2025

(year in review)

Welcome, baby Peter! The newest member of our gang arrived on November 25, leading to a memorable Thanksgiving as our first day home from the hospital. Everyone is happy and healthy.

Wystan participated in her first Crossfit Open this spring and enjoyed testing her physical skills and limits -- a nice opportunity, especially since she found out she was pregnant just after the competition finished (ushering in a natural paradigm shift in exercise programming). She continued to “test the limits” when she and Joe flew to Greece in late August for the wedding of dear friends, hiking ancient ruins in the mid-afternoon heat and staying up until 5AM at the reception to dance and celebrate the newly married couple.

For this European adventure, Margaret stayed behind with her beloved “Tommy and Potah” (Wystan’s parents) in Rhode Island, keeping up with her parents’ travels through a lovingly curated slide deck featuring the travel route and texted pictures (she will proudly point out, “Parthenon, at Greece!” when observing the collection of magnets on our dishwasher). Given that she still talks about the carousel rides, mini train rides, and elephant she saw at the zoo while we were away, it seems like she didn’t suffer too much in our absence. It's been a joyful year watching her grow: in January we had an early walker and by December we had a complex talker. “I'm a character!” Maggie recently told us – undoubtedly true, but not something she heard from us. We assured her that she is in good company at home.

A highlight for Joe this year was attending the University of Rhode Island vs. Western Michigan University football game from the sidelines with his dad -- at Western Michigan (one of the perks of his new role as Faculty Athletics Representative at URI)! Serving the university in this fashion has been a wonderful confluence of interests, work, and passion for Joe, as attending a variety of athletic events and occasionally working out with the students in the varsity gym is now part of his job. Joe gamely took on several deck projects this year (“You're boy nesting!” a friend proclaimed). This necessitated many trips to the hardware store, often accompanied by Maggie, as well as recreational visits featuring quests like where are the purple lights, what are fasteners, and watching the guy at Lowe’s cut plywood scraps just for a certain toddler’s educational benefit. Identifying paint chip colors has been an unexpected vocabulary expansion opportunity (“Luscious Green! Sumptuous Purple!”).

The year flew by in a (predominantly) pleasant blur, filled with things like weekly dinners at Poco Loco (the taco joint down the street), walks to the local library and bakery, and Food Truck Fridays at Roger Williams Park. While day to day operations can be a little scrappy for our brand new family of four, we are all figuring it out together. During evening renditions of “Frosty the Snowman” and “Baby Beluga” by Dada on the banjo while Maggie dances and Mama holds newborn Pete, we are living the dream.