20250110

2024 Recap

I’m bad at remembering things so it’s helpful to write stuff down. Thus: a recap post for 2024.

2024 was great, and went weirdly according to plan, I think.

January

My grandpa passed away right after Christmas, so we went right back to St Louis for the funeral. Lots of feelings there.
BNB retreat to New Orleans, Erika came along and it was fun. I’d never been. Cold and rainy but warmer than LFK! We saw the first parade of Mardi Gras season (the Joan of Arc) and it was a revelation about what a parade could look like.
We continued to move the Local Crush Penny Press around Lawrence
Felix played in the Sousa Honor Band at the Lied Center
Erika and I started doing weekly ‘family meetings’
We found F&T on google street view (walking home from school!)

We went to go see some symphony performers in KC at a coffee shop
We went to see the KC Symphony for the first time (doing Phil Collins songs! Which was fine except they had terrible cruise-ship-level singers doing vocals!)
We started to really hone in our plans for #europe2024, including the join-up-with friends segment we lovingly called #scandimania and/or #rizzsommar
Our family profile in Euronews!
F had a small surgery for his ear, just a tubes thing, but they decided then, that he’d need some bigger work later this year
F competed in the county Youth Entrepreneurship thing and won 1st place (and some big $)
Went to Sheyda’s book launch party

E & kids went to visit friends in Des Moines for part of their spring break
T started on a kids rock-climbing team, although the coach was such a flake half the time it was just unstructured climbing time :upside-down-smiling-face.
We went to STL for Easter. Sunday service at K&B’s church, where we’d never visited before!
E & I looked VERY hard at buying an old karate studio to use for big weird art projects.

Total Solar Eclipse! I had this on my calendar since the last one. We drove to southern missouri to stay at a glampground, run by a friend of E’s. Other friends joined us. The eclipse was amazing.
We found out that our month-long airbnb in Munich was canceled and so we had to scramble to book other accommodation.
I went straight from STL to DC for a few days of planning with the institute team. Met up with Eric and saw Sir Chloe & Daffo.
Felix went to the state Youth Entrepreneurship thing at K State, we were very impressed with that operation.
F & I saw the new STL soccer team against SportingKC
T & F were both in the spring play at LMCMS
Felix did the Douglas County pitch event (everybody else was an adult!)
I got my first physical in years, and a heart scan (uh oh) and one of those bodyfat scans too. We’ll throw some diet and exercise at this and see where we are in a year.
We built a new ‘rustic’ firepit in the backyard, inspired by the glampground

I saw the chamber music group ‘Chanticleer’
BNB went to Detroit for RailsConf. We met a lot of rails people!
We saw the Northern Lights! In Kansas!
We went to Europe! This was a big thing we’d planned for a long time. Erika documented this extensively. But the big plan was: a month in Munich (with some side trips) and then 2 weeks in Scandinavia. Trudy’s online school and my work continued thru the Germany part, so we did a lot of coworking late in the evening. I had one pretzel and one beer per day, MINIMUM.
First week was in Munich in the Mildred-Scheel-Bogen neighborhood, which we loved.

Switched locations to more southern edge of Munich.
Spent a long weekend in Paris!
Drove down to see Guedelon castle, which was a low-key obsession of mine during the pandemic. Very cool to see it in real life!
Switched to Kochel am See, south of Munich
Switched locations to a holiday inn in the city center.
Saw Erika’s aunt Karin
Watched some of the Euro soccer games - from a viewing area by one of our hotels and one big Germany game from a fanzone in Olympic Park
Felix did an online class to knock out his first high school credits.
Flew to Stockholm to meet friends!
We were there for Midsommar and it was light til midnight, and then from 3am onwards. Nuts.
Took a train to Oslo, stayed in a lake-house-type spot on an island in the south harbor.

Took a ferry to Copenhagen, got rental cars, drove to Bilund
Saw the Jelling stones!
Went to Lego House
Drove to Copenhagen
Flew to Reyjkavik for a 36 hour stopover. Blue Lagoon hotel - a big splurge - including driving across the active volcano spill near Grindavik.
NY friends came to visit Lawrence!
Felix had ear surgery
Saw a Mates of State reunion show at the Record Bar
Erika started new job at Connect
SD friends came to Lawrence to visit! Grays, Geitgeys, Clarks! Hung out, did the lake, fireworks, etc. County fair demolition derby!

STL trip. Cardinals game with DNA! City Museum!
F started HIGH SCHOOL at LHS
T started 8th at Sora & LMCMS
F started with the soccer team. Got C team at tryouts but immediately rostered up to JV. Played most of the minutes of every game.

BNB retreat to Lawrence, which means just a few people traveling but we get to do a bunch of stuff locally.
Saw Abby Holiday show at the bottleneck
A lot of school activities - choir and soccer and stuff

I volunteered at the Douglas County CORE entrepreneurship / pitch, doing some UX and strategy help for participants.
F played in the pep band at some football games
E & I did another round of Growth Group at church on Fridays
Went to Bob’s book launch party!
Saw the Northern Lights from Lawrence, again. This time from our front porch.
A reall strikingly beautiful autumn colors.
Halloween!

Dad retired, had lowkey celebration in STL
E & I went to Brooklyn for a big birthday weekend. Saw Kacey Musgraves live, and never went to Manhattan. Highlights for me was a highball at a japanese-style bar followed by Anora at BAM.
T in the school musical (emma!)
DNA came to visit
Saw the Hokusai exhibit at the Nelson
Pie Night in STL
Thanksgiving in Chicago, our usual circuit and fun with the crew there

BNB retreat to Austin. Actually Dripping Springs, outside Austin.
intentionally had a very low-key advent; trying to really dial in the ‘quiet waiting’ part of this season. We used a lot of candles around the house.
hosted Growth Group party
STL for Christmas
Erika went to Rochester MN with a friend over New Year’s

10/10, would do it again.

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