So, yesterday I started this look back at 2021 by detailing some of the things that happened in our lives during the first 6 months of the year!  Here now is a look at the last 6 months of 2021!

July saw us continue our regular summer routine of going to the beach, sitting for hours a day on our front porch, and being with our friends and neighbors!  Then late in the month, it was time for me to re-start something that should have been long finished, but for the pandemic!  In July of 2019 I had my left knee replaced.  My intention was to start the process to replace the right knee shortly after coming home from Florida in April of 2020, but then Covid showed up!  Well, this postponement had taken enough time, and I was ready for pain-free knees, so off we went to Dr. Zabinski in Somers Point to get the process started! 

At the very end of July, we celebrated a very special birthday with a very special neighbor!  Doie Barnes lives right next door to us on Pennlyn Place, and in WWII she was a member of the Women’s Marine Corp, and on the 30th of July, she celebrated her 100th Birthday!!  There was a huge ceremony at the flag raising ceremony that morning on the Ocean City Boardwalk, followed by a party at the American Legion Post!  It was a special day, and we were so happy to be able to share it with this great lady!!

August saw me taking care of surgery pre-op clearances with the hospital, our medical Doctor and our Dentist, starting the vitamin regime that Dr Zabinski calls for, and even making a decision about our leased 2018 Honda CRV.  Our lease was going to be up mid September, and as there were very few new cars around due to the “chip shortage,” we decided to extend the lease for 6 months!  We also went to a Straight No Chaser concert at the Ocean City Music Pier with our neighbors and good friends, Patti and Meade.  We’d bought these tickets way back in 2019 for a concert that had been canceled in the spring of 2020!  

As Labor Day rolled around at the beginning of September, Ocean City turned back into a small town, after 2 plus months of being a summer resort, and the quiet, calm months of our lives were back!  On Tuesday, September 14th,  I had my right knee replaced by Dr. Zabinski.  It was very different than the left knee, as this time, due to Covid protocols, Susie dropped me off at the front door of Shore Memorial at 6:30 AM, and picked me up in the same place at 4:30 PM!  I now had two prosthetic knees!  The rest of the month was given over to recuperation, physical therapy, and eating all the things I couldn’t before the surgery!

By the third week of October, I was done with PT and the next week was released with a clean bill of health from Dr. Zabinski!  I could again travel distances in the car, and go about my normal life, with painless knees!  Also, October saw the second part of our kitchen rehab take place, when our new subway tile backsplash was installed over the new counters!  Then later in the month, another key part of our rehab took place as we had new plantation shutters installed across the front of the house!  October also saw a visit from Kenny and Chris, who flew up to Atlantic City from Tampa airport.  They spent a week with us, before heading up to New York, and a reunion with his twin sister and her husband Mike!  In case you couldn’t guess, October was a busy month for us!

Unlike last year, on November 2nd we voted in person around the corner from our house.  Masks were the order of the day, but it was good to be enjoying this most basic American privilege in person!  Now that I’d been cleared for travel, it was time to once again see our kids and grandkids in North Carolina, and the second week of the month we drove down to spend 4 days with our North Carolina Family!  Having pretty much decided that we were going to buy our 2018 Honda CRV when the lease extension ended, we were very surprised when we got a call on November 23rd from the Honda dealer, telling us that a red 2022 CRV had just come off the truck.  We went back and forth on price, and when they made us an offer we couldn’t refuse, we went over to take a look at the car.  That evening, we drove our new, red 2022 Honda CRV to Charlie’s for dinner!  Thanksgiving, 2020 was a lot different than Thanksgiving 2021, when we hunkered down in Ocean City with Kenny and Chris. It was the first time Kenny was home for Thanksgiving in 14 years!  We went everywhere and did everything in 2021, putting 700+ miles on the brand new car!  We traveled to Maryland to spend Thanksgiving with our son-in-law Mike’s family!  The next day, we loaded Krissi and Mike into the new car and headed up to New Rochelle to spend the night with them!  Saturday morning we headed to Long Island to participate in the big celebration for our Boy Scout Troop’s 100th Anniversary.  Sunday we saw Susie sister and her family, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner at our favorite Mineola restaurant, Piccolo’s!  Yes quite a whirlwind weekend and a busy month, which also included both of us getting our Moderna Covid boosters and our flu shots!  

The beginning of December saw the last part of our rehab take place: the removal of our old tile floor in the dining room and kitchen, and the installation of our new laminate flooring.  We love it!  The second week of the month we had a brief visit from my cousin Jeanne and her husband Walt, as they made a much belated trip down to their winter residence in Barefoot Bay, Florida. Before we knew it, Christmas Eve was here, and Susie and I partook in some of our usual traditions and some new ones!  We’d been alone last Christmas and were not really upset about spending the holiday alone, but our alone time was not to be for long!  A Christmas surprise was in store, as our son Bill, his wife Lori and our three Grandkids traveled up from North Carolina on December 26th!  We had three wonderful days with our kids and our three little ones, Layla who is 7, Henry who is 6, and Annabelle who is 2 and a 1/2!  What a great treat to see them all and to spend time with the littlest D’Elias!!  

So that pretty much takes care of our 2021!  I know that as the year ended, a lot of people were happy to see it go, but honestly, our 2021 was so much better than 2020 that I really don’’t count us in that camp.  It sucked that Betty White died on the last day of the year, but you must admit that 99 years is a pretty good run!  Of course, with the Covid variant Omicron all over the place, and numbers growing, who knows what 2022 will hold for us, but life goes on and Susie and I are thankful that our whole family is doing well and just hope that continues.  Susie is looking forward to it being her turn, and getting a replacement hip, but then I’m getting ahead of myself!