I really wanted to write about 2022. And if I don't write here, where else? I don't have the patience for journaling anymore, it's sad.
A year of awesome travels, wonderful concerts (including my own choir's!), family reunions, family visits, visits to friends we hadn't seen in years, photo shoots, a graduation, sending youngest kid to college and beginning empty-nesting having moved and getting used to a new area, community, and church. Planting hundreds of plants! Significant change. Life altering.
Where to start?
OK, some chronological info doesn't hurt, since I haven't blogged in so long.
Let's go back to 2021. After looking for over six months, we found a house we really liked literally on the day before we dropped our son for his second year of college. I must say here, that the day we dropped him of for his first year (in 2020) was the same day his only remaining great-grandmother died of COVID (at 94 -- age was a factor -- in Brazil). His grandma was her first born as was my husband (who was born at her house) and our son (and I am writing this while my sons's orchestra plays Elgar's "Nimrod" Enigma Variation (No.8), which is often played at funerals and it's gorgeous and sad, I'm watching the live-stream of their concert in California as I write this).
So we found the house in August, bought it on October 12, put our house on sale (it was insane work), moved to the new house in November 2021, and sold the old house on December 2. Then we traveled to Brazil for the holidays.
So we started 2022 in Brazil with family -- my parents, brother and family, two of my husband's 3 brothers and their family, plus some aunts and cousins on K's side. It was a chaotic trip because my mom and brother had pneumonia after Christmas, and my dad, whose leg hurt a lot, was diagnosed with thrombosis (blood clot)! 😱 I even had to spend a night in the hospital with him. They recovered well, but we came back with the promise that my parents would have someone living with them from now on.
The Spring semester of 2022 was hard in various ways. Our youngest, now a senior in high school, had a 50 minute commute to school because we had moved from our house 8 minutes away. My commute, however, which was160 miles round trip every other day for 9 years changed to be only 30 miles, which was amazing. Our oldest struggled in school which was heartbreaking for me. I spent part of his 20th birthday in March listening to Coldplay and crying because for worry, feeling super impotent. Sigh... We drove down to see his wind symphony concert in February and we drove to Montreal (after so many years!) during Spring break.
My parents came to visit in May for the music concerts and graduation of our youngest son. It was a short visit, but we had fun picking up our oldest son in Tennessee (after he came back from a music trip to the West Coast and got himself a girlfriend -- that relationship ended after the summer, but not until he had already bought several tickets to visit her in Colorado!) and visiting New York City to drop them off to fly to Finland. We had an awesome (if expensive) photo shoot in Brooklyn and a "whimsical" stay at the TWA hotel at JFK airport. I highly recommend it. Especially the rooftop pool facing the runway. I should post photos. 😉😉
On our way back from NYC we went to the AMAZING Coldplay Concert in DC. It was a bucket-list item for me, to go with husband and sons, especially the oldest who's a huge fan. I sobbed through all of "Fix You" (and filmed it too). The only "downside" is that there were so many friends who were there and we only found out after the show.
The summer was great and brought about a wonderful trip -- postponed from the pandemic in 2020. Before the epic trip, we traveled to Massachusetts where my husband had a week-long conference and I had the opportunity to visit with friends we hadn't seen in a long time. Unfortunately, when we got back home and picked my parents up after their visit to my brother's family in Finland (followed by a week in London), I found out that I had COVID the day before my birthday and I was deathly afraid that I had transmitted it to my parents -- thankfully I did not! My parents went back to Brazil unscathed (but later caught it and did fine, it was super mild).
At the end of July, my husband and I flew to Denmark for a day and a half (I got to meet his friends in Aarhus and see the incredible rainbow exhibit at the art museum -- another bucket list item). Then we flew to London where we met the boys and stayed for four full day at my cousins' house. After London, the four of us joined my mother-in-law and a group of 70 people from Brazil and the U.S. in a wonderful tour through Turkey -- we visited all the seven churches, flew on a balloon at sunrise in Capadoccia, and enjoyed a 3 night Greek Island cruise before the boys flew to Tennessee from Athens (our youngest had no orientation, nothing, just got to the university the day before his freshman year started!). On the way back my husband and I flew via Denmark and spent a lovely day in Copenhagen where we saw so much in one day! 💓(I posted photos to Facebook)
In the summer, prior to the trip, the boys also worked a lot, and our oldest started counseling and medication, which made things better in the new semester at school. And all of a sudden, without much preparation, and no actual transition (dropping off the youngest son, etc), we were empty-nesters! 😱
I joined a local choir (we had two Christmas concerts!), and bought tickets to lots of local concerts. We also started attending a new church and meeting new people. We drove to see a few of our sons' (now both of them!) Wind Symphony concerts. My choir had two lovely Christmas concerts and then we all drove to Florida for my husband's family reunion. The first time all 17 of us were together since 2018! We were in a huge house in Orlando Florida, and my husband's aunt, a cousin and his family joined us, followed by another uncle. There were 22 of us at the house!
After New Year's, all of use embarked on a 4 night cruise to the Bahamas that was partly to make up for a cruise we "missed" in January 2021 (although that one was a week-long cruise and my parents were going too) and it was lovely. It was hard to drop off both boys in Tennessee after spending such a long time with them, but we met up with them a week after in Portland, Oregon, where my husband had a conference! It was just for the weekend, but wonderful to see them.
We have also gone to three of their concerts so far this year (Kelvin is also playing in the orchestra!). I am still in my choir and we have continued to go to concerts. We saw a local production of Rent which was really great. This musical debuted in 1996, the same year we moved to the United States, but I had never seen it.
So far, 2023 has been great, and I hope it continues this way. It can't be as epic as 2022 with all the amazing international trips, but we'll be going to Brazil twice (at least Kelvin and I), in June and in December. Seeing family is a priority since my parents are 82 amd 85 years old.
I am glad I wrote this post!
P.S. I have to gloss over the "hard part" and we don't even talk to the family and friends about these issues to protect the privacy of our kid.
