Adventures in Marriage

Year 4: exploring Central Oregon + we bought a van!

2020 is the year of embracing change. Vacations cancelled, jobs shifted, expectations reset. Time you thought might be spent traveling or with family and friends is now spent at home with those closest to you.

Normally in September, Ryan and I head off to a new National Park to celebrate our anniversary. In the past, we’ve visited Arches, Joshua Tree, Crater Lake, and the Grand Canyon. This year we were deciding between Saguaro National Park in Arizona or Olympic National Park in Washington when the pandemic hit. And then September came and went with no vacation, and no blog post to top-off the trip. But this year — for all it’s crazy and weird — was actually pretty good to us.

To start, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March, Ryan and I were already working from home full time together. We had a routine, our own office spaces in our home, and we genuinely enjoy spending (literally almost) every minute together. Unlike many of our friends, we didn’t have to scramble for desks or monitors, or to learn the new normal of working from home full-time with your spouse. Ryan’s already an introvert who prefers to spend his time with a close few, so limiting his social circle to me and his sister for 6 months wasn’t a hard ask. For me, the stay at home orders have been a weird mix of joy and sadness. Sadness because I dearly missed my friends and the memories that we were hoping to build this summer. Joy because during what should have been a very busy 6 months (traveling back and forth to California for bachelorette parties, weddings, vacations, work trips, and more weddings) Ryan and I instead spent an unforeseen summer together just exploring Oregon. Honestly, it was lovely being able to wake up on Saturday and know we had no plans or obligations and could pick a place we’d been wanting to visit and just go.

But a huge part of that summer bliss came in August, after I’d lost my job and then been offered a new one, and Ryan and I made one of the biggest decisions of our lives thus far: we decided to buy a sprinter van!