2024

The past few years have been a bit of a roller coaster with big noteworthy events happening, lots of changes, and making do with less than ideal circumstances. But 2024 was kind of hard in a really boring way. I have no terrible tales to tell, just the usual age and relationship related trials that come around in life every so often. Thankfully we also had many good things and scrolling through my photos helped me to really put that in perspective. In 2025 I would like to write more descriptively as things occur, but for now I'm going to be satisfied with capturing a few bullet points. 

• Lots of service projects and camping trips with the Girl Scouts
• Homeschool meet ups, French class at the library with the senior citizens, lots of Outschool classes
• Lunch with my parents and nephew, walks and poetry with my sister
• Pizza and game nights with so many lovely friends and family members 
• A snowy trip to West Virginia to a cabin with a hot tub
• Horses and barn cats and farm dogs, and some more show ribbons for Laurel
• A reunion lunch with our dear former neighbor, Marlene
• Solo trips for me....Oakland CA to visit my friend (and now fellow homeschooling parent!), backpacking the North Country Trail, and a weekend away in Cincinatti where I got to meet Julie Bogart, author of a number of excellent books on home education and the one who planted the seed for our beloved poetry tea times
• Loads of bike rides around town, sizing up bikes so Max has actual gears and comparable tire size to the rest of us, lol
• M too a trip to New York City for work, stayed extra to see museums and fell in love with stand up comedy
• Learning to forge steel at Carrie Furnace for M and I
• Laurel earning her Silver Award 
• Trail running fun with friends, many races, adventure courses and mountains
• Meeting up with friends in the Poconos
• An epic trip to Nova Scotia and reunion with our next door neighbors and best friends
• Loads of swimming, learning to dive (including a heart stopping plunge off the 10m high dive for Marko)
• Loads of rock climbing for the whole family and Max's first competition
• Hosting friends for a week and showing them all of our playgrounds and libraries
• Marko was in a play and a piano recital
• So many board games, video games, games of tag and movie nights
• Cat cuddles and coffee watching the sun come up on the river every single day