Johanna, Edison, Charlotte, & Reed’s 2023 Christmas Letter
Happiness is not fulfilling every pleasure or getting every outcome you desire.
Happiness is being able to enjoy life with a peaceful mind that is not constantly
craving for more. It is the inner peace that comes with embracing change.
– yung pueblo | being
I feel so much love and gratitude for my family and friends, in particular my mother, Bonnie, and my children. Though, as Kahlil Gibran eloquently points out, “your children, are not your children… they come through you, but are not from you, and though they are with you, they belong not to you.” And this is certainly becoming more apparent as we dive into teen years and high school. It is a wonder to see them grow and choose their paths. I have glimpses of what it will be like to know them as adults and I think it will be excellent. We give thanks for our family and friends: to go through life with people who care for one another, to be in community, makes all the difference.
Edison is fifteen and has joined me at Shorecrest High School as a freshman. Edison is an incredibly cooperative and affable young man. He makes sure Reed feels loved and included and helps me whenever I need it. He continues to grow taller and I can’t even believe my eyes as this transformation happens. He completed driver’s ed classes this summer and is dutifully practicing this year, driving us to school each morning. He excels at math, enjoys Spanish and World History, and continues to have the most fun playing the viola in Orchestra. He had an impressive Track & Field season, winning the District Title in the discus with a throw of 128’. He is dedicated to swimming, made it to the All City meet at the end of the summer, and just started his first year on the high school team. He and his friends went to the Homecoming Dance and he helped coach the freshman girls flag football team.
Charlotte is thirteen and in eighth grade. She is independent-minded, loves to read (maybe reads too much if that is possible because other things tend to get neglected). She enjoys ceramics class, and is a superstar in Geometry and French. She had a great spring lacrosse season and joined Track and Field last spring, trying many different events and finding that she preferred discus the best. She finished second at the District meet for 7th grade girls’ discus! She is pushing herself in swimming and qualified for the big All City meet and the PNS Short Course Swim Champs. This past fall, she had another great Cross Country season highlighted by having many friends on the team. She has been managing her cell phone well and has been setting up sleep overs and fun activities with her friends, growing more responsible and independent by the day. She will be going to her first middle school dance this week. She and I are currently watching the Gilmore Girls series together and she thinks I’m cool enough to be borrowing my clothes a lot which I’m secretly enjoying. In her spare time, she bakes and crafts small treasures.
Reed is ten and in fourth grade. He has a lot of friends and plays football or soccer at recess. Swimming continues to be his primary sport and he had an excellent showing at the All City swim meet and also at the end-of-the-year PNS Swim Champs this weekend, making it to finals in two of his events. Math is his favorite subject and once a week he has a special math program with several other students and they do really interesting math challenges. He is a big snuggler, can keep up with his siblings on all fronts, looks up to Edison, has a great sense of humor, and enjoys computer games.
Johanna. For my part, I’m continuing to challenge myself and try new things while I center equity, kindness, and support for my loved ones, balanced with a lot of self-reflection and a growth mindset. My three-year position on the Aqua Club Board has ended after a very busy summer that included being the co-meet director for the All City Swim Meet. I continue to support my father, whose Parkinson’s Disease has progressed to the point of living in a memory care unit and being in a special wheel chair. My duties as a mother mean there isn’t a lot of time during the week for much of anything other than supporting the kids. However, I still love my book club and am able to swim daily. Rivers and mountains are my happy places where I am able to re-energize my spirit on weekends. I really like to share adventures in those spaces with others. New this year: packrafting, rafting more rivers this spring, and backcountry skiing (using skins to ski tour uphill to be able to ski terrain that is beyond resort skiing). I completed the AIARE 1 Avalanche class and joined a women’s ski group. And I went on my first solo vacation to Sun Valley, Idaho for a week of hiking and hot springs. Amy and I had a few amazing hikes this year including the Enchantments through-hike again, but also branching out to do a Mount Baker hike with all the kids as well as backpacking trips in the Enchanted Valley (we were in the midst of a herd of elk!) and the High Divide/ Seven Lake Basin areas of the Olympic Peninsula (bears, oh my!). Amy & I manage to have a lot of fun on all our expeditions! I also got to go on a ladies’ hike to stunning Blanca Lake with Marina, Jess, and Pam. Not to mention tallying 37 days of skiing last season, mostly at Stevens Pass but also including a few trips to Whistler and one big one to Lake Tahoe during the February week they got feet and feet of powder. Life is long – I intend to live with purpose and intentionality and to bring love into everything I do.
Having seen that life only gets busier when kids start high school, I tried to take advantage by going on as many family adventures together as I could squeeze in this year. Here’s the 2023 rundown:
- Hawaii (Big Island) with my extended family last winter break. We had a blast exploring the entire island and alternating that busy-ness with lazy beach and pool time. It was very special to share this with the extended family, though Covid interfered a bit. Big thanks to Floyd and Kathie for making this happen.
- Park City for a ski weekend with the kids – we skied open-to-close each day, bagged a ton of vertical, and enjoyed the lightweight champagne powder which is such a contrast to the heavy, wet snow we get at home.
- Rosario Resort on Orcas Island in the San Juans for a February getaway. They have a small indoor pool in their spa, but the kids got permission to hop into the outdoor pool overlooking the bay even though it wasn’t heated. It was a pretty magical (and chilly) experience. We enjoyed views of the water, hiking, outdoor shuffleboard, a full moon, and exploring the Moran Mansion.
- We had an epic Spring Break trip to Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia with a quick stop in Annapolis. It was so fun to show the kids D.C., where I lived for three years, working at the Missile Defense Agency after 9/11 and attending grad school at GWU. We spent a few days exploring the museums on the Mall. Our favorite was the new African American History Museum. We rented bikes and rode around the parkway trails to Georgetown and also through the Mall to the Capitol for a tour. The nighttime monuments tour was really cool, too. In Philadelphia, we enjoyed seeing all the spots related to the Constitutional Convention, especially being able to go inside Independence Hall and stand in the room where the Constitution was drafted and ratified. The kids liked posing next to the Rocky statue and touring the Philadelphia Museum of Art ( famous for the Rocky steps) with friends of ours, Sharaya & Allison, and seeing the statues in the Rodin Museum.
- We did a 3-day float on the John Day River in Oregon in May. Floating the river all day and then camping out at night with a little fire is the absolute closest to perfection I’ve experienced.
- After the busy summer swim season, we headed down to Sun River in central Oregon. We got to see a ton of features related to past volcanic activity including Newberry Crater and Crater Lake. We also brought our raft and rafted both the McKenzie & Deschutes Rivers while we were there.
- We had a bonus vacation week and spent it on the Olympic Coast – first car camping and hiking with the Hass Family in the Hoh Rainforest and then doing a three-day backpacking trip just the kids and I near Hole-in-the-Wall on the coast. Camping on the beach and savoring playing in the surf and big sunsets never disappoints.
- We ended the summer Labor Day Weekend by all four of us swimming across Lake Washington and then heading to the cabin and floating down the Wenatchee River and listening to some live music at the winery.
- We spent a long weekend at Copalis Beach in November with the Hass Family and got to watch some big storms roll in over the ocean, go on beach walks, and we even completed the difficult puzzle we’d brought!
I’m so grateful that my kids and I are healthy, that they are doing well in school and turning into fine, caring young people. I both appreciate the little things in life (dinners, a cozy house, laughter, sharing time with family and friends) and strive to honor the gift of being alive by living each day to its fullest and living with purpose. Thank you for your part of supporting us in our journey and we hope we are reflecting that love back to you. I’m looking forward to a busy 2024 full of new experiences and learnings for each of us. Please keep us in your hearts, as we do the same with you.
All our love,
Johanna, Edison, Charlotte, and Reed
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