The first time I remember the year 2025 ever crossing my mind was when Nellie enrolled at LCS for the first time as a MWF afternoon preschooler. She received a certificate that read, "Congratulations Nellie - Class of 2025" and I thought to myself that it had a nice ring to it. How did we get here already?
Now here we are, celebrating New Years for the last time with all these kids living under our roof. We decided to head north for some time in the woods for an old-school Wernet party for the first time since 2019/2020. We enjoyed all our favorites - some hiking and hunting, Back to the Future, games, a variety of appetizers, homemade Pin the Ball on the Tower, and lots of noise and sparklers with sparkling juice at midnight!
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| New Years up north circa 2017 - it was a lot snowier and colder that year! |
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| A little Spoons and Back to the Future. I can't for the life of me get a good photo out of Eddie, but he was the Spoons grand champion. |
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| Sparklers at midnight |
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| Family night hike! |
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| Pin the Ball on the Tower. Mary didn't win but I did much worse! |
Looking back and ahead, here's what we had to say about our favorite 2024 memories and our commitments for 2025:
Mary: One favorite memory was leaving for Sault Ste. Marie right after school in October. Another was going to the Tigers game and they beat the Brewers 10-2. Her goal for 2025 is getting better at making decisions.
Eddie: Playing Spoons and watching Back to the Future.🙄His goal is to get taller.
DJ: When the Tigers went to the playoffs and beat the Astros. He wants to do more strength and conditioning workouts.
Annie: Taylor Swift concert! And all the "up north" trips were really great. Annie wants to prioritize her relationship with God this year and making sure she has the right level of motivation for the right things
Nellie: Her top three are the Germany trip, flute concerto, and the Green Day/Smashing Pumpkins concert. Her goal is to have more balance so that she has margin to focus on her overall wellbeing.
Kevin: Rend Collective concert, two Tigers games, Annie running in states and Nellie playing in states on the same day, getting a huge deer, the Green Day concert. His first idea for a goal in 2025 started with "invent a basketball player," so we'll just leave it at that.
As for me, I think my favorites were all named already! Finding out about Nellie winning the concerto competition while we were shopping for Annie's homecoming rep dress was pretty amazing, though, so that might be my top moment of 2024. Then the Tigers game, the Taylor Swift concert, trips to Petoskey and Sault Ste. Marie, and time with our extended families. Hearing the kids and Kevin make music (singing, piano, flute, saxophone, ukulele, guitar, and now trumpet, drum set, and banjo) isn't exactly a memory but it's a great source of joy.
My goal is both simple and enormous. To summarize, it's to love others well. I've been thinking about that for four months, since Pam died. Because one thing is for sure, Pam loved us well. In the turmoil of those first days, I found myself wondering, how do we survive such a great loss? The only answer I have is to commit to loving those around us better, as fully as we can. To be more gracious, more present, more patient, more interested in understanding than being understood.
We woke up to a surprise snowfall this morning. Happy New Year!
