2013 in Review

Happy New Year! A summary of highlights from 2013:

Anne (7) is represented by her photo above because she is constantly on the move, and is also always outside whenever she can be. This particular photo is a favorite of mine because I took it with my phone last spring while running. She ended up riding her scooter with me 3 miles that day! Like her sisters, Anne also plays soccer.

Emma (10) is in her last year at Armatage Elementary School, so next fall Anne will be walking down the street to school on her own. This photo of Emma and I was taken at a Twins game last summer. It was her visit to Target Field (and only my second), and we had excellent seats and the Twins also won that day. If you know how their season went, you know that this was somewhat like winning the lottery!

Grace (13) is in her last year at Anthony Middle School, so as she starts high school this fall Emma will take her place representing the Layon girls at that school. Grace is in her second year singing soprano for Partners in Praise girls choir. This year, the choir is traveling to Costa Rica and Grace will be joining the touring choir. Should be a big year for Grace!

Sarah (16) is a junior at Southwest High School and continues to play for two soccer teams, her Minneapolis United team and Southwest's varsity team. She traveled to three out-of-state tournaments last year (Nevada, Arizona, Iowa) and will be traveling again this winter to both Nevada and Arizona. She's starting to consider which colleges she'll be applying to later this year. Can it really be that time already?!

Kris (42) started a new job leading user experience and product design at Red Stamp, a social commerce company in southwest Minneapolis. Red Stamp is exploring innovative ways to leverage mobile devices to help people share custom digital and print communications. He loves the fast pace of the work, and also enjoys working a lot at home— though their office is only two miles from home, so not a bad commute either!

Katie (43) continues to work in urgent care for Park Nicollet, and took on some additional leadership responsibilities in 2012. When she's not working in the clinic, she continues to go a lot of baking and cooking— that is, when she is not busy doing a lot of the driving for the girls. But that's another advantage of my new job; it's a lot more flexible, so I'm doing a lot more driving with the various carpools to help Katie out these days, which is really nice!

So all in all, 2013 was a pretty good year. We hope yours was as well!

~Kris~