Looking back at 2022

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.