O’Gwins By the Numbers

December 2020 

1 – Country Chris deployed to.  Chris flew to Honduras the end of June to become the Installation Commander at Soto Cano Air Base for 1 year.  This job is very similar to that of a city planner - overseeing the construction of the new airport runway, transportation issues, power outages, water shortages (not to mention all the crazy COVID restrictions!) Vastly different from what Chris is used to, but he’s utilizing his leadership skills like a champ and even gets to practice his Spanish. 😉

3 – Hurricanes we were hit by.  Chris was hit by Eta (Cat 4) and Iota (Cat 5) in November, causing some flooding issues and structural damage.  Guess who gets to oversee the reconstruction? Meanwhile, the Florida crew were hit by Hurricane Sally (Cat 2) in September.  Not a direct hit, thankfully, and we weathered the storm well.  However, there was considerable damage about an hour west, in Pensacola. Stacy, Lise, and Kate were able to help with hurricane cleanup for a couple of weekends.

4 – States Stacy, Lise, Kate, and Kylie vacationed to – OH, TN, KY, UT. COVID lockdowns and school delays made us stir crazy.  We’re so thankful for friends and family who were willing to open their homes, road trip with us, and make life feel a little more normal – and for those who were able to visit us as well!

6 – Schools we’ve attended.  Schooling looked quite different this year.  Kylie (last year of elementary!), Kate (last year of middle school!), and Lise (Junior) all had their last quarter of the 2019-2020 school year online.  They were troopers adjusting and staying on task though.  We started 3 weeks late in the fall, but are so grateful to be back to school in person!!  Aly did 3 months of BYU in person, finished Winter and Spring semesters online, is now doing a hybrid version for Fall, and has completed most of her generals.  Chris completed his 3^rd master’s degree at Air War College in May.  We celebrated by watching the virtual graduation online.  Stacy has been accepted to WGU to complete a masters in secondary math education.  She has been working on some prerequisite work and hopes to start WGU sometime in 2021.

7 – States Aly’s visited – NC, WA, WY, ID, CO, AZ, FL.  (And multiple Utah locations)  Virtual school and a pandemic have not stopped Aly from living life to the fullest; if anything, they’ve given her the flexibility to explore more: hiking, snowboarding, wakeboarding, hiking, skydiving, boating, hiking.

10 – Kylie is in the double digits!  Drama kids, candy, Minecraft, popcorn, Lego Elves, friends, scootering, Roblox, Percy Jackson, swimming.

13 – Kate officially joined the teenage ranks. Drama Kids, PG-13 movies, sketching, homework, impromptu experiments, reading, playing games on her phone, hanging out with friends, learning to cook & try out new recipes with mom, her own room!

16 – That sweet number that allows Lise to date, drive, & get a job. Paychecks, socializing, cruising around town, double dates, free smoothies from working at Smoothie King, first time flying alone, Color Guard, AP Classes.

18 – The number of months Aly will be serving a full-time mission.  Aly received her call to serve in the Paraguay Asuncion mission, Spanish speaking.  Her report date is January 19^th.  TBD if the MTC experience will be in Mexico City or virtually from home.

365 – The number of days we are grateful for friends, family, and that a baby was born in a manger. . . to bring light to the world even in the darkest of times.  Despite the many challenges 2020 has brought into our lives, we have so much to be thankful for and look forward to a wonderful year in 2021.  We wish the same for you and a happy holiday season! 

Love, The O’Gwin Crew

Welp 2020, it's been a year (Dec/Jan 20/21)

For New Year's Eve we got together with some more friends for a par-tay.  We did white elephant gifts, played games, had tons of yummy food, and of course did fireworks!  We had tons of fun and stayed up way too late!!!

That Saturday I had signed our family up to clean the church.  We were all tired, but the kids were champs and the promise of doughnuts and chick-fil-A chicken minis were enough to keep everyone chipper.  

Then comes the fun part of taking all the Christmas decor down.  The house felt kind of bare after it was all put away.  It also felt very clean.

After that there were a lot of naps going on.  Funny story about this picture is that Aly had hidden Kylie's book a few days before so that she could catch up in their "contest".  Well, Aly had fallen asleep first this time.  So Kylie hid Aly's book, then hid her own book before falling asleep herself so that Aly couldn't find either one.  It was hilarious.

Of course for the new year we set some new goals (not resolutions) for the youth program in the four areas.  Some of my favorites were that Lise set a goal to get her patriarchal blessing (spiritual), Kate set a goal to learn russian (intellectual - and she's been doing 10 minutes every day!) and Kylie set a goal to cook with mom (intellectual).  Awesome!

Well, as we wrap up this year, I think we all may have felt the way Kate looks in the above picture a time or two during 2020, like "when is this year ever going to be over?!?"  Funny thing is though, the turning of the page on a calendar doesn't automatically make everything right in the world.  It takes work and effort to fix things, or maybe just seeing things from a different perspective and appreciating the beauty and blessings in the challenge.  I took this picture while out on a walk with Aly and I absolutely love it.  It's winter.  It's cold.  The trees are bare of leaves.  Night is coming on and it's almost getting too dark to see. But the sky is beautiful and the water is peaceful and clear.  What do you see in the picture?  Better yet, if you could take a picture of your 2020, what would you see?  The dead branches or the peaceful water?  I'm not saying I want another year like 2020, but I am grateful for the experience and the things I learned from it.  And I'm looking forward to another adventure in 2021.  Happy New Year!

Winter Break (December 2020)

So, due to COVID and such, Christmas break was a little more low key and local this year. However, we did do a couple of fun things around town.  Kylie wanted to see the movie "The Croods 2" and we invited a bunch of friends.  I think, other than our group, there were 10 other people in the theater.  That movie was . . . interesting, to say the least.

After the movie we let the kids play on the playground in the outdoor mall for a bit and took a few pics with all the cool Christmas decor.

Aly took the redeye flight and buzzed into town Christmas Eve morning.  Our house got a lot louder once she arrived.  It was good to have her back again.  We had a delish Flank Steak Christmas Eve dinner and then made some cookies for Santa.  Chris was not able to come home for Christmas, but we did Zoom with him for a couple hours and did our Christmas Eve traditions of letting the girls open their gifts to each other, watching the Nativity movie, and writing down our gifts to the Savior for the year.

Love how Lise is creepily photobombing in the background.

Christmas morning did not disappoint as Santa totally delivered, bringing books, candy, and chips - it doesn't get better than that! 😉😆

We were able to Zoom again with Chris on Christmas morning, which was fun.  Unfortunately, due to the post office that his mail comes through getting completely destroyed during the hurricanes in November, his Christmas packages had not yet arrived.😔 Sad.  This year there were a lot of clothes and such given out.  As for the big boxes, they were family gifts filled with blow up kayaks and a paddle board.  Christmas Evening we were invited to dinner with another family, which was a ton of fun.

Once Christmas was over, some people just weren't ready to let it go . . .  I on the other hand was ready to move on from all the sugar to a healthy smoothie.  

The rest of Christmas break was pretty chill.  Aly had her humongo Brandon Sanderson book that she needed to finish before she started her mission.  She bet Kylie that she wouldn't be able to finish the last two books in the Percy Jackson series before Aly finished her one book.  Never underestimate the competetive nature of my children to get the motivation juices flowing.  Thanks Aly, for getting Kylie to sit and read for hours on end just to beat her older sister. (Kylie did win, btw)

We knocked out a couple of puzzles on my awesome puzzle board - love it!

Kate wanted to go ice skating over the break.  Now, you wouldn't think there'd be ice skating in Florida, but there is.  It's this really teeny rink inside a tent that gets kind of slushy because it's 60 degrees outside, but it's ice skating nonetheless.

The rink is located at Baytowne Wharf and we had some fun walking around at the shops afterwards (and catching a few lizards).

Anyway, back in Honduras, Chris's packages luckily arrived a couple of days after Christmas and so we were able to see him open up his stuff.

I love his mini Christmas tree with emoji ornaments! 😁😂

SOTO CANO also had a few festivities during the month of December, including Christmas band, a tree lighting, and a Christmas feast. Whoo-hoo!

Another cool thing is that one of the guys Chris works with had one of the tent stakes they used during the hurricanes finished and carved to reflect the event and presented it as a gift to Chris.  Pretty cool.  

And finally, speaking of cool homemade gifts and gadgets, Chris created this sheath for one of his knives.  Neato-skeeto.  Glad he had something to do over the Christmas holidays.