2020 Year in Review

2020 has been a wash. It’s time that we will never get back, but we have no other choice and must move on. It’s a pretty different time to live in. A pandemic came with no set cure, people got quarantined in their homes, travel was non-existent for a few months….

Yeah, it was a really interesting year. Here’s a look back at our 2020: how we coped with the pandemic, what we did when we couldn’t travel, and other achievements.

How to Keep Sane with a Baby

January & February 2020: Spent most of the weeks trying to keep a baby alive, keeping my sanity intact, and trying to sleep whenever possible.

It isn’t easy learning to live with a new member of the family. I had time off from work as part of maternity leave but had nowhere to go. Taking a shower feels like the only luxury I have, and essentially I was trying to keep myself sane and normal.

We did manage to travel twice during this time. A weekend trip to Cocoa Beach and another weekend trip to Orlando. Something was different this time: we were toting a baby on our travels. Suddenly we were packing more things than we ever could, I was breastfeeding, and we had to go back to our accommodation in the early evening to try and put the baby down for the night. Heck, we even made a post about how to travel with a baby.

Suddenly we changed from traveling as a couple to traveling as a family. Life change anyone?

It’s different. We now have to take another little guy into consideration instead of just the two of us. Have time will travel? Well, yes, but we now have to consider if the activity we are considering is suitable for babies.

The pandemic was in a country far away. We applied for a passport for the little one thinking the pandemic won’t affect us. Whoops, we were wrong.

How to keep sane during pandemic

March 2020: I came back to work after maternity leave and in a few days, I had to work from home with a baby. Lots of countries were starting to close their borders. Cities were mandating stay-at-home orders. Oh dear. Life is about to change drastically.

Staying indoors for long periods at a time without traveling is difficult. Travel is life, right? What am I going to do now? I ended up being bored, so I wrote a post about what to do at home when bored. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever watched as much TV as I did my whole stay in the US except during that lockdown period.

Amazon packages containing puzzles, Legos, and basic essentials started coming to our house. For somebody who does not like getting packages, that’s something. You see, puzzles and Legos kept me sane during this time.

My library obsession to borrow a lot of books without even wondering if I’ll get a chance to finish said book came in handy. While the library was closed, I had a stack of books I could devour without paying a penny in overdue fees.

Peter took up video gaming again, a hobby we both enjoyed pre-baby but I haven’t gotten back to. He finished a few games, we both love video gaming so much that we created a post about gaming on a budget.

Is working from home good?

April to May 2020: The days start to blur, but I realized I’m loving working from home. No more driving to work, and I save at least an hour from my commute.

I can work in my pajamas, sleep in most mornings, and check on my baby whenever I need to. I can easily get something to eat from the kitchen for lunch, dinner, and snacks and take as many bathroom breaks as I want without worrying about bringing a badge and getting locked out from work.

I actually wrote a post about a day in the life of a working mom with a baby.

Cheap Florida Staycations

June to July 2020: Florida technically reopened their doors in late May, but we were scared of venturing out until June. Our first order of business when stuff reopened? Get outdoors. We did more hikes with the baby at a nature preserve near our house.

We bought takeaway food from our favorite places. We went back and supported our local small businesses – shopping in Jacksonville.

We did a staycation at the JW Marriott Marco Island using our Marriott free night. Activities included going to the beach, doing a tour of Cape Romano Dome Houses, and shelling. This is a list of things to do on a weekend in Marco Island, in case you are inclined to replicate our itinerary.

Travel was slowly coming back for us. And I’m loving it.

While browsing our hotel for Marco Island, a deal came about to go to Gainesville. $16 to stay overnight at a hotel suite? Is this a mistake? Well, count us in, so we booked our stay at the Townesplace Suites in Gainesville.

We explored Gainesville for the weekend: gathered fresh blueberries which we then fed to our kid and bought fruity wine, saw bats and gators, went to local bookshops. It was a great weekend out. Best of all, grandma was at home looking after our little one.

Visiting family became a priority. Since we live in Florida, it’s pretty darned hot to go outside, much less go hiking. So we decided to spend some days in an inflatable pool since the community pool was still closed at the time. Anything to cool off without lowering the A/C temperature as much.

How to Become a US Citizen

August 2020: Government offices started opening again. USCIS cancelled my interview for April and rescheduled to August. What’s it for? US Citizenship, of course.

I’ve been married to my husband for 4 years, and we applied for citizenship as soon as the third year eligibility passed. I could not wait to get a US passport. No more applying for visas – which are a pain. You can read about my Irish visa application & Schengen visa as a spouse to see the documents I have had to provide to prove I am just going to visit.

Becoming a US citizen is pretty tough. One needs to provide a lot of documents to the government – things like tax returns with your spouse, proof of joint income/ownership, and a 5-year travel history.

5 years of travel history – that’s a lot, especially for people who travel a lot like us. We may not be full-time travelers but we do try to go abroad a lot. They ask for all the dates you’ve been abroad. Specific dates.

Hence we try to blog about our experiences, to help us remember. Journals helped too.

The interview process is the last step. After the documents have been submitted online (so convenient), the government schedules you to get fingerprints. When you show up at the office for the prints and photo, they then give you a booklet of what to study for the civics part.

100 questions but only 10 will be asked during the interview/exam. It is a lot of studying, particularly for one who is not too interested in US history (no offense).

Passing the USCIS Citizenship Interview

The interview consists of a few things: civics, reading, writing, and speaking English. Even though English is not my first language, I’ve been reading and speaking it my whole life so that part is not an issue.

After passing the exam, the officer schedules your swearing ceremony, and mine happens to be the Friday after I take the test. It was super quick!

At the swearing ceremony, you get your naturalization papers, and can register to vote (I did so the day after), and get a passport (I did it a month after).

And just like that, I’m going to be a US passport holder.

Getting Older

September 2020: One more year around the sun. Usually, we travel to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. Not this year. It’s another staycation type of celebration, much like last year.

The in-laws are taking care of the baby, which gave me time to go to my favorite Sarasota bookstore and just have a me-day. My husband took me to different places: a Fort Myers and Sanibel island weekend, a day trip to Mote Marine Aquarium in Sarasota, a visit to a local park, and another visit to a historic village in Bradenton.

Local travel is quite interesting. Just when you think you’re bored of the city where you live, there’s plenty of things to do and revisit. We spent a lot more time in our in-laws place in Sarasota and we’re slowly starting to explore the west coast of Florida.

We’re slowly visiting places even locals are not even aware of, and behaving as if we are locals ourselves. Pretty soon we’ll visit all the must-dos in the area and then move on to discovering other cities.

Maybe we’ll be vanlife peeps? Who knows?

Road Trip to Helen Ga

October 2020: First road trip as a family! With a baby in tow! A very nervous me is scared to travel with a baby, but heck, we’ll have to learn how to travel longer periods with a baby, right?

Helen, Ga is a town that looks like the state of Bavaria in Germany within the Georgia mountains. For people like us who love going to Europe, this is a great alternative to being abroad without actually stepping foot on an international flight that requires passports.

First time traveling on a long road trip with a baby. Pretty interesting and eye-opening experience. You can read more about our trip to Helen Georgia on this blog as well.

October is also a great month because our son celebrated his first birthday! We did not have a big party but kept it to immediate family, so it’s quite a weird first birthday.

A day trip to St. Augustine, an overnight stay at the Disney Pop Century Resort in Orlando (skyliner!), and those are the highlights of the month.

Swimming with Manatees in Crystal River

November 2020: Our small family had to make a trip to Sarasota to leave our little buddy behind while mom and dad went on a quick trip. The destination? Tarpon Springs, Crystal River & Homossassa.

Tarpon Springs was a quick stop over as we drove up from Sarasota to Crystal River. We saw with manatees in Crystal River a few years back but had no chance to document our underwater trip. GoPros were a tad bit expensive and we haven’t acquired one until 2014.

The Crystal River trip has been cut short due to a freak storm, and instead of visiting Homossassa, we ended up at an outlet store in Tampa as a stopover to escape the rain/storm for an hour or so.

We’ll write more about this trip in detail on our other blog, Voyage Florida. We did another staycation in Ft Myers, where we visited Babcock Ranch in Punta Gorda on the way back.

Then we stayed at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort where the boy ended up playing in the sand and the playground almost our entire stay. Oh, and we stayed at the pirate room!

We stayed a few days back at home to get back into a routine and clean then it’s back to the in-laws for Thanksgiving.

No Playstation 5, but we did manage to buy things we needed (and a few extra) during Black Friday. Shopping on Black Friday can be great if you need stuff. However, it’s not great if you end up overspending and buying a lot of expensive crap you don’t need.

How to travel for less during the holidays

December 2020: Our little family started off spending the month with family. With the grandparents looking after the baby, the parents snuck off to Key Largo and Florida City/Miami for a quick getaway.

It’s a great trip, much needed, and for a 4-day, 3 night trip, our total cost for 2 is less than $400.

If traveling anywhere for the holidays, it’s good to learn how to travel hack. That way, one can have options to pay for flights and hotels with points. With the pandemic, hotels are lowering their prices so you can get discounted nightly stays. Travel, as a whole industry, is at a discount now, so if you want to do staycations or local travel then now is the time to go (if you’re comfortable, that is).

Holidays = extra money spent buying presents and taking advantage of deals so it can be pretty hard to stay on a budget if you’re on a path to financial independence. But if you’re a shopper, then great, it’s practically a holiday for you! But think: why is it so easy to spend money than earning it?

2020 is still a blast

For our family, 2020 has still been a blast, despite living through a pandemic and being locked down. While we were not able to travel as much as we wanted to, we looked inward and found other hobbies to keep us busy.

I myself may have spent a bit more money to keep me sane during the pandemic, comfort items like toys and books, but that made me happy, and that’s all that counts. Think the happiness fund! Why life your life so miserly while on the path to FI when you can spend a bit to make it more worthwhile to live!

Thank you for sticking through this long post about our 2020. Please share your thoughts about memorable events that happened with you guys in the year! We’d love to hear your thoughts!