Perhaps an oversimplification of a strange and complicated year, but as I looked back over photos and tried to decide what to include in my list of highlights, this quote kept coming back to me.
And this IS a list of highlights. I don’t feel the need to compare or compete for “worst year ever award”. I have many thoughts on how things transpired, I’ll be sorting them out for a long time I think. God is good. Life is short and bittersweet. There are some things we will never understand. God is still good
In spite of it all, 2020 was the year of our family being together. Never in our entire relationship had Josh and I spent a consecutive month with each other, looking back, I don’t know how we did it. I guess we were just used to it because it has always been for us. God went before us every step of the way, because I don’t know how we would’ve endured if we’d continued to be separated by the road. Being in the same place, together, gave us the strength to keep going month after month. I am beyond grateful for that.
Okay, are you ready for it? Here are the highlights of our year of “togetherness”
Hamilton! A friend of ours treated us to amazing tickets to see Hamilton in Nashville. Josh had gone through a Hamilton phase a few years ago and had seen in in LA, I knew a few of the songs, but seeing the show live turned me into a nut! The soundtrack was on repeat over here for MONTHS. Favorite song: It’s Quiet Uptown. Favorite character: Alexander Hamilton. Favorite line “I’m just like my country, young, scrappy and hungry” and almost every line from “Burn”
Josh was still actively traveling and promoting “I Still Believe” through the first part of the year. One of the stops was a youth conference in the mountains of Tennessee. Since it was only a few hour drive, we booked a cabin for the weekend and tagged along. Kanye West and the Sunday Service performed and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life! We walked into the stadium and the stage had been moved to the middle of the room, it was completely surrounded by a massive hedge of fresh flowers, the air smelled like heavy roses (I later found out that Kanye had come through for a final check and decided that he wanted only white flowers, the staff worked until the last minute running around pulling out anything red. I gotta give it to the man, he was right, it was breathtaking!)
Still promoting the film, so Hugo and I jumped on a plane and met Josh down in West Palm Beach over Valentines Day. It was fun and quiet and I wrote about it here.
March began the very short countdown to the movie’s release, we had no idea what would begin to unfold in those two short weeks. We had originally planned on a long trip to Los Angelos, Josh had meetings, we would see my parents who would also be in Orange County at the same time, I had tickets to attend a fabric show, Hugo was coming with us. A few days before we left, my parents called to tell us that they had canceled their trip, then my show was canceled, the emails and news started to flood in, we made the quick decision to leave Hugo with dear friends and Josh and I flew off to LA. Those two days blew by, press junkets, a full Hollywood red carpet, good food, little sleep, by the time we left the airpot only a few days later the world around us felt surreal, like we were watching it come to a stop in realtime. No one knew what to expect so we pushed ahead with our Nashville premiere and prayed for the best. Josh and I closed on our first home that same week, Friday the 13th, the day the movie came out in Theaters. On Monday we had been issued stay at home orders and theaters closed. The movie we’d poured our life into for the better part of 2 years had made it 4 days on the big screen (funny enough, it earned the #1 movie in America one of those days and was one of the first movies ever to be come available online so soon after its debut. The industry changed forever.)
The next few months we spent at home. We finished our first round of renovations on the house, moved across town, celebrated easter, took lots of walks, I baked sourdough and cried a little too. Josh had to quickly pivot away from filming two movies (all film sets were shut down) and instead began work on a passion project of his. He hustled during this time and found the most creative solution to use his time and team, I’m so proud of him and can’t wait to share with you what they’ve been working on!
In May we drove down to Florida to spend Mother’s Day and Josh’s Mom’s birthday with our Walsh family. It was a sweet time at his brothers house while the kids played and his little sister announced that she was pregnant! Our last morning in Sarasota, we took Hugo down to the pool to get some wiggles out before the drive, Josh and I both sighed and said “we don’t want to leave this place”. On a whim we booked one more night and it ended up being one of our favorite days of the entire year. Just the unexpected gift of a day spent in the sun.
Kathryn Grace Photography
Josh got back to work and was traveling across the country in a musician’s tour bus (they were able to work this way with minimal contact from others) and in July we went to Wisconsin to visit my family and spend time at the cabin. We continued taking lots of walks, going to the park and pool and I worked on my tan.
On a whim we were chatting on the phone with my brother and sister in law and decided that both our families would drive to South Carolina for the weekend. It was one of the more hasty trips I’ve ever taken, but we had so much fun. I think we spent something like 20 hours in the car and 16 hours at the beach house, but it was spontaneous and we enjoyed our time together while the kiddos played on the beach (then my in-laws caught wind of the trip and, never being the ones to miss a party, jumped in the car and showed up at our door!
I turned 32 in September and my parents drove down for a visit. It was very special to host my parents for dinner in our home for the first time ever! They even took Hugo back to Wisconsin with them for a few days so that Josh and I could go to the beach and completely unplug. We went to our favorite place in the world, 30A and enjoyed every minute we were there.
The rest of the year moved pretty quickly and before we knew it the holiday season was here. Josh’s parents and two of his siblings came up to Tennessee to spend Thanksgiving with us. We enjoyed decorating and celebrating our little Christmas traditions for first time in our new home and then drove up to Wisconsin to spend Christmas week with my family.
It felt straight out of a storybook.
Abbe – this is so well done- felt like I was there with you!