The Andrades 2020 Christmas Letter

2020, what a ride.

How does one begin a Christmas letter anyways.

The year started innocently enough. I think. I don’t even remember much about The Before Times. Except that I did get to host a Super Bowl party. And I was excited to do it again in 2021… There goes that plan.

Mariah turned 11 this year. And she already acts like a teenager, so wish me luck. Soccer is still pretty much her passion, which has been great to see. Her last season got cut short cause of COVID, meaning no spring tournaments. But they were able to start a new season this year in limited fashion and its been great watching her play again. Also, she’s a middle schooler now. 6th grade. Fancy new big campus. Keeping me on my toes.

Mikaela hit 9. Boy is she sarcastic and sassy. Can’t ever get a serious answer out of her. I love it. Gymnastics is still her thing. At this point she gets around the house via cartwheels more than just, you know, walking. Seeing her learn new skills is pretty great. She’s working on her aerial now!!

Merida is 7 now. And uhh, how to describe her… She’s full of energy, some might even say crazy full of energy. She can talk and talk and talk. Volume control is not her strength. She’s random, silly, animated. She started losing her baby teeth at the beginning of the year, so talk about all the feels. My tiny human isn’t really that tiny anymore.

We’re very grateful we’ve remained healthy this year. All things considered, we’re doing ok. Certainly spending lots of time just the four of us, and I can’t complain. Board games and movie nights/days/weekends got us through the brunt of quarantine. Certainly helped us get closer. Hoping one day, when we’re well past this, they’ll look back at 2020 and maybe not totally hate it.

There is a lot more to this letter below, so feel free to treat it like a Choose Your Own Adventure kinda thing. Read about what you like. Or about what you don’t like. Or read all of it. I’m not your boss.

Regardless of what you read, or don’t read, I hope you have the happiest of holidays! 2020 has been a crazy year for sure. I hope you’re able to enjoy this season, even if its totally different than we were all expecting.

And if we haven’t talked in a while, just reach out! Send me a message (Facebook, Instagram). It won’t be awkward at all. OK, maybe a little awkward. But it is 2020, it can’t hurt to have more people to talk to, right?

Merry Christmas,
The Andrades

Your adventure starts here

Say you like ice cream (who doesn’t). Got you covered! You can start at our ice cream tour this summer!! • Or maybe you like the beach. Well then read about our trip to Wildwood. • Lake instead? We did go to Lake George for a bit. • More lakes? Turns out 2020 was the year I discovered I love kayaking. • Or just some final thoughts.

Ice Cream Tour

Ice cream solves all problems. Specifically, it solves the “what to do with the girls while social distancing from everyone” problem. We needed to get out of the house, and thankfully some stuff started to open, so drive through ice cream and eating in the car was the thing.

Here are the places, all nicely laid out courtesy of Google Maps.

Some stats:

• We went to 10 different ice cream shops around the Capital Region
• If you drove to each place back to back it would cover 241 miles and take just under 5 hours!
• Northernmost: Martha’s Dandee cream up in Queensbury
• Southernmost: Samascott’s down in Kinderhook

So what did I take away from this? We’re totally doing this next year! (Let me know any places I missed!!) • Most ice cream shops' definition of “small” is, uhh, not small at all. I never got anything bigger than a regular, and even struggled to finish some of them. (OK, struggled might be an exaggeration, it is ice cream we’re talking about. There is always room for ice cream.) • No I can’t tell you my favorite. I didn’t prepare a scoring card and take copious notes. Maybe next year? • I will say Hayner’s Dole Pineapple soft serve and Samascott’s blueberry ice cream are absolute must haves.

Wildwood

A week at the beach, with amazing food left and right? Yes please. Chick-fil-a on the way there. Chick-fil-a on the way back. Donuts, of both the Fractured Prune and Duck kind. Various restaurants throughout the week, giant slices of pizza, and funnel cake. Throw in some ice cream and it was perfect.

Oh and yeah, the beach. The place we stayed at was walking distance to the beach, so that was awesome. It also had a pool, meaning our days were usually pool -> beach -> pool -> food. It was up at the north end of Wildwood though. Which meant it was a little bit of a walk to the boardwalk. The girls made sure to point out how far it was to walk every time we went to the boardwalk. Will we stay a little bit further south next year? Yes. Will I admit to the girls that I could have booked things better this year? Not a chance.

We also took a day trip out to Ocean City. Next year, we’re probably going to go down to Cape May as well cause everyone keeps telling me I should have done that.

Lake George

After Wildwood, we took a couple of days to relax at home before wrapping up the summer of 2020 in Lake George. Stayed a couple of days at a little hotel on the Lake, like 10 minutes from downtown. Even though the weather was rainy and foggy the 3 days we were there, the views from the dock were amazing.

The highlight of the trip was the tour of Lake George on a steamboat. It was a short 1 hour trip on a rainy day, but it was a really neat thing to do.

Kayaking

So my wanna be extrovert side got totally crushed by COVID. Which meant the introvert in me got to make all the decisions. And sitting on a lake all by myself for hours at a time sounded amazing. Sure enough it was, and I got to explore lots of areas around here. Am I already planning to buy a new kayak next year, probably a slimmer sit-in so I can go faster? Yes I am.

Final Thoughts

How does one sum up a year like 2020? Things were either cancelled or totally different than we expected. We had to deal with tough times and see family and friends go through the same. Oh and there was even an election in there some where. 2020 did seem to go off the rails.

As crazy as the year was, I do know one thing, I’m glad for all of you who’ve been there for me this year. If there was ever a year where we saw the importance of community, it was this one wasn’t it?

So to all of you who checked in on me, gave me advice, or just listened to me, thank you! And in this coming year, I hope I can be there for you too.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!!

(2021 has to be better, right?!)