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2020.
What was expected to be a quiet year here at the Stumps and Rumps Homestead ended up being one of the most eventful in memory. As often depressing and stressful as COVID-19 made this year, there were a number of silver linings to be found.
While it was certainly stressful having to work full-time, parent full-time, and home-school full-time, it certainly had its upsides. Being contained at home meant more time spent as a family. We spent more time outside hiking, kayaking, roasting marshmallows over bonfires, swimming, and biking (with Winchester now on two wheels!). We spent more time homesteading, hatching out 3 clutches of eggs, adding 10 ducklings to the flock, and expanding the garden (strawberries, peppers, broccoli, corn, herbs, and buckets of green beans!). It also made more time for house projects including firewood, clearing land, building a treehouse, building a new woodshed, updating the kitchen, (finally) painting the previously-pink bathroom, cleaning/carpeting/furnishing the basement into a proper rec room, finishing two quilts and even getting both project motorcycles back on the road!
Adapting to the new virtual world has gone relatively smoothly.. Geoff’s office switched to virtual mid-March and aside from missing co-worker comradery and sporting a COVID-hairstyle, a web-developer’s job remains pretty unchanged in a virtual world. Dianna’s position has been a constant exercise in adaptation as she strove to adapt programming to new restrictions and guidelines. She spearheaded the creation of ‘Camp Sorta-like’, Michigan’s virtual summer camp which succeeded beyond expectations in both enrollment and reviews. She also created a well-loved ‘Tips with Dianna’ video series on a variety of scouting topics. (It’ll be back, we promise!)
Winchester had an unfortunately abrupt end to kindergarten when lockdown began and, while he would have preferred a return to in-person, he quickly took to first grade’s virtual learning. It’s been a frustrating experience for everyone, but it’s also been a good exercise in time-management, virtual etiquette, typing skills, and self-discipline that will serve him for years to come.
While Rutherford isn’t in school yet, he still had to make an adjustment to virtual learning when Michigan shut down all gyms for over 6 months and his Taekwondo switched over to Zoom. Winchester had previously begun skating/hockey lessons (unrelated to losing his first tooth) but also joined Taekwondo once COVID closed the rinks and Dianna joined the boys soon after! It has become a joint passion for the family and we’re looking forward to participating even more when they’re fully open again.
While there were quite a few trips and weddings and events that didn’t happen this year because of the pandemic, we did still manage to make a couple trips to Geoff’s parents’ Lakehouse in PA to work remotely and for the saddest 4th of July ever (3 people as opposed to the normal 30-ish) and those who could quarantine joined us in Michigan for Thanksgiving!. Geoff and Letzty also took their second-annual brother/dog trip up to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and camped and hiked along the beautiful white slate beaches of Lake Huron.
The biggest event this year, however, was finally purchasing the lake house we had always talked about. On the morning of our 10-year anniversary, serendipitously, we signed the papers on a small vacation home on Dodge Lake in Harrison, MI. It’s in a wonderful small dirt-road neighborhood where the boys can meet up with friends, bike around, and generally get into proper mischief. We’ve done a few small projects already including redoing the floor in the guest bunkhouse and adding a pellet stove for year-round use, but mostly we’ve jumped right in and enjoyed every minute! Facebook Marketplace led us to a bunch of new toys including a 12’ mini-pontoon, windsurfing board, and 2 broken down jet skis that Geoff quickly managed to get back up and running! We’ve only had “Stumps and Rumps: North Campus” for a few months, but we’ve spent most available weekends up there and love having it as our COVID-responsible getaway even during the winter months.
So while 2020 has been a dumpster-fire of a year in many regards, we have been fortunate enough to have a number of blessings that came out of it. We hope that you have been able to find some positives this year as well and we look forward to hopefully seeing your unmasked faces again sometime in the coming year.