be in, like, 100 years, so I’ll be ten.”
Kyle: “When Jesus died he asked John to take care of his Mom for him.”
William: “Was John a good fighter?”
Genna: I can’t wait to be in the first grade.”
William: “First you get to be in kindergarten, and that’s when you have the most amazing life.”
William: “Me and the new neighbor boy are really special, you know why?
Ashley: “Why?”
William: “Because WE made the mud of the CENTURY! It was easy! We took regular mud and put rocks in it to make it stronger.