Aruba 2020

THE PLANS
The Coddington Tribe had the “perfect” plans for winter holidays 2020 that included the following:

Dec 17 (Thu) – Fly to Philadelphia and stay with Karen’s mom, brother and the kids’ cousins.

Dec 19 (Sat) – Fly to Aruba and spend time living in a condo, snorkeling and soaking up the sun as a Tribe. Just the five of us to enjoy our time together.

Dec 26 (Sat) – Return to Philadelphia to meet with Karen’s entire family who will have traveled from as far as Tennessee. This would have been the first time together in years. Even new nephews that we’ve never met would be there. Planned to take an all-family picture, enjoy family and celebrate Christmas together.

Dec 26 – Jan 4 – Spend time between Philly and upstate New York visiting with friends from high school, home church, and the like.

Jan 5 (Tue) – Fly home to Idaho and look at the pictures of all our adventures.

Didn’t happen, as many of you know.

THE REALITY
Dec 16 (Wed) – Got whole family COVID tested in Idaho because it was required to arrive in Aruba.

Dec 17 (Thu) – Flew to Philly and stayed with mom.

Dec 18 (Fri) – Found out Dakota tested positive for COVID with no symptoms. He was our most cautious Tribal member so we didn’t understand it. We called our vacation company and they agreed to let us come the following week at no extra charge even though “non-refundable” was written everywhere. (Thank you Global Discovery Vacations!). We quickly got retested to be sure and Dakota tested positive again. Thank you Dr Paul Caracappa and Cindy for your help with quick diagnosis!

Dec 18 – Dec 26 – We hunkered down at mom’s place and self-quarantined so we would not get more COVID or pass it along. This meant we could not meet friends or most other family. The traveling family decided it was best not to come so we did not get the reunion we hoped for.

Dec 23 (Wed) – We tested again with Dr Caracappa and found out on Friday that both Dakota and I tested positive with no symptoms. This meant Aruba was for sure out. We were all disappointed but I think I took it the hardest.

Dec 24 – 27 – We stayed with Karen’s family and enjoyed Christmas morning. While we couldn’t see the whole family, it was a really nice time we got to spend with those who were there.

Dec 28 – Jan 2 – We went to New York and stayed at my parents all by ourselves. We were quarantining because two of us tested positive but we also needed time just for the 5 of us. We felt bad not connecting with anyone in NY but the whole purpose of Aruba was for the 5 of us to get away from everyone and everything and have time for just us. We really hope family and friends will understand this and respect the hard decision we made.

Jan 2 – 5 – Spent these days with Karen’s mom and family till we flew back to Boise on Jan 5th.

So the time off was not what we expected but we made the best of it. Below you will find some pictures and two movies. Dakota, Kadin and Kasey spent all week storyboarding a movie and filming it. They told Karen and I that we had to make a movie too and we refused. But after they begged, we made a trailer for a movie that is really just a spoof. You’ll find the movies at the end of this post. Enjoy!

I have some personal thoughts on the whole thing but I will save them for another post. Basically, they revolve around the human need to figure God out and have an answer for everything He does and, well, we just aren’t guaranteed answers all the time. Sometimes we just have to trust the One who’s in charge and move forward.