What Will 2021 Bring?

Dearest Friends and Family,

Congratulations, we did it! We made it through the most collectively hellish year of all years in recent memory. I hope your 2021 is shaping up better than last year at least. Not that 2020 set the bar real high, but still, anything better than that will be an improvement. Ours ended exceedingly well, especially considering all the ways it could've gone wrong. And this year is looking up!

Best news first, Sebastian had his last check-up of the year right before Christmas, this time just an MRI and some lab work, but all was blissfully clear! He will need another check-up in April, around a year after his surgery. This will need to be another full-body mibg scan. For those who didn't hear about the last one he had in September (which was also thankfully clear) it took about 3 hours! Ugh! He's such a trooper, I can't imagine being in one of those machines for that long. It was a new technician so it was already going slower than the first he'd had, and then Sebastian wiggled a bit too much and they had to re-do a whole section, so that dragged the test time out significantly longer than we were expecting. But worth it to hear that it didn't find any neuroblastoma cells, so he is still cancer-free! Assuming his next check-up is also clear, then we'll be able to go to check-ups every 6 months instead of every 3, alternating between MRIs and the full-body scans.

Next good news, is that we were lucky enough to have our parents come and visit us over the holidays. First my parents came for Oscar's birthday (Dec. 22nd) and Christmas and then the week after that Brian's parents came for New Years and my birthday (Jan. 1st). The boys didn't enjoy me making them quarantine before that, but it was worth it to get to see their grandparents and to not have to worry about getting anyone sick. Thankfully everyone stayed well and we all had a wonderful visit. It was so comforting to get to see family after such a hard year, it really meant a lot to all of us to have that time together.

Another bit of news is that we are house hunting. After almost 10 years since we had to short-sell our condo in Reno, we are finally feeling recovered enough from that experience to attempt to buy again. Of course our timing isn't wonderful, yet again, because the housing market is stupid expensive and competitive here in Beaverton where we're looking, but since interest rates are so amazingly low, we figure it is worth a try. So happy thoughts for the right house to come our way soon!

And lastly, we are still off of social media and enjoying that. So that means if you want to stay in touch with us, you'll have to do it the old fashioned ways: email, text, phone, or if the world allows, in-person! Let us know if you don't have any contact information for us and we will be sure to send some your way.

Oscar made that for me out of his legos at Christmas. It really got me. So I wanted to share it with you. I love you. Thank you for being here and reading these words and for sending your love and support to us through this past, very difficult year. 

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Hugs and Love,