It’s a rare year when we start our Christmas letter the week of John’s birthday on the 15th, but here we go!
January found us celebrating John’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor (he actually earned his Eagle in October, but the Court of Honor takes time to plan). The next weekend we traveled to Southern Illinois for the funeral of Karen’s Grandfather. As with her grandmother in 2015, Karen performed the Graveside Service.
February was our last “normal” month of the year – we all four participated in the Boy Scouts annual “First Aid Meet” – Joshua competing, John assisting at one of the stations, and Patrick and Karen as a station judge and victim. It was a lot of fun, even if Karen did have to spend her entire day in stage makeup as a burn victim.
March began our COVID-19 odyssey – we had a spring break trip to Washington DC planned, but had to shorten it, as attractions we wanted to see began closing. We were an hour outside of the State of Illinois when the Governor announced mandatory quarantines. We still had a great trip, managing to visit the battlefields at Antietam and Gettysburg, and the monuments on the Mall in Washington DC. Gettysburg was a surreal visit, as we were literally the only ones on the battlefield on a rainy Monday morning. It was a truly haunting experience.
April was to be the 75th Annual Boy Scout Lincoln Pilgrimage (and Patrick’s 27th), but the event became “Virtual” due to COVID-19. Joshua was featured giving the benediction for the video that was released by our local Council. On the actual Pilgrimage weekend, we drove the route of the Lincoln Trail on Saturday saving recordings to the Council’s Social Media pages and then visited Lincoln’s Tomb on Sunday morning, again sharing video from the tomb and the route of the parade.
May, we decided to stay home, but let our budding chef, Joshua, cook a special meal for us – he decided that since just under half of his family tree is German, he’d cook German for us. So, from scratch, he made Knodel (bread dumplings), Jaeger Schnitzel and brown mushroom gravy, which was served with Pumpernickel bread.
June, we stayed home, but took a week to reorganize and repaint our sunroom and add some lighting before installing a hot tub.
In July, cabin fever had really set in, so we took the opportunity to travel a little bit, spending 4th of July weekend in Vicksburg Mississippi. Patrick had long wanted to see the ground where his ancestors had fought with the 31st and 81st Illinois Infantry Regiments and was pleased to see the battlefield. Our schedule kept us from visiting several other sights in Arkansas and Missouri that the boys wanted to see.
Our July trip worked so well that we decided to try going the other direction. In August, we spent the weekend before the scheduled start of school driving up to the far northern border of Michigan. We ate dinner 200 yards from the Canadian border. We also managed to wade in Lakes Michigan, Superior and Huron. When we made one of the hotel reservations for that trip, the hotel asked if we had any special requests – as a joke, Karen suggested we ask for a Rubber Duck… and the hotel complied. We named him “Dux” (Latin for “Leader”) and dubbed him our “Travel Duck.” When we travel, he rides on the dash of our SUV and appears in lots of pictures (Look for Dux Provart on Facebook to keep up with his adventures).
Due to a very sudden change by our school district, we spent all of September trying to adjust to a schedule where the boys spend a half-day (mornings) on-line with their teachers and are expected to spend the afternoon doing their homework on their own. It’s worked about as well as you’d expect, even with Patrick working all day from home.
We celebrated October with another German meal by Joshua. He spent 5 days marinating Sauerbraten, before adding Bread and Bacon Dumplings and Warm Potato Salad with Bacon. Our own “Octoberfest.” Our October was enlivened by another of our weekend trips – this one down through the Bootheel of Missouri into Arkansas (visiting those sites the boys wanted to see in July) and then an overnight stay in Shreveport Louisiana, before driving across east Texas to Tulsa Oklahoma and home across Southwest Missouri.
November was very busy, with, Karen and Patrick serving as election judges. Karen turned 40 on the 10th, and we celebrated later in the month by driving almost 2500 miles across Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri. Our trip was highlighted by a visit to the world’s largest railroad yard, the Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak, and skiing opening day at Monarch Mountain in south central Colorado. We made reservations well before the second wave of COVID kicked in, and so had to adjust to quarantines again – Thanksgiving dinner was with disposable dishes in our hotel room. A plus in November was the boys return to “in person” school half days in the middle of the month.
We are wrapping up our year celebrating the boys’ birthdays – Joshua is 15 and John turned 16 between drafts of this letter – and our 17th wedding anniversary. The tree is up, and we had our first visible accumulation of snow this morning (although it did not last until lunch).
We’ve had a full and healthy year, and our hope is that you have as well. We’re looking forward to more adventures in the year to come.
Merry Christmas!
Patrick, Karen, John, and Joshua
Karen and Patrick, Woodward Park Botanical Garden, Tulsa OK
Joshua (15) and John (16), Center of the Universe, Tulsa OK
Dux, I-70, St. Louis MO
