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| Happy Winter Solstice! |
January, February, March
-Josh competed in the Mesa Marathon and squeaked out another qualifying time for Boston, but the field was so competitive that when it came time to apply he opted not to. After six months of retirement, he is finding no shortage of ways to keep himself busy!
-Another birthday for Susan, but still no “sparkles” in her hair to reinforce the fact that this is the last year of her 40’s.
-Aaron began his second semester at Embry-Riddle in Prescott.
April, May
-Construction of our holiday flat in Tenby was completed! We are delighted to have our own little hobbit hole to escape to when the summer temperatures in Tucson are unbearable.
-Josh took a road trip to TX/OK/MO/TN to compete in Ironman 70.3 in Galveston and to visit friends.
-In April, Aaron participated in the Arizona NASA Space Grant Consortium Student Research Symposium to present the outcomes of research he was involved in regarding potential security improvements for baggage handling systems.
-Susan completed another full year of kindergarten with roughly the same amount of hair/sanity she began the year with and signed up to do it all over again after summer break.
June, July, August
-We spent most of June and July catching up with wonderful friends, eating delicious food, walking the beaches, strolling through town, and exploring as far as we could on foot around Tenby. We also snuck away for a week in the middle to visit family in Switzerland and to explore parts of Northern Italy and Milan. On the return trip from Poschiavo (as a result of track repairs for the Winter Olympics being carried out on the train route between Tirano and Milan) we found ourselves on a bus with a couple from Australia who felt like old friends by the time we reached our destination. Travel is like that — you just never know where you are going to encounter the people you didn’t know were missing from your family of choice. (Pics at the end!)
-Josh competed in Long Course Weekend, Wales and was awarded a plaque for being the fastest runner in his age group!
-Another school year began for Susan.
-Aaron traveled to Las Vegas to participate at DEF CON with a group of students from Embry-Riddle where they ran a “capture the flag” competition for attendees. While there, he met and began collaborating with a group of students from Michigan Tech University who were presenting findings on security risks in the hospitality industry. Also in August, the cohort Aaron presented with in April published their findings on Vulnerability Assessment of IoT Airport Luggage Management Systems.
September, October, November, December
-Josh ran the Tucson Marathon and finished with his second fastest marathon time! His final time of 3.14.49 puts him well under the 3.20 cut-off for applying to Boston, but we will still have to cross our fingers and toes until the applications have been processed next October to find out if it was a strong enough finish for us to be planning a trip to MA for April of 2027.
-Susan finished the US government/Constitution course and has begun studying for the exam she will need to renew her teaching credential in April. She continues to take courses for credit towards her GATE endorsement and is enrolled in a 2-year program that will culminate in a literacy endorsement.
-Aaron turned 20! He is glad to be home for a much needed break after completing the first semester of his sophomore year. This year, in addition to his coursework, he is continuing to research the risks and develop solutions to hospitality industry security through the Undergraduate Research Institute on campus.
Pictures from our summer travels as promised:
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| Tenby! |
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| Harbour Beach, Tenby |
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| Croeso i Nyth Tawel |
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| Caldy Island |
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| Castle Beach, Tenby |
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| Welcome Home bouquet from The (fabulous) Floral Goat |
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| North Beach, Tenby |
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| Croft House Garden, Tenby |
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| Hostaria del Borgo, Poschiavo |
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| Plata, Poschiavo |
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| Plata, Poschiavo |
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| Plata, Poschiavo |
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| Tirano, Italy |
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| Tirano, Italy |
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| Gelato in Tirano |
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| Lecco, Italy |
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| Lecco, Italy |
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| Duomo di Milano |
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| Castello Sforzesco, Milan |
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| Navigli, Milan |
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| Navigli, Milan |
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| Castle Beach, Tenby |
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A personal note from Susan:
It’s been harder than normal for me to sit down and write this end-of-the-year missive. Something out of place, something not quite right, something dusty, something shiny, something keeps catching my eye, diverting my attention, pulling me away from sitting quietly in reflection to pull out the memories and events that feel important enough to encapsulate here. My first therapist told me that I, like so many of the people who had sat on in his presence over the years, was likely to discover that I had the ability to effectively manage the chaos inside of my head or outside of my head, but not both at the same time. I cringed at that at the time, thinking of the baseboards that had kept me up the night before, wiping at specks of dust and spots that turned out to be brushstrokes in the paint. Almost 20 years later, it has taken a half-hour of wiping countertops, loading the dishwasher, investigating the contents of containers in the refrigerator and then reloading the dishwasher to accommodate the resulting empty dishes, folding blankets to hang just so on the back of the couch/loveseat, and aligning the legs of the barstools with the footrest at the base of the kitchen island to convince myself that the best thing to do is just sit down and start typing. It feels like an apology in advance is in order, but I don’t actually know what I would be apologizing for. I don’t even know if that sentence or this one will make the final cut before I push publish on this entry.
Normally my goal with this letter is to encapsulate the past year in a sentence or two, add a few bullet points to highlight the moments that stood out, then finish up with something funny or heartwarming or thought-provoking. And while this will probably turn into that, it somehow feels “off”… hollow… shallow. It just doesn’t feel right to post the good without also addressing the harm that lurks at the edges and threatens to swallow the good whole.
Most reading this will be familiar with the diary of Anne Frank in which she writes,
In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
What may be less familiar are the words that come after that assertion:
I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
This year it just feels incredibly important to not leave out the context — the chaos, the harm, the ongoing dehumanization and denial of basic dignity — in which this holiday season is embedded. Even so, I am at a loss for the words to adequately provide such context without fully obscuring the points of goodness that also exist. It feels a little like looking up at the night sky without having had enough time for your eyes to adjust. Even out here in the heart of the desert, on the outskirts of a community that has regulations to minimize the amount of light pollution, it sometimes takes minutes of turning your face to the sky with only the conviction that past experiences will hold before darkness transforms into a velvet tapestry bejeweled with countless glittering diamonds.
In 2023 the poet Andrea Gibson (1975-2025) wrote an essay entitled 17 Ways to Open Your Heart on their Substack Things That Don’t Suck. Andrea refers to the items in this list as their keychain — the practice that they use to keep an open heart despite the challenges of navigating life after an incurable cancer diagnosis. In the second item on their list, Andrea writes
Contemplate this sentence: “The universe is incapable of sending anything wrong for me my way.” Another way to work with this is to ask yourself, “How is this perfect?”...
I have taken that to mean: how is this moment perfect for the change that needs to take place in me, in my community, in the world, in order for us to grow and evolve together on this planet? How is this moment teaching me, showing me that I have the capacity to do that I never would have considered otherwise? What good can I do with what I have at my immediate disposal? How do I stay active in a fight for peace and “do no harm” including to those whose views I oppose? To borrow a phrase I wish I knew the origins of:
How do I act Hippocratic-ly without acting hypocritically?
My wish is that 2026 will bring all of you an abundance of love, joy, and peace. And for those of you struggling like me, I am also hoping for slivers of clarity to point the way forward.
