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.