Hawkins Family Year in Review 2020

 I am so glad to sit down and put an end to 2020 on paper. Well, you know what I mean. I could never miss blogging the events of 2020. This will definitely be a year we will never forget. I have everything in order from January to December. I left out anything to do with running, because I have already blogged my running year in review HERE. I did blog our spring trip as well.. I did a whole post on all the spring hopping trips we have taken over the years. It can be found HERE. And as usual, it is ridiculously long.. because I really should NOT wait until the end of the year to recount all the events of our busy family! Enjoy reminiscing... goodbye 2020, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

We started off the year with a visit from the cousins and a visit to Callaway. The kids enjoyed the rope course and we had a great day. 

Carter continues to enjoy his job and attend Southern Crescent. He worked through the entire pandemic and kept up with all his college classes online. In December he accepted a promotion to department head, and he has his eyes set on assistant manager. He has his Dad's talent for sure.  

Basketball season was fun this year! We were able to watch Jada play her last year of middle school basketball. We enjoy watching her get scrappy on the court! Fortunately, basketball season finished up before they shut the schools down. 

We celebrated Papa's 70th birthday this year! The kids did a re-do of an old birthday picture. And we added Kennedy and Hooper in as well. 

Nursing school this year was interesting. We went online half way through spring semester. We were fully online for summer and then we were able to attend part time in the fall. I was so glad to be able to be back in the hospital for clinicals in the fall. 

Kennedy attended her first school dance at Pike Elementary in 3rd grade. She dressed up as Bob Ross! She has a great time she said. 

Soccer season got under way, but unfortunately came to a halt mid season. The pandemic shut down the school as well as all the sports. I was sad she had to miss her Junior year of soccer. I enjoy watching her and all the Lady Pirates play together. These girls have played soccer together since they were little and it is always so fun to watch them dominate on the field! 

Denise is so much better at being a girl mom. She took Maggie prom dress shopping for her Junior Prom. She said yes to the dress and took home this beautiful gown. Unfortunately, like everything else.. the prom was postponed and eventually cancelled. 

Winter break came just before the start of the pandemic. We spent one night at the Great Wolf in Lagrange. We took Marlee with us. The kids love Great Wolf! I always enjoy our little get away's there. These pics were before they got their braces off! 

Kennedy and Hooper had been begging to play in snow. So we drove up to north Georgia one weekend and hiked Blood Mountain, and we found snow! They had a ball and the hike was beautiful!

This is a picture of Concord Road by our house. The road was closed for most of the year. I enjoyed it being closed because it meant I could run from my house to Concord and feel safe! It also became our favorite little spot to walk to every night during the shutdown, and a place we would picnic at. The sunsets over the lake are incredible! I decided to put this in here, because it really was a big part of our 2020! The road closed in March and didn't reopen until the very end of December.

Cue the talks of an entire country shutdown... It was March 15. This was the week of my colleges spring break. The schools had decided to shut down and see what happened. We decided to book a condo in Hilton Head and head for the beach! It was such a wonderful time. We enjoyed this last minute beach trip so much and needed before we had to stay home and shelter in place. This was the first time we started using words such as social distancing. We spent the week biking, by the pool and playing soccer on the beach. My sister and her family came as well. By the end of the week, everything began shutting down. 

We returned home from out beach paradise and began our shelter in place. Kevin and Carter were deemed essential workers and continued to work 50+ hours a week. My school went entirely online and the kids school.. with no capability to go online.. offered packets of work each to do at home. Our routine for the next couple of months became mundane. We would swing in the hammocks in the woods, walk to the pond, picnic, fish, have bond fires.. I enjoyed the down time, but I didn't like it forced on us. The pictures below are just some of the things we did during lock down. 

We would picnic at the hammocks several times a week.

Jada wanted to shave a triangle in her hair.. lol

Mema sent cards every week with activities for the kids to do.

We ran socially distanced...

Nightly smores and weenie roasts.

Schoolwork packets

We celebrated Easter with our family, online. We had our Easter service together on Skype and sang hymns and read scripture. We also decorated our resurrections eggs. We enjoyed all out goodies from Crumbles throughout the pandemic. Nicole kept us in DIY cookie kits each week that were always so creative and fun!

 

Themed dinner night became a "thing". We enjoyed dressing up for dinner during the pandemic! "Rappers take over" and "Mexican Taco Tuesday" were our favorites. 

Birthday time!! Alll the birthday's. And of course.. birthday's were about all we had going for us! So we did our birthday celebrations up big. Jada is first, and we got her an awesome Corona Sucks cake. Maggie had a music themed party and got a new guitar. Carter's birthday was money themed, although he didn't want much of a to do made over his special day (we did it anyways of course.. because we were bored!) And Kevin and the girls pulled of an amazing tropical themed birthday for me, complete with my own photo shoot! The birthday's definitely broke up the boring and we really enjoyed them this year. 

By May, we were beginning to see the restrictions lessen a bit in Georgia. We booked a cabin in Ellijay for a week and headed to North Ga. We loved our time at the cabin! It was a beautiful place, with its very own waterfall on the property. Kevin commuted to work each day from the cabin. We really enjoyed the game room and the hot tub. The house had an awesome outdoor carport that had been converted to a hang out. We visited the Big Foot center and hiked almost every day. For Mother's Day, we joined Denise and her family as well as Momma for a big home cooked meal at Denise's cabin. This trip was so relaxing and some of my favorite memories. 

The rest of May and into June we spent time at the river, Callaway Gardens, biking, fishing and swimming at the pool. We are such an outdoor family and love nothing more than to be on the water and hanging out with friends. We also enjoyed a summer visit from our cousins! 

We were very excited that our church decided to carry on with our annual camping trip! We camped at Toccoa Family Campground in Blue Ridge. This was our second year at this campground and we really enjoyed our time here. The cold weather and the rain made us cut our trip a little short, but we had a great time none the less! We enjoyed hiking, tubing and fishing. We also enjoyed our big group taco night. We love our church family!

This year was Kevin and I's 20th wedding anniversary. I had booked our trip to Italy and had every little detail worked out! I was so excited! I have been dreaming of this trip for years. But when the pandemic hit, our flights were canceled and all our plans washed away. We decided to spend the weekend away in Savannah, just to have a little time to ourselves. It was a wonderful weekend, but I still have Italy on my mind. One day we will see Italy... but until then... Savannah! We ate seafood, toured the city via the hop on hop off trolley. We visited the beautiful churches and graveyards, had coffee and dessert, took a midnight ghost tour and just enjoyed each other in the city.

On July 26, we visited The Tipsy Daisey to hear our friend Jon O'steen play. This was the night that Kevin got covid-19.Somehow everyone on the sofa got it but me. The kids and I left the next day for our annual camping trip to FDR. Kevin stayed home. He developed symptoms 3 days later. By the time he tested and received results, we were on our last night camping. I remained free of any symptoms. As soon as we got home, I quarantined myself and the kids all upstairs away from Kevin and we didn't leave the house for 12 days.  We LOVE our trips to FDR and I am so glad we were able to enjoy our time there. 

I continued to do my online schooling all over the place as we camped and traveled. 

Quarantine encompassed Kennedy's 9th birthday. I ordered pretty much everything off of Amazon. She had wolf decorations and a wolf cake! She got a laptop for her birthday and a lifetime subscription to Star Stable, her favorite online game.  

Since I was exposed on June 26, I was unable to attend my annual Connell family 4th of July. I did get to ride over to the pond and watch the fireworks and get some food to go though!

We fished a lot during quarantine, from 6 feet apart of course and by the end of our quarantine, we visited the pool and Callaway keeping our distance still, just in case. 

Carter filled in for Kevin during his bought covid when the Metro Elite team had games. He coached the boys to a winning weekend! He did a great job.

We took another annual camping trip down to Florida to the springs. We stayed at Manatee Springs again and had an amazing time! I blogged all the details of this trip on the post found HERE But I did post some of our favorite pics from the trip below. Fun Aunt Tammie tent camped with us and John and Kelly came and brought their camper. We had such a wonderful time, we can't wait until next year!

After our trip to the springs, we drove to Orlando for the night and dropped Jada off with Kevin at the Metro Elite basketball tournament. The kids enjoyed playing in the pool, and I was glad to see Kevin for a little bit.. even if there were TEN 14 and 15 year old boys running around all over. We just stayed for the night and headed back home the next morning. 

I occasionally get an email from Great Wolf to stay for really cheap, so I jumped on the opportunity. I took the little kids, Jada, Manny and JJ for a fun night away!

Of course Prom was cancelled, but the kids got all dressed up and took photos anyways. I hate she wasn't able to wear this dress to prom, but I think they had fun at the photo shoot none the less!

The little kids and I took a last minute camping trip with Tammy and her son Elliot to Moccasin Creek State Park on Lake Burton. We grabbed a cancelation and found a campsite at the state park. I honestly think this was probably the most relaxing trip we took of the summer! We fished all day, hiked and relaxed. We thoroughly enjoyed this park and our time here. We plan to go back next summer and rent a pontoon. We really enjoyed watching the DNR stock the trout stream. I think my favorite thing to do was watch the sunset every night from the dock. 

Tammy caught a flashlight!

Kennedy's hair was so beautiful, I wish I could braid like Tammy!

The tiniest fish I have ever seen...

And just like that, summer was over. We were ALL ready for school to start back and find some kind of schedule and normalcy! August brought the start of SENIOR YEAR for Maggie and I both! We took some cute photos together to commemorate the experience. Maggie is dual enrolled in Gordon State for her senior year and made all A's! Jada started 9th grade, Kennedy 4th grade and Hooper made it into Pike County Pre K this year!

First day of school

First day of online school at Gordon

These two got their parking passes and student ID's from Gordon State

My first day of senior year in the BSN at Gordon

Badge pick up for Navicent Medical Center

And with fall comes SOCCER. We eat, sleep and breathe soccer in the fall here. Both Maggie and Jada play for AFC lightening and travel all over the state and the southeast to play. We love watching the girls play. Kennedy played goalie and field this season! We loved watching her learn to play goalie. She was a beast at stopping the balls. Maggie also played some new positions this season, which was a change from watching her always play as a defender. We spent many weekends away in hotels and traveling this season. But it was worth it!

Fall break was a much needed camping trip with all our favorite friends! We spent several days at FDR with over 55 people on 9 campsites! We hiked, had big group family style meals, played corn hole and cooked smores, swung in the hammocks and probably the most memorable portion of the trip... got the DNR called on us for being too loud! This is the 2nd year we did a big family and friend style campground takeover for fall break and I'm sure we will do it again next year!

Halloween was definitely different this year. We were still able to celebrate and go trick or treating though! The Norwood's hosted a wonderful Halloween party for us and the kids enjoyed trick or treating on the trailer! Kennedy was a zombie soccer player, Hooper was Buddy the Elf, Matt and Maggie were Scooby and Shaggie and Jada was a skeleton.

For the second year in a row we were toilet papered for HOCO. I hoped we would be spared this year.. the job done last year was that of professionals. I mean, there is still an entire roll of toilet paper in a tree top still from LAST year! But.. we were not so lucky. These kids take toilet papering to a whole new level from anything I ever did as a teen! The HOCO dance was cancelled due to COVID, but several private homecoming events happened off campus and Matt and Maggie attended. They looked so cute! Jada was also a part of a HOCO dance and went with her boyfriend Marco. She looked gorgeous! It was really awesome that each grade found ways to come together to book their own venues and have their own homecoming dances.  I am not excited that I may be in for 3 more years of this toilet paper nonsense though!

Hooper's 5th birthday was a family celebration. He wanted a full Christmas party for his birthday. This kid loves Christmas! So we put up ALL the Christmas decorations early, made Christmas cupcakes, wore Christmas hats.. and we partied! Hooper got lots of Nerf guns and accessories for his birthday and had a Nerf War with his siblings and the inflatables in the yard. He had the best birthday ever he said.

The girls decorated beautiful Christmas cupcakes for Hooper

And of course, there was hunting! We had a great deer season this year and put 4 deer in the freezer! We even had an extra deer for a friend. We love it that Papa takes us hunting. It is our favorite winter activity for sure.

We celebrated Thanksgiving as we usually do. There had been so much COVID exposure that we were a little unsure how to carry things out, but decided that since we had no one with symptoms, we would celebrate as usual! Mema cooked us a feast as usual and we thoroughly enjoyed! Hooper had a Thanksgiving Feast at school as well. Although parents were not allowed to attend, his teacher does a great job of posting photos on the facebook group page for us. 

It seems as if every detail of our lives has been affected by COVID. Basketball was no different. There was no JV basketball team this year, because there were not enough JV teams in the area to play with. So 14 varsity spots were open and that was it. Jada tried out anyways and worked extra hard and made the team! She doesn't get much playing time as a freshman, but that's ok. She still gets on the court though!

2020 brought Maggie's last season as an AFC Lightening travel ball player. She plans to play next year in college and we still have spring school soccer to see her play! But for so many years, we spent hours and hours in the car together for practice miles away and games hours away. I will miss our special time together that travel ball brought us. 

We made it through the fall. It was finally time to vacation. Our fall is so very busy that we are all exhausted by the time Christmas gets here. This year, the kid decided to do Disney for our Christmas trip. With all the new restrictions in place, I had to book our Disney days way in advance. I found a wonderful house on Air BNB that had themed rooms, a game room, a pool and hot tub and plenty of space for our family and friends the kids brought along! We really enjoyed this trip and our time together. I probably could of done a whole blog post on this trip, but I didn't get around to it. We ate dinner one night at the coolest restaurant. There was a robot that seated you and brought you menus and your check. All the food was cooked at the table, and it was all Japanese. We really liked this Tik Tok find Jada suggested for us. Most all our meals I cooked for us at our house. We took lunches everyday into the parks as well as plenty of snacks and drinks. I even ordered our groceries ahead of time at Walmart and had them delivered to us when we arrived. That was a wonderful idea and saved me lots of time and stress. We visited Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Downtown Disney. We swam at the pool at our house as well as the pool at the housing complex. The older kids went shopping at the outlets one day and the little kids had a great time at the biggest playground I have ever seen. We relaxed and enjoyed our time together and we id NOT want to go home!

As soon as we got home Christmas Eve, we unloaded everything and unpacked and then headed to Mema's house in our PJ's for a pancake dinner! We had a nice time visiting with my parents and eating pancakes!

 

When we got home form Mema's house, we had to make the cookies for Santa! The kids decorated some hilarious cookies for Santa. But they looked great!

Christmas morning! I didn't try to wake Carter up for the usual stair picture.. he got his alternator fixed from Santa.. so he wasn't very excited about Christmas morning anyways. Ha! Everyone got a few things, not too much since Disney was the real gift. But they were all excited none the less. Hooper got Pokémon cards, Maggie and Jada upgraded their phones and Kennedy got an iTunes card. 

Carter finally woke up and joined in

For lunch we went to Mema's and Papa's house. They cooked a delicious ham for us and lots of yummy casseroles. We opened gifts with the Lawrence family as well. Mema had a special way of giving each child their gift this year. They had to fight for their gift! Everyone got cash in a very unique way. The kids really loved this!

Hooper had to pop ballons to get his money out!

Maggie found frozen money and had to use the hair dryer on hers!

TJ's money was taped to a pizza board in a pizza box!

Manny unrolled his money forever!

2020 was a very memorable year, some of the memories were different and that's okay. We made the best of the year and look forward to an even better 2021~