2022 Year in Review

Here are the kids at the beginning and end of 2022.  They've grown a lot but their faces aren't changing so much anymore.

Reading, Watching and Thinking

• D and I went to Cirque du Soleil in March
• Jack and I finally watched Hamilton for the first time on our big screen at home, thanks to Disney+.
• Valiant Ambition about Benedict Arnold reassured me that I can listen to narrative non-fiction audiobooks and still get a lot out of them.   Reading this book while we watched Hamilton was a fun overlap.
• My book club met sporadically and we read some great books including Beloved, Born a Crime, The Sentence, The Bad Muslim Discount and Cloud Cuckoo Land.
• Together Jack and I read  several more Youth in Revolt series novels.   We read the first one in high school and the latest book was set in the pandemic.
• D read up a storm all year, including the following series, which I want to remember for Dd in a few years: Spy School, Spirit Animals, Wings of Fire, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Percy Jackson, The Lost Rainforest and The Mysterious Benedict Society.  Jack read him The Giver and Lord of the Rings.   I read him Swallows and Amazons and the second book in the same series.  It has been fun to see him open up to a wider variety of genres.
• We're working on James and the Giant Peach with Dd, which was also D's first read-aloud chapter book (Grand Adventure: D’s first chapter book! (aglie.blogspot.com) ).   Charlotte's Web didn't take.
• Dd has a fine attention span for play, such as pretending a plastic plate is a Roomba vacuum for 30 minutes, but his interest in TV only lasts about 15 minutes.   He likes the idea of watching a show or a movie but in practice doesn't seem to like them.   He may be on the cusp of watching longer, as we're part way through Frozen II now and he likes it.   This obviously isn't a big problem and might be because we haven't offered him toddler drivel....
• D, Jack and I went to a virtual reality exhibit called The Infinite, where we wore VR goggles and explored the international space station.   It was my first time doing anything like it and it was impressive.  Thanks to Jack's parents for the gift and mine for watching Dd in Tacoma while we went.
• I've become way less on top of organizing our pictures and I write about three blog posts in my head for every one that I manage to publish.   Such is life.

School, Work and Learning

• D finished up a normal, in-person year of 2nd grade and started 3rd grade.   It has been nice for him to have some of the same kids in his class from year to year and he has done well in school.
• Dd keeps on moving through the rooms at the daycare/preschool he has been at since he turned one.   Birthday parties are back so it has been nice to get to know some of the other families that way.   He's quite interested in words and letters and we're excited to see what the next year brings.
• D's been doing Zoom piano lessons for over a year now and he and I are quite happy about it.
• Jack and I both passed the 10 year mark at our current jobs.   Grand Adventure: job updates and a reflection on ten years (aglie.blogspot.com).   He is leaning in and became the second partner in his firm at the beginning of 2022.   I leaned out and asked to work 80% time (and pay) starting in August 2022.   It has been wonderful to have some time to myself and a buffer for getting life stuff done.

Travel

• We actually used our passports this year, and Jack and I got on a plane for the first time since 2019.
• February: after a really tough January, with Omicron all around us, we spent five nights in a cabin on the east side of Lake Wenatchee, near Leavenworth, with my parents.   We snowshoed a couple of times and Jack snowboarded at Stevens Pass two days also.
• March: Jack and I went to Mexico for three nights without the kids, using our airline travel credit. baja mexico
• April: during spring break we stayed in yurts at Cape Disappointment alongside Jack's cousin and his family.   We learned about Lewis and Clark, Dd dug in the sand for hours and it snowed as we drove home!
• May: over Memorial Day weekend we camped at Birch Bay state park with our friends.  It was the first time Dd slept decently while camping (at age 3.5) and the three big kids had free reign of the campground on their bikes for the first time.
• June: we took a fabulous 11 day road trip with our bikes in Idaho, Alberta and British Columbia. https://aglie.blogspot.com/2022/07/2022-road-trip-with-bikes.html
• August: for the week of daycare closure we got an airbnb on the beach near the ferry dock on Vashon and grandparents babysat some so we got some work done
• November: we spent a quiet Thanksgiving at a cabin on the coast in Westport
• December: we had a quick visit to my cousin's farm in Ridgefield, WA and saw several other family members in one visit
• December: for the last few days of the year we visited Vancouver for the second time in 2022.  My parents and our friends joined us and Jack and D snowboarded at Cypress Mountain.
• I really like going to Washington beaches, as you can see from this list.

Home

• Our biggest home improvement project was installing a bunch of stuff on the ceiling of our dining area, including a fan, lights and a projector screen.
• We also got a portable air-conditioned after the heat wave of 2021 and used it 3-4 days this past summer.   With the increasing heat and frequency of fires that necessitates closing the windows it is good to have something to bring it down a few degrees.
• Our washer also broke so we got a new washer and dryer.
• We learned to not attempt projects in the summer because of baseball and all the other fun things going on.

Health

• Dd's age group was finally eligible to be vaccinated at the beginning of the summer covid update - day *5 million and he got a booster in December, which has made us more relaxed.  
• He had pinkeye and then I got it over Christmas.
• We still haven't had Covid as far as we know, but I've had some bad lingering coughs.
• D broke his arm just before his baseball seasons started but was playing before the end of the season.
• Dd finished the last part of the autism study he's been in for several years, helping other kids' health.

Friends and Family

• No friends or family had babies this year and we didn't attend any weddings or graduations.
• Jack's great aunt, Patti, passed away suddenly in the spring.
• My sister, brother-in-law and parents all got Covid from travel but no one got terribly sick.
• My friend Jessica visited from Chicago and we had a beautiful weekend out and about in early November.
• Jack's grandma had a big 90th birthday party!

Recreation and Sports

• Jack's team won the championship for PSSBL and Derek played kid-pitch for the first a big year for baseball 
• I sailed 3 times and windsurfed once at Sand Point sailing in Lake Washington.   I had a cough that made me miss my final check-out for the quest boat we were in and I never managed to get back there during the rest of the summer.   Maybe I will in 2023.
• D worked hard at swimming and Dd also made some small progress: summer of swimming.   By the end of the year D was jumping off the diving board (at the amazing pool in Vancouver).
• Dd and I went to our last session of Sunshine Music Together.   He was one of the older kids but it was a fun experience on Saturdays in the spring.
• D also played fall soccer with the same team of the last few years.   At 8 kids are already breaking out in to higher levels of play.
• Dd got a bigger strider bike (he's so tall) and got the hang of balancing on it over the spring and summer.

Climate Conscience

• I highly recommend the book Under the Sky We Make which I finished in last January.
• I did some research on divesting our investments from fossil fuels, but haven't actually made changes yet
• We bought only recycled TP in 2022 (from Who Gives a Crap)
• And we bought an awesome EV in October: electric blue 

Me and Jack at the UW cherry blossoms, just so we're depicted here