Another fantastic trip around the sun flew by....Here are highlights...
For spring break, we went to Colorado and got almost 2 feet of snow in a couple of days. While that made for a hairy drive to the slopes, once we got there, the snowboarding was excellent.
John flies along on his board, and Katelyn casually switches back and forth between goofy and regular like that's totally no big deal.
I'm happy to say that my knee and butt pads are getting more use when I'm avoiding people at the top of the ski lift than on the slopes....That's progress...
These trips are favorites for all of us.
In April, Dallas was directly in the path of the total solar eclipse and it got very dark for about 4 minutes. It was a cool (and somewhat bizarre) experience.
No wonder the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court freaked people out!
John did his usual trip to Mexico to go caving. He did one stretch of 7 days underground, while Katelyn and I enjoyed that time at home, above ground, and happily able to see the sky. We're still not convinced that cold, wet and underground qualifies as a vacation.
We went back to Colorado in the summer, and we summited Mt Columbia (14,077') ... woo-hoo!
The views from the top were as amazing as you'd expect.
It was an epic hike and Katelyn was happy to bag a fourteener while she was 14.
While in Colorado, Katelyn and I tried river surfing. (John, of course, has been doing it for a few years.)
Even wearing wet suits, the water was *cold*. But it was super fun.
At the end of the summer, we joined 25 other members of my family in Costa Rica to celebrate my parents' 60th anniversary. It was an amazing trip to celebrate an amazing milestone.
Katelyn started high school in the Fall. (How'd *that* happen so fast?!) She's loving her classes, playing flute in the band, and everything that goes along with being in high school.
Since our football team made it to the state championships, we had many, many games for the band to play at, including the championships in Cowboy Stadium, which was very cool.
In November, we heard about a Polish exchange student who was looking for a host family for the rest of the school year, so Lena moved in with us right before Thanksgiving. We're all enjoying the experience and we've added Poland to our travel list to visit sometime soon.
We ended the year at surf camp in Costa Rica. We all had a blast learning to surf and spending a week at the beach.
We wish you good health, big hugs, much joy and many adventures in 2025.
Love,
Donna, John, Katelyn & Lovebug
