We are healthy and happy. We both have our jobs. We were able to continue making our house feel like home. We learned new recipes and tried new things. We got to travel to see family and a couple new cities. We improved our communication through quarantine. We played lots of board games, completed some puzzles, and made up our own random games. We enjoyed long walks through the quiet city. We grew relationships with our students. We did our best in a wild year.
2020 was supposed to include one of the most memorable trips we’d planned – a summer in Europe. Instead, the entire year is one to remember but not for the reasons we had hoped. While we love seeing the world and going on adventures, there wasn’t much of that this year.
Our travel plans usually start in March for spring break, if not a weekend trip earlier in the year. This year, our cruise was cancelled… more on that later.
We didn’t have anything planned between then and summer. We had been planning out our European summer for over a year and had all of our flights booked and the hotel booked for the first city. We had even purchased travel insurance since it was a long trip. When all travel started closing down, we had to work on getting flight credits and refunds.
We booked two trips that we enjoyed in the summer but they were far from normal. We went to Vegas and the Grand Canyon in October. What we have quickly realized is that travel during this time is just not worth it. When so many restaurants, bars, museums, things to do in general… are ALL closed, it makes little sense to travel. No matter how much we want to go and how safe places are, its just not the same experience. The only type of travel that would be good now in our opinion is simply to see nature, and even with that, some places are closed.
We had rescheduled our cruise for Thanksgiving break but just like many others, we were sad to see the cruise industry remain closed for the foreseeable future. Thanksgiving and Christmas break came and went without much excitement and now we’re ready for the second semester of school.
We are not the only ones who have had plans ruined. This year has been filled with many cancellations of travel plans, weddings, celebrations, special events, graduations, birthdays… the list goes on. There are also many who have lost loved ones, lost jobs, lost opportunities, and simply a loss of human experiences.
We encourage you to look at what you’ve learned this year and to take note of the growth you’ve experienced, goals you’ve crushed, lessons learned, and memories created.
Year of Memories
Arielle Captures 