Christmas 2025

December 30th, 2025. We had a fun night the day before Christmas Eve when we hosted Elisa and Bob with their kids, and Kevin and Maryam and their kids. We played charades with a homemade charades game we made for the kids Westfield's 4th-grade class. And also just laughed about the sad state of the country and reminisced about old times. 

Now it's almost 2026!  Yikes, can't believe I'm going to be 68 years old in less than two months, and we are marching into my last full year here at MWU! It all seems so strange. The 'kids' are 23, so not really kids anymore more and they are moving on to another new chapter in their lives. Mik to graduate school studying ecology and environmental genetics (if I have that right?), and Lance to attend medical school (hopefully!). Why does life have to work this way? Why must we get older, change, and grow up and apart? I know it's stupid to even contemplate this, but why? I don't handle change well, and these changes are all going to be difficult!    

This was the Xmas tree at the Student Union at Purdue. 

Happy New Year, and may 2026 be better than 2025!  

Pending Retirement

 Eck, in just 15 months, I will be "retired."  That seems hard to believe and I'm struggling with how to feel about it. On one hand, I'm terrified and anxious, on the other, I'm curious to see if there is life on the other side. If I can make a life beyond MWU and my current place in the world. 

Here is my plan: Retire March 1st, 2027, then head out on a round-the-world bikepacking trip on about March 15th. That way, I can avoid actually thinking about being retired and about how depressed I am!  

This coming March, I will do a trial run on my new bike (see photo), riding from just south of LA back home to Chicago.  This will give me a chance to see if I have what it takes, as well as help figure out what more I need and tweak all my equipment and training. Here is my tentative route, but I'm really only going to map-out a few days in advance since its too hard to plan long term given the scale of the trip, weather, unforeseen circumstances, and my fickle body! Not to mention bike trouble. 🤞

  

Florida- the last visit

So sad to say goodbye to Fort Pierce, FL.  Erin and Joe are moving, but we had a blast with them for a final time in FP!  Spent lots of time with Kim, Carly, Sydney, Erin, and Joe, as well as Kya and Scott. 

Carly took us fishing and we caught enough for two nights of fish dinners. Kids swam every day, and the weather was awesome.  Hard to come back to snow and ice here.  Such a unique place and I have so many great memories of trips there!

Goodbye Fort Pierce!😥

Kids 23rd B-day and Thanksgiving, 2025

I can't believe L & M turned 23!  Just too hard to accept.  They have turned into the most wonderful people, kind, smart, motivated, athletic, and beautiful!  So proud of both of them!!!

These are some photos from their B-day celebration. Lance was out of town on their actual B-day so I included one from our Comedy night to see Ronnie Chang. Hillarious!