It's time for the annual Haugen holiday newsletter where I could lie to you about what a wonderful year it's been in our household, where it was all rainbows and unicorns and the dogs pooped cotton candy.
Or it could go like this:
My truck got wrecked but is still drive-able. Both cars sustained several thousands of dollars in hail damage. Four hailstorms messed with the house and garden. I met a couple nice highway patrolmen.
Nancy and I managed a trip to Florida just before the virus hit and we sneaked away to D.C. to visit Junior a couple months ago. I also made a solo run down to Missouri for a quick visit to my mom's. Otherwise we mostly sat around the house and stared at each other. I got the better end of that deal. We had a houseful for a couple months as kids with Covid-affected jobs found their way home and hung out. We enjoyed that.
I'm winding up my sixteenth year with the senator, about ten years longer than any previous job I had. The Rona played some games with our office but we didn't miss a day serving the fine citizens of West River. My life, to this point, was otherwise mostly unaffected by the plague. I still run, but shorter distances and slower, as my back dictates. The garden sucked this year, as previously outlined in this fine blog. I managed to pop a couple pheasants, wrote a couple books (still awaiting editing by my stellar but underpaid proofreaders) and read a lot. Surprised, with all that, I don't have my own reality TV show.
Nancy's father passed away in February. It was tough, but everybody was able to say their "good-byes" before he died, so that helped. She continues to enjoy her job as chiropractic assistant. She helps a lot of patients and kills a lot of office plants (which is better than the other way around), and has turned into an exercise machine with the gym being next door to her work. She still orders me around a lot, but I'm use to it (and probably need it). She hikes every weekend to find her Zen. Still manages to fit in several trips to "Walgreens" with our eldest daughter.
Speaking of the kids ...
Katie Jo continues to be her usual remarkable self. She's still West River Director for our U.S. Congressman. She also served as his campaign manager. After consulting with a renowned South Dakota historian, I determined she is only the second female campaign manager for a victorious House/Senate candidate in South Dakota history. She continues to see her miner guy from Keystone (not "minor" but "miner" - spelling matters).
Rylee (or Mrs. Kasty, as her students call her) is still enlightening young skulls full of mush in Champaign, Illinois. She added "cross country coach" to her resume this year and had a great first season. She especially enjoyed that she was able to be with some students in person rather than via Zoom. Her best friend from high school moved to Champaign, so that's been fun for her. Her doctoral-student husband Stetson added "professor" to his resume as he taught some freshman classes at the U of I. Their cat is still alive and so are their Packers, but nobody's perfect.
Luke had an eventful year getting tased, pepper sprayed and racing cars at the police academy before making a difficult choice to accept a counter-intelligence position with a defense contractor in northern Virginia. I'd tell you more about it if I understood it but then he'd have to kill me. He seems to have found his niche there. He also "put a ring on it" as Beyonce urged him to do. "It" being a she - college girlfriend Kayla Erickson. A super young lady who fits perfectly in the fam. No wedding plans yet as Covid and the Catholic church haven't got their act together yet.
Stanley turned 11 this month, has slowed down, but still jogs with me and did a great job on our couple pheasant hunts. I fear the next year won't be kind to him (and thus me) but we'll be best buds to the end.
Huckleberry continues to be the ornriest goofball in the family (and that's saying something). His best bud is Nancy - kind of a birds of a feather thing, I suspect.
We consider ourselves blessed to have been healthy this year and don't take it for granted knowing the heartache a lot of people encountered. We also didn't get looted and resisted the urge to do any looting of our own, so we got that going for us.
Here's hoping your 2021 is spectacular and makes up for whatever 2020 threw at you. Remember (and I just came up with this original saying off the top of my head; think it's kind of catchy): "We're all in this together!" Unless you live more than twenty miles from me; then you're on your own. Good luck.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
The Haugens
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