Our Year In Review

Twenty twenty-five.

This is a tough one to sum up. 

For us as a family, 2025 was generally good to us. 
Many of the hopes that we set forth for this year we achieved. 
Though my hope of adding a cat (or two!) to our family still has yet to be realized. 😉

The girls absolutely thrived. 

Grace had lots of "lasts".

There was her last winter show, last dance competitions, last gala, last prom, last pair of pointe shoes, last recital, last time at camp as a camper. 

And of course, there was her graduation and the wonderful celebration that followed. 

She also had her first day of cosmetology school and all the new friends and adventures and stories and experiences that has come with that! 

For Emma, this year was a year of growth and maturity. She has truly come into her own and is having the most amazing senior year as a result. 

The "lasts" have started for her too. The last first day of morning lessons. The last time auditioning for the dance team, the last Christmas before she is officially an adult. 
And the lasts will continue to come as she moves toward her graduation day this coming May. 

Dave experienced his likely last day an adjunct professor at Northeastern. A bittersweet ending as he had been there for years, but the program has evolved and as such their use of adjunct faculty is changing. Perhaps he will return to the classroom one day, but for now that chapter has come to an end. 

I defended my dissertation, thus experiencing a last of my own. My last degree program ever. 
Now, just to figure out what I truly want to do when I grow up...

For the larger "us" (read: the country: read: anyone that has empathy and paid attention in history class) this has been a very heavy, very challenging, very heartbreaking year capped off by the events that occurred at Brown University on December 13th. 

The tree destroying our chicken coop on New Year's Eve Eve was just so on brand for 2025.

For our little family, a good year on the whole. 

Here's to hoping that twenty twenty-six brings with it the peace, kindness, compassion and qualified leadership that was sorely lacking in twenty twenty-five. 

New Year's Eve Eve

 

At 5:00pm David and I were jolted awake by an incredibly loud noise. He sprang out of bed and looked out our window to see that a giant tree had fallen and injured the chicken coop. He immediately headed downstairs and outside, while I woke up the girls since this was an all hands on deck kind of situation. Emma headed outside just as quickly as David did and began collecting the hens. Grace remained inside to receive each hen as she was brought in and I took to documenting the events that had occurred as well as started to figure out if/where we could find a coop for the hens in New England in the winter. Twenty-twenty five is just not going out easy. xo

Happy Christmas!

 

We had a quiet Christmas day, just the four of us. Emma woke up not feeling great yesterday and so it was good we had planned to lay low. This was originally due to Grace only having Thursday and Friday off from school, but it turned out to be good that we had not planned to do anything that involved travel or other people with Emma not feeling well and Grace following suit after that. The times where it's just the four of us are my most favorite (and I daresay that is the case for the girls as well) and so I am always grateful when our little family gets to spend the day celebrating and being together just us. Wishing everyone who is celebrating the kind of Christmas day that brings that kind of joy! xo