Well, the year of 2020 was a bust when it came to doing anything fun for a Senior year for anyone. Brooke and many of her friends were ripped of SR Proms, SR Picnics, SR Breakfast, Baccalaureate services, Sunday SR Walk/Luncheon, Graduation, and of course a SR trip. Ok, so honestly, it could have been so much worse and we know this, however it is the season of life that we were living. This class was all born during the year of 9/11, so they have already experienced a lot in their short lives.
So the world shut down on March 16th, we found out about it the Friday before on March 13th, and thankfully that was the weekend of Jake's SR Prom and the school/county decided to move forward with any and all activities already scheduled for that weekend. Brooke and Jake had a great time at prom in Athens with Andrew and Kennedy and when Monday hit, we all thought we would just be out of school/work for about a week or two tops then will get back at it. Little did we know a year and 3 months later some businesses still are working from home.
It was all up in the air as to if Brooke would have her SR Prom, which was going to be at The Fox so I was super excited as well since her dad and I would be chaperones. (-: Then after that time passed and they canceled prom, we didn't know what would happen with Graduation. It was talk that they may still have but limit the number of tickets to just 2 or 4 at most. Well, it all canceled and they decided to do virtual graduation. We just sent in a picture of our graduate and they did something through the Gwinnett Cty Public School TV system and we watched it in our own living rooms. At first, we thought this is great not having to sit through 700+ names in an arena and fighting crowds/heat/traffic, but quickly that feeling disappeared and was replaced with anger at how this virus has affected so much. Graduation and walking is not something you can ever get back, it's just gone.
We did move forward with Brooke's graduation party but had to move to July due to so many restrictions. We had a great time and a great turn-out. We had to cancel our trip to Disney 3 times and we were looking forward to taking Jake for his first time. Well, fast forward, Jake ended up getting his job at the Walton County Jail so by the time we took our trip this year, he was unable to take the time off and had to miss.
We just got back about a week ago, and I can say we had a wonderful time as a family but did miss Jake. We ended up staying off-site this time because Disney had taken away so many of the perks for staying on-site and it was a bit cheaper and having a condo we had a kitchen, washer/dryer, and real beds. We left on Memorial Day, drove down, and headed to Disney Springs for dinner and to relax, then hit the parks the next day for the next 6 days. We did Epcot and Hollywood Studios twice, and Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom once. We were able to enjoy some of the social distancing and petitions in the ques of rides which we all agreed was great, limited capacity into each park - again that was nice, right before we left they had removed mask mandate while walking around outside, only had to wear in restaurants and in lines for rides along with on the rides which is so stupid. Once we got home about a week later they removed all mask mandates except for on transportation. We were able to eat at 3 sit-down restaurants, so not all of our choices, but it all worked out just fine. We were able to ride everything we wanted to ride 2-3 times each day. We got on the new Rise of Resistance both days at Hollywood Studios. Brooke was able to snag our reservations both times in Que 34! Quick fingers of a teenager!
We cannot wait for Michael and me to return to Disney in a year and a half for our 25-anniversary celebration! It's going to be epic!
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