I have a friend who first introduced me to the question: highs and lows. That is the one and only Nolan Sampson. I later heard it around the table at the Murray home. It's a unique way to 1. get to know people better and 2. hear a little bit about what's going on in their life at that moment. If you're really close with the people you're asking this question of you can dig deeper and help them find peace with something if they need it, and vice versa when you're in need of that peace. I need to ask this question more often than I do currently.
2021
What a year 2021 turned out to be. It began with a positive pregnancy test and Kennedy's acceptance into flight training with the Air Force. Those two occurred just two days apart in late January. Those were definitely highlights that came with a few lows later in the year. Once we got dates for Kennedy's training to begin, we were off to the races. Through the months of February and March we were building fence and a barn so the horses could come after living with the Murrays since November. That was always the plan, but now it had a shorter timeline. It was a lot of work to clear the pasture to begin with and then building a barn from the ground up was more than a task. I'm very thankful Kennedy was willing, maybe even a bit excited, to take on those tasks. But I will say that I don't plan on us ever putting a building together again, it's not something we're cut out for.
Kennedy left for officer training the day after Easter last spring and was gone for two months.
I really didn't like being home alone all those months. That was definitely a low for the year. He came back the end of May and then we moved to Enid in June. I was starting to get big pregnant just as the weather started boiling. I had a ton of swelling and water retention in the last half of pregnancy. And it also became difficult to walk thanks to sub par tendons that were bearing the full weight of baby Gus. All 6 pounds of him that is. I'll admit, I did not enjoy being pregnant. There was absolutely no glowing whatsoever. A high of that though was feeling Gus kick, even though he enjoyed using my full bladder as a trampoline every so often. At the time I told myself there was no way I could ever forget that feeling, but it's definitely faded since then.
One major low of the year was actually getting into the deep end of pilot training. It's not an easy program for a reason. Having a baby in the middle of it didn't make things any easier. We've gotten into a bit of a groove now, but it's still a learning curve balancing everything. We finally made it over halfway and Kennedy has his wings as an Air Force pilot as of two days ago. Since that didn't happen in 2021, it can't be included as a high here. Of course the highest high of the year was September 25 when Gus finally arrived. I still can't believe he was ever as tiny as that picture says, but he definitely was.
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