Becca
4th grade. Finished
the Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus books and favorite Character is Nico
D’Angelo. Trip highlight - being able to go to all the beaches - Scotland, Netherlands,
Greece. Ice cream in Greece, Netherlands.
Recs: Liked Wednesday.
Podcast - Hello from the Hallowood.
Aleah
12th Grade -Senior.
Got accepted into trade school at Missouri State Tech. Loves her construction
tech class at school and interesting economics discussions in AP econ. Likes
that she doesn’t have to take German this year.
Favorite trip thing -
marketplaces and museums - favorite was the Prague National History Museum. Ice
cream in Greece. Recs: Movie rec - Knives out and the Glass Onion. Podcast -
Dungeon’s and Daddies
Colleen
9th grade. This
year’s highlights: got driver’s permit, quitting swim team, color guard, book
club. Really came to love crocs. Best trip memory - walking around in
Edinburgh, walking to the beach in Castricum, Netherlands. So much walking.
Also Mother India restaurant in Edinburgh. Place - Parthenon. Most
disappointing - Big Ben. First Apartment in Greece.
Recs: Books - “Song of
Achilles.” Show - “Seven Lives of Lea.” Movie - “Spiderman - into the
Spiderverse.” Music - Lana del Rey, Favorite playlist - Nightime
Tunes. Labyrinth. Favorite app -
pinterest shuffles
Alex
8th Grade. Best thing
about this year - Making new friends. Playing DnD with Friends and hanging out
at Charlie’s. Best trip memories - pizza place in Edinburgh. Walking around
London with the sisters. Most disappointing - Big Ben.
Recs: Book - “Good Girl’s
Guide to Murder.” Movie - “Do Revenge”, because it is so silly. Show - The Good
Place - rewatched this year. Music - Automatic, Lush.
Emily + Celia
Finished and set
up senior capstone show, graduated went on a long trip with the family, got a
dog, started subbing everyday in Kirksville school district. Celia and Lee
played a lot of ttrpgs, several Magic the Gathering campaigns as well as
Vampire the Mascarade.
Celia’s favorite
part of the trip was Aegina island and swimming in the pool with the kids,
walks everyday, as well as getting to try a bunch of different coffee shops. Emily’s favorite trip memory was exploring the Hermitage in Edinburgh,
especially when she was able to adventure on her own - going “goat” and
following all the little animal paths and scaling big rocks to find berries.
Recs: Shows -
Wednesday on Netflix, Summer Camp Island on HBO. Books: Sapiens by Yuval
Harari, Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, and Brain Camp by Kim and Klavan.
Leila
Started substituting a few days a month at the elementary school. Planned and executed a 5 week European vacation with 8 people - we are a full tour group now. New patterns came out this fall. State Fair book and You Can quilt Book published with Amazon Kindle print on demand.
Leila's trip highlights - beach in Netherlands, Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Strawberries in Scotland, Ice cream in Netherlands, fresh juice in Island apartment. Bread/KFC in Czech. Tej in London, morning coffee with Brian in London. Pulling the whole thing off in spite of covid and so many trains, metros, buses, planes, ferries, Ubers, cabs, and rented bikes.
Recs - Books: Listened to
a lot on tape. Veronica Speedwell Mysteries.
Brian
Had a good year
working with cotton breeding at Bayer with new team members that started this
year. I also worked a lot on collaborations with Abacusbio, Roslin, TAMU, and
NC State. I struggled to focus and keep on top of my mountain of email and
meetings this year and was diagnosed with ADHD, which will not be a surprise to
anyone.
I traveled quite a bit
this year, in the US to NH, MS, TX, FL, AZ, Africa - Kenya for meetings with
CGIAR/IITA and Botswana to visit Amanda Jacobsen and family and to see some
rhinos, and our long summer trip to England, Scotland - dual purpose work trip
with Roslin Institute and meetings with Abacusbio, Netherlands, and Greece. We
had the best of intentions of visiting family over Christmas, but Southwest had a meltdown and our flights were cancelled. I enjoyed reconnecting with people
after two years of covid restrictions and hope to visit more friends and family
in 2023.
Best thing about our Euro
trip - morning walks to coffee shops before the rest of the family woke up.
Worst thing - getting covid in Netherlands, although Becca was the very best
quarantine buddy ever and made Netherlands my favorite place we visited. Second
worst thing was the first apartment in Athens, but escaping to Aegina island
was lovely and peaceful.
Recomendations: Books -
Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, The Anthropocene Reviewed. Shows - Andor
Movie - Everything, everywhere, all at once.
