Well, 2024 sucked.
Just to get that out of the way. Yes, there were some great moments, but a large dark cloud loomed over much of it.
In early February, Brian's mother Nancy was diagnosed with glioblastoma - the most aggressive and most common type of brain cancer. And it sucks. Given it's generally aggressive nature and poor prognosis for anything slowing it down, Nancy opted for quality of life. So, February and March was lots of back and forth between Seattle and Ft. Collins for Brian and Elizabeth. Ben and Conner made trips when they could between work and school. In April, Brian and Elizabeth "mini-moved" to Ft. Collins to be closer to the family and help out as we could. Still very grateful to have been able to do that with remote work options. Nancy passed on July 6, 2025 at home surrounded by her family and lots and lots of love. In between then and February there were plenty of highlights including lots of time with family, laughs, and a few good cries to balance out the challenges.
You can learn more about Nancy's amazing life here - which does it much more justice than I could. Thank you to all the family and friends who donated in her name to OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute); an organization she was active with and passionate about. Thanks to everyone's generosity, there is now a beautiful bench outside their office in her name.
In May, we celebrated Conner's college graduation from Washington State University. His McMullen grandparents - Jim and Pat - were able to join Brian, Elizabeth, Ben, and Lilly for the occasion. In addition to graduating, we got to experience Pullman's finest, including of course
Ferdinand's on the WSU campus! This is the retail outlet for the WSU Creamery, home of wonderful ice creams and award-winning Cougar Gold cheese. (Which yes, you can order online.)
After graduation, Elizabeth, Jim, and Pat headed back to Washington to send Conner and Lilly off on a post graduation trip to Italy (which we all vicariously enjoyed through their updates).
In late July, Elizabeth was able to participate in the 2024 Mini Takes the States (MTTS) event put on by Mini USA (yea, like we needed more miles this year...). Joining in Bozeman, MT, she traveled the Bozeman > Missoula > Yakima > Seattle portion.
In August, Brian and Elizabeth "mini-moved" back to Seattle via the scenic route, spending time in Steamboat Springs, CO which we hadn't been back to since our honeymoon MANY (32) years ago. Some had changed but it was remarkably the same also. Brian spent time experiencing the mountain biking trails on the mountain (definitely new) and both of us generally decompressed. Our route took us through Teton National Park (our favorite!) and Yellowstone. Heading out of Yellowstone, we went by Earthquake Lake which was formed by the
1959 Yellowstone earthquake. It was amazing to learn about that (and yes, my eprep brain was going wildly).
We celebrated Brian's birthday in September with a spontaneous trip to Anchorage, Alaska - a place neither of us had been before. We *just* missed their amazing displays of northern lights, but it was quiet as everything was shutting down for the winter - including all the National Park offices! But still managed to get a few new stamps in the ole Parks passport book. We did get one of the last air tours of the season and while we booked for Prince William Sound, weather for it wasn't favorable so we switched to the Denali National Park tour and it was AMAZING! Definitely have ideas about how we'd approach a trip back there and more things we want to see (more glaciers!).
December saw us all back in Colorado for the holidays with our families.
It was a year and we're thankful for the time we had with all our families and friends.
