Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! We hope you had a great 2014, and are looking forward to 2015 as we are. Here are some highlights of our past year.
Anne is in third grade at Armatage Montessori, just down the block from our house. Our girls have been going to Armatage since 2003, and it continues to be a wonderful place to learn, meet friends, and also serve as a focal point of the neighborhood. One of these focal points is the annual Kids on Broadway musical, an after-school production that begins in October and culminates in several performances in early December. The production is composed of songs from several popular musicals, and this year was Anne's first time participating. She was a goat in Joseph and the Amazing Technical Dreamcoat — below are some fantastic costume and headshot photos by a parent photographer! When she isn't acting, Anne is busy playing soccer for Minneapolis United and taking piano lessons.
Emma is in sixth grade at Anthony Middle School, about one mile from where we live. She is adjusting to middle school extremely well and already seems to have about ten times as many friends as she did last year! Emma also did very well in soccer this year, with her team winning the MN State Tournament this fall for her bracket. Below is a photo of her victorious Minneapolis United Bulldogs, complete with their team mascots (their team is named after Joel's, their coach's, two dogs). Emma is in the second row, and second from the right.
Grace is a freshman at Southwest High School, one of many things that kept her busy this year. The biggest highlight of Grace's 2014 was a trip to Costa Rica in June with her choir, Partners in Praise. She has been in this choir for several years, and they do a national or international tour every summer but most girls fundraise for a while before joining the touring ensemble. After patiently waiting, Grace went on this year's trip and had a wonderful time. The choir had several performances including concerts at a university, orphanage, and women's shelter (unfortunately, Grace's summer and fall soccer schedules conflicted too much with choir practice, so she is now taking some time off from PIP). Below is a photo from another musical highlight, when Grace went to Minnesota Public Radio's Rock the Garden festival with Kris at the Walker Art Center.
Sarah is a senior at Southwest High School, and excited to head off to college next year. (!) In March, Sarah and Kris toured some campuses in California, which would provide a nice change of weather yet be in close proximity to some of our relatives who live there. We also had a wonderful surf lesson in La Jolla with Kris's cousin Peter and his friend Blair, who documented our morning with some great photos (below, of Sarah). Needless to say, Sarah confirmed her love of California and has applied to several schools there, and also to Arizona State in Phoenix, Univ. of Colorado Boulder, and some schools closer to home (Univ. of Minnesota, Univ. of Wisconsin, and St. Olaf). Sarah also had an amazing trip in July, when she traveled to India with a group of youth from our Lutheran church to assist with an English language program at a boarding school. When she wasn't traveling or applying to college, Sarah was very busy with high school, which included being a co-captain of her varsity soccer team and taking advanced art classes (below is a charcoal drawing of a girl Sarah met in India).
Katie and Kris celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary this year with a trip to British Columbia. We flew into Seattle and spent an afternoon there, took a ferry to Victoria, BC, and spent two days there trying restaurants and seeing that province's spectacular history museum. Then we rented a car and drove to Tofino, a small town on the Pacific coast. The drive itself was stunning, and the town of Tofino and the nearby coastal areas and forests were all amazing as well as the resort where we stayed, the town's restaurants, and a local brewery. Tofino was so wonderful (a view of a Tofino sunset over the Pacific, below), that the last leg of our trip to Vancouver was nearly anti-climactic.
But Vancouver is as beautiful of a city as we had heard, and we had a wonderful time there, too. Including seeing the end of an international fireworks competition— just offshore in the harbor, right across the street from our hotel! We also enjoyed walking in Stanley Park, shopping in the market on Granville Island, and having some adventurous meals in Vancouver's many authentic Asian restaurants.
That trip was definitely the high point of our year, but we're so grateful to have had many other wonderful moments, too. With all four girls on traveling soccer teams, we have become serious soccer fans. Some of the year's best memories are sitting on the sidelines in the sun and cheering them on, visiting with the other soccer parents, and carpooling the girls and their energetic teammates to practices. It sounds like a lot of work (and it is), but it's the best work there is.
And when we're not doing that work, Katie continues to work as an urgent care physician for Park Nicollet, and Kris is a senior interaction designer at Honeywell.
Thanks for reading, and for those of you who don't live in the Twin Cities, please be sure to let us know if you're ever in the area — we would love to see you. We no longer have our landline (612-915-1162), but you can reach us at our mobile numbers (Kris: 612-201-8267; Katie: 612-812-2767).
