 |
 |
| 2023 brought us even more travels, adventures, and visitors than in 2022. By the end of the year we were ready to stay home for a quiet Christmas. (Warning: I love making animated GIFs and they might take a bit to load) | |||
|
| ||
|
| ||
| We got almost double our normal amount of snow this past season. | |||
 | |||
| Shocked by the cost of international airline tickets, we decided to drive to California and take a cruise down the west coast of Mexico during spring break. It was a hit! Who wants to join us for our next cruise? |
|||
| David's college friends organized an informal reunion at Rosario, a marine biology station in the San Juan islands of the Puget Sound. David enjoyed introducing our family to old friends in a treasured place. And it gave us an excuse to drive through Canada on our way home and let the kids experience another country. We stayed two nights at a quaint lodge in Manning Provincial Park in beautiful British Columbia. | |||
 The group of alumni and their families | |||
Tide pooling |
Fellow survivors of organic chemistry class |
||
 | |||
|
|||
| We loved our second season with our camp trailer! We managed 13 nights across 7 trips, including organizing a local campout with Caleb's first grade class, watching the annular eclipse near Capitol Reef National Park, and enjoying hot springs in Idaho. | |||
| |||
| |||
| |||
| |||
| |||
| Caleb graduated from kindergarten and became one with his bike | |||
 |
 |
||
| Clara did a ballet class this summer and both kids tried gymnastics this fall | |||
 |
|||
| This summer we replaced the windows and siding on our house, which added another inch of insulation and allowed us to get rid of all the arch windows that were difficult to cover with blinds or curtains. It also meant we had to live in our basement for two weeks, which the kids loved and we survived. | |||
| |||
| Many of you visited us this past year, and some of you we caught on camera. | |||
|
|
||
|
|
||
| |||
| In August, Shaunda's Uncle John passed away unexpectedly. It was a huge blow because Shaunda grew up very close to John and his wife and daughters. We traveled to Georgia for the memorial service and to spend time with Shaunda's extended family. Shaunda's brother, Ryan, used thousands of family photos to create this mosaic of John, symbolizing how his legacy will live on through everyone who loved him. (Click on image to enlarge) | |||
 |
|||
| |||
| Utah Olympic Park is still our favorite place to take visitors in both summer and winter. We are still amazed that we can just wander around and watch up close as world-class athletes train. | |||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Caleb and Clara are still at the Open Classroom, where they are thriving in 1st grade and Pre-K. This parent co-op charter school is becoming more of a community for us as we volunteer in the classrooms and get to know more families. David bonded with some of the dads when they rearranged some traffic signs to increase safety at the crosswalk. During the summer, the kids participated in a play-based Spanish immersion program. It was amazing to see how much they could learn in such a short amount of time, without any writing assignments, tests, or dictionaries! Shaunda continues to practice employment law as a partner at Clyde Snow & Sessions. She enjoys her colleagues and most of her clients, but she is feeling ready to try something new in the near future. She is exploring some ideas but welcomes your suggestions. David continues to work as a freelance researcher, primarily using Utah Court data. This year, he stumbled upon what appears to be large-scale fraud spanning many years. Hopefully by next year's update the criminal investigations will be complete and he can share more. We wish you peace and joy in the coming year! | |||
|
|
||
|
|
||
| |||
Created December 31, 2023 If this web page looks old school, it is! I hand craft each line of artisanal HTML myself, for better or (mostly) worse. |