Dear Family and Friends,

I am thrilled to celebrate this season where we set out a colossal kitty water bowl and then stick a tree in the middle of it. This year, after uninstalling Twitter and Instagram and still refusing to touch Facebook, I saved all my [ahem, smug] social vomiting for this annual letter, which you have full permission to toss without me ever knowing.

2022 was a big year for us! In addition to finally getting to do our Big Adventure, Dwayne celebrated 25 years at Microsoft and 20 years of marriage (to me, I think), we paid off our home of 19 years, and we haven’t misplaced any children, gladly. Or cats. Sadly.  

It was while we were in Ecuador last December that it started seeming possible, even likely, that our Try It Again Trip would happen. Even in the excitement of Quito, Dwayne and I would sometimes look at each other and mouth “six weeks”—the subtext being “we’ll need to panic soon”. And, to understate the amount of work this involved, we packed suitcases, withdrew the kids from school, and in February, flew from Seattle to shiny Dubai, where we began a 4-month journey through Africa and Europe.

Dubai is too good to be true and was a great kick off to 3 weeks in Kenya, a country with almost no Venn overlap with the UAE. We spent most of our time in Kenya safari-ing. In Nairobi, the girls adopted a baby elephant without their cats’ permission and we all took our first swim in the Indian Ocean. Then we checked off our Egypt and Jordan bucket list items, while the youngers had nearly fatal ennui at the Giza pyramids. Between Ecuador and Kenya, we straddled the equator twice—and were amused by identical scams at each.

From Jordan, Cyprus was the entrance to our exploration of the Mediterranean, which in addition to our northern African travels, gave us a touchpoint into most of the Roman Empire, through France, Spain, and Italy (with Vatican bonus). Dwayne, Kyla and I hiked the Italian Cinque Terre, where we came across the moniker “expert excursionist” that I want to adopt as a life motto. Leaving the Boot, I changed into sandals, because Slovenia, Croatia and Greece charmed my socks off! We ended by straddling Europe and Asia in Istanbul before flying home.

I am incredibly grateful that English is the most popular 2^nd language in the world; our monolingual selves were able to navigate 14 non-English speaking countries because so many others bothered to learn another language or four. This was particularly useful when Piper and Wes stopped going out with us on anything I had to label “I will enjoy this enough for the both of you”. That twinge of guilt was quickly drowned out by the realization that everyone was happier this way. Piper and Wes called a full truce when left on their own, and Piper would decide where to go and carry the money, and Wes would do all the peopley stuff.

Our Big Trip only took up one third of the year, so we’ve embarked on other adventures back home, which mostly involved regular life and avoiding positive Covid tests.

Seemingly overnight, Wes matured from an infuriating imp whose motto could have been, and I quote, “I don’t like anything” to a pleasant-ish almost-13-year-old who we love hanging out with. Before we left last winter, he enjoyed “sipsies” of Dwayne’s morning coffee. By Sicily, he was ordering his own afternoon cappuccinos. He also has turned a corner with school, as he gets himself to the bus before the rest of us are out of bed and enjoys all his classes, even recommending a book for me that he read in English. (It may, ahem, have been the first book he’s read in years. I’m glad he liked it!) He is particularly engaged in his CAD class and wants to take as many tech and parkour classes as he can. I definitely enjoy a creative Wes over a destructive one!

Piper engaged in the trip through animals and cooking classes—which still left her plenty of time while traveling for developing abject misery. She never, ever, never wants to travel again, with a tiny possible exception of another safari. Wholly unrelated, she’s 14 this year. When she gets to do what she wants, she is absurdly delightful. Fortunately for me, one of the things she wants to do is take over the cooking and baking—I stepped out of the way so quickly, a hurricane brewed in the Carolinas. She’s a freshman in high school this year and wishes homework didn’t take so much time away from crocheting riveting hats for our gargoyle, Ernie. In addition to cooking and crafting, Piper has found a calling for volunteering in the 3’s Sunday school class at church.

If Piper is the one we broke on the trip, Kyla is the one who thrived. She joined Dwayne and me on almost all the tours and explorations, and thanks to paying attention in all her classes, could actually tell me the what and why of what we saw. She’s also the one who will always jump into any blue lagoon with me. As Kyla points out, you won’t remember tomorrow how cold you were today. She is my favorite let’s-do-something-stupid adventure buddy. From berry picking to advanced math, and metal design to Middle Eastern desserts, Kyla is like Dwayne in that she will need several lifetimes to explore all the things that interest her. One of her (and everyone else’s!) favorite things about this year was having Cousin Esther stay with us for the summer. 

If Dwayne ever leaves me, it will be for an older model, made of marble, mortar, and generous arches. This summer, he did a drone survey of our property that sounds expensive for our future. He was inspired by Greek temples, Roman arches and fountain extravaganzas. I’m crossing fingers that the project stays in the drafting phase indefinitely, but it was a known risk when we traveled to witness what scheming men with slave labor could accomplish architecturally. 

Wes called me “Momstrosity” this year and of all the labels I have—substitute, small business owner, tutor, volunteer—this one is my favorite. Not because I love my kids that much, but because it’s a particularly clever wordplay. Ah, Wes gets me, he really gets me. More than reading (and apparently my family), I love adventuring. Dwayne and I could have lived out of our luggage for many more months. So it was quite the wake-up call to return home and have two properties and an RV with 4 months of backlogged maintenance needing me–and a minivan that promptly fell apart when I washed it for the first time in 3 years, proving my hypothesis that it is held together with love and dirt. I embrace it all for this age and stage, but someday I will own so little that I can live large. In the meantime, I adorably spreadsheet all the books I read (see blog for my ’22 favorites), play, and work, and dearly love all the peopley parts of my life, of which you, dear reader, are one.   

Happy Christmas and Merry Everything!

Denise, for Dwayne, Kyla, Piper, Wes