As with the previous year, 2021 was dominated by COVID-19.

We seemed to be leaving 2020 in the dust heap of history, then the virus started resurging. Although It touched almost every aspect of our lives, it didn’t stop the OC from having a little fun.

As people started getting vaccinated, the county slowly started to reopen – high school and Little League athletes were back on the field, the county’s clerk recorder office reopened for in-person weddings, Christ Cathedral swung its huge doors open, the OC Fair was again feeding fair food to summertime guests and Disneyland welcomed back visitors.

It wasn’t all fun, a massive oil spill closed beaches across the county and cut short the return of the Pacific Air Show in Huntington Beach. And we lost famed surfer Rockin’ Fig, Fignetti, Tom Morey, the inventor of the Boogie Board, and 13 Camp Pendleton service members who were killed in an attack in Kabul.

The year saw ups and downs, as any year does, but despite a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, we managed to find the moments that tell the story of Orange County.

Enjoy the pictures and follow The Orange County Register on Facebook and Instagram. Here are our staff photographers’ individual pages: Paul Bersebach, Jeff Gritchen, Leonard Ortiz, Mark Rightmire, and Mindy Schauer.

January

Rain, wind, cold air and beautiful sunsets fell upon Orange County as we rode into the new year.

And we got a little preview of October’s air show as U.S. Navy Blue Angels #7 flew low over Huntington Beach.

Vaccines ramped up as the county opened its first coronavirus mass vaccination site at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim and then a few weeks later another one at Soka University in Aliso Viejo.

Love returned to the Old County Courthouse as people made reservations to get hitched and restaurants once again were allowed to take advantage of Southern California’s great weather and feed diners outside.

February

As COVID-19 slowly rolled out of the county, a 25-foot donut rolled in – Los Angeles icon Randy’s Donuts installed a 25-foot donut at their new shop in Costa Mesa.

In south county, Michael Gastelum, a member of the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians, rang the bells at Mission San Juan Capistrano, in celebration of the reopening in San Juan Capistrano.

Christ Cathedral welcomed believers on Ash Wednesday, employing a disinfectant to keep people safe.

As the short month wound down, Orange County Fire Authority hand crew firefighter Dylan Van Iwaarden got a hero’s sendoff as he left the hospital after spending 114 days in the Orange County Burn Center because of severe burns fighting the Silverado Fire on October 26, 2020.

March

With COVID-19 numbers falling, and vaccine numbers going up, we were able to continue our slow return to normalcy. High school sports returned and bars reopened.

Part of the return to normal life is getting your hair cut, unless you visit Richie “The Barber” Esposito – he is anything but normal. Esposito, sporting a permanently tattooed clown face complete with silicone implanted eyebrows, dressed plaid pants, polka-dot shirt, oversized shoes, and an under-sized fedora can be found clipping and buzzing and tapering and fading at OC Barbers Parlor on Main Street in Huntington Beach. Sometimes he treats his customers to a circus routine. Sometimes, he sprinkles freshly coiffed scalps with colorful bits of paper. Always, he jokes around and hams it up – tooting his clown horn and bugging his eyes.

As more people gathered around the county for sports and small get-togethers, some residents also came out to decry violence against Asians in the wake of COVID-19. About 200 people attended the Stand for Asians Solidarity rally held at Irvine City Hall in Irvine.

The month ended on a sad note when a gunman locked himself inside a business complex and killed four people, including a 9-year-old boy, in Orange.

April

Our month started on a sad note when a gunman locked himself inside an office building in Orange killing four people. The shooting happened on the last day of March, but its repercussions were felt far into April. Among those killed were Louis Tovar’s father, sister and brother. His mother, shot three times — twice in the head — is recovering.

Entertainment started coming back to the county as 400 people gathered at the Segerstrom Center for its first indoor performance in 13 months. The West Coast premiere of “Indestructible Light,” choreographed by Darrell Grand Moultrie, for the American Ballet Theatre’s production of “Uniting in Movement”. The 18-member corps of American Ballet Theatre dancers performed for the small live audiences and were filmed for a ballet program, called “United in Movement,” which will be available for digital viewing May 12-26.

The rally monkey appeared as Mike Trout helped the Angels defeat the White Sox in front of 13,207 fans on Opening Day, exactly 550 days since the last time fans were allowed at The Big A. Angel Stadium can seat over 45,500 people, but COVID-19 restrictions kept the stadium at 33% capacity.

And, after 412 days, the county’s most famous business welcomed visitors again – Disneyland reopened. Tears were flowing as visitors walked down Main Street U.S.A. at 8 a.m. to the familiar announcement of “Hello and welcome to Disneyland.”

May

Orange County slid into the Yellow Tier and things continued to open up from their COVID-19 slumber. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library reopened with presidential impersonators welcoming visitors. Theme parks, including Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm, increased to 35% of normal visitor capacity; bars that don’t serve food were allowed to start letting patrons inside, and museums, zoos and aquariums increased from 50% to full capacity.

High schoolers around the county finished up their shortened sports seasons and started graduating. Some schools held multiple small ceremonies and some just limited the number of guests graduates could invite.

Down in Laguna Beach, the Pacific Marine Mammal Center celebrated its 50th anniversary. Since opening in 1971, the Laguna Beach center has rescued more than 10,000 animals – that’s eight to 10 generations of sea lions, seals, elephant seals, sea turtles and more recently dolphins and a Guadelupe fur seal returned to the ocean. And, with only a handful of paid staffers and some 200 volunteers.

The month closed on a sad note as six-year-old Aiden Leos – while sitting in the backseat of his mother’s car – was shot and killed as she drove him to kindergarten. Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, while speaking of the apparent road rage incident said, “I want the two individuals in that vehicle to understand: this is Orange County, California. This is not Los Angeles or San Francisco”, taking an obvious swipe at the progressive agenda of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who once also was the top prosecutor in San Francisco.

June

As masks came off around the county, we photojournalists were rejoicing. Not for any political reason, but simply because we could see faces.

This month we got to see the faces of high school athletes as they reveled in their victory and faced defeat. We got to see the smiles on children as they enjoyed carnival rides and the sadness on the face of a family who lost their little boy to road rage. We also saw lots of proud faces as high school graduates collected their diplomas.

July

From the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach to the annual office chair races in San Clemente to the OC Fair in Costa Mesa, the county was reopening.

At the Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, visitors finally got to see the new Our Lady of La Vang Shrine. The shrine represents the 1798 Marian apparition in the rainforest of La Vang, in Vietnam’s Quang Trj Provence, during a time when Vietnamese Catholics were persecuted and killed for their religious beliefs.

The structure is built with 400 steel panels and 80 skylight glass panels. The 12-foot-tall Italian marble statue depicts the Virgin Mary standing on a cloud holding the baby Jesus. Mary is wearing a Vietnamese traditional ao dai dress and khan dong hat.

The Rams and Chargers welcomed football visitors to their summer training camps in Orange County.

August

Students returned to classrooms full-time and also hit the waves as they competed in the West Coast National Scholastic Surfing Championships in Huntington Beach.

The same sand turned more somber as hundreds gathered for a touching tribute to honor Rick “Rockin’ Fig” Fignetti at the surf spot where for decades he could be found riding waves on the north side of the Huntington Beach Pier.

Friends, family and fans remembered Fignetti during a traditional paddle-out ceremony, forming a circle in the sea and splashing saltwater to the sky following a memorial on the sand where stories were shared about the longtime announcer considered the “voice of surfing,” a well-known contest emcee who also for two decades gave the surf report on KROQ in the morning.

At the close of the month, flags were lowered to half-staff as we learned that 10 of the 13 service members killed in the Kabul terrorist attack were based at Camp Pendleton.

September

From elections to surfing to Civil War reenactments to jets, it was a busy month in Orange County.

Among the remembrances of the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was 90-year-old Bob Kohler, who woke up before dawn to post a U.S. flag on the Yale Avenue overpass in Irvine. The Army veteran has brought his flag to the overpass every September 11 for the past 20 years to salute passing motorists who honk their horns.

In the middle of the month, voters across the county chose to keep California Governor Gavin Newsom in office, however, the margin was slim. Fifty-two percent of voters in Orange County opposed the recall compared to 48 percent in favor, though the results weren’t official until Oct. 22. The leading Republican, Larry Elder, hung out with supporters at the Pacific Ballroom in Costa Mesa as he waited for results on election night.

The month ended with us looking to the sky. An estimated 1.5 million people were at Huntington Beach to watch the Pacific Airshow light up the sky. The annual event was a victim of the pandemic the previous year but returned with a larger than ever lineup. Besides the civilian aerial acrobatics teams, there were performers representing every branch of the military, including the Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marines and Navy. The show was cut short because of a massive oil spill off the coast.

October

On the first day of the month, airshow fans got bad news: the Pacific Airshow was cut short due to a reported 144,000-gallons oil spill. The spill was later downgraded to under 30,000 gallons, but local beaches were shut down while the aftermath was cleaned up.

Homes went big for Halloween, especially in Aliso Viejo where Mike and Dawn Stanley built a “Pirates of the Caribbean”-themed Halloween display, complete with a giant pirate ship, on their front lawn. The pirate ship, constructed of styrofoam by the Stanley family included animatronic pirate skeletons, smoke, music and cannon fire, all controlled via a phone app. The Stanley family has been building large Halloween displays for the last 10 years, this year neighbors helped.

High surf, rain and wind advisories gave the county a peek at the coming winter along with Santa Claus, not even waiting for Thanksgiving to be over, delivering a 100-foot White fir to the Outlets at San Clemente. The tree, after making a 670-mile journey from Mt. Shasta, will be hand-decorated with 18,000 lights and 10,000 bows.

November

Although most of November felt like summer, by the end of the month fall was in full swing, bellies were full of turkey and a couple of Hanukkah candles had been lit.

We also got a glimpse at the future with a few new projects, including 17 revamped Crystal Cove Cottages and the groundbreaking for UCI’s $1.3 billion hospital and medical complex in Irvine. And, down in San Clemente, the inventor of the Boogie Board, Tom Morey, was honored with a paddle-out at T-Street Beach. Morey died in October 14 at the age of 86.

Over in Anaheim, Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants, was honored with a memorial bench in memory of the Savanna High 1979 graduate. He died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2018 at the age of 57.

We also started to get a good look at nationwide supply chain issues as hundreds of container ships backed up along the coast waiting to enter the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.

December

From professional drive-through displays to single-family homes, county streets were lit up with holiday displays.

The month brought remembrances of crime victims outside the Orange County District Attorney’s Office in Santa Ana and do-gooders helping Orange County Coastkeeper keep the beach clean in Huntington Beach.

The Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation’s finally got their tribal park in the Northwest Open Space in San Juan Capistrano.

Trash piled up in some north county cities as sanitation workers went on strike. It didn’t last long.

The year ended with a bevy of much-needed storms that, while helping ease the drought, caused problems for people living near the burn scars in the Orange County canyons.