January was a major time of transition for Karen, who quit her job at Pega after 19 and a half years to start a new career as a technology consultant for nonprofits. One of her first adventures was a Caribbean cruise with Heather. This was Karen's first time on a "mega ship"(‎4,100 passenger capacity), which was impressively large and had a fun, giant waterslide and great shows. Heather and Karen also spent a lot of time listening to a talented guitarist/singer who played most nights.

Karen and Heather enjoying cruise life

Sadly, about this time Baba Natasha died. She lived a full life and touched many people. We are so grateful that our kids had a chance to know her well. She was a light in all our lives who is sorely missed.

A few pictures of our beloved Baba Natasha

In February, we went on our traditional skiing trip to Utah. We had some beautiful powder and great family time.

Fun on the slopes and in the unit

We also continued our tradition of making hamentashen, triangular-shaped cookies made to commemorate the Jewish celebration of Purim. We like to make them with all sorts of jams, like cherry, raspberry, and lemon, as well as nutella.

Having fun with hamentashen

At the end of March, Karen travelled to San Francisco for the Salesforce developer conference. The conference was very interesting, and she was glad to meet up with several old friends.

Karen meeting up with her college friend, Steve

We had a lovely Easter weekend with the Langs in Connecticut, and our usual fun at the game conference, PAX East. We tried out several new board games and generally enjoyed soaking in the geeky atmosphere.

Seeing the sights at PAX

In the first week of May, Karen embarked on an exciting Peruvian adventure with her Dad and some other family friends. The trip lasted several weeks and included time in Cusco, a solo trip to Rainbow Mountain while her Dad hiked the Inca Trail, Machu Picchu, and a homestay at Lake Titicaca. Memorable moments included Karen's first shoe shine, horseback riding and then huffing and puffing the last bit up to 17,060 feet at Rainbow Mountain, the anticipation of reuniting with the other half of the party at Machu Picchu, climbing up Mount Machu Picchu, the party train with dancing and learning how to make Pisco Sours, and SO MANY adorable llamas! More Peru Pictures

Clockwise from top left: The whole gang, Rainbow Mountain, Dad at Lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu

Next up was Gregory's Junior Prom and Julia's "Coming of Age" speech at church.

Greg at the pre-prom party

Then the travels continued with an anniversary cruise for Leo and Karen to celebrate 20 years of marriage! They took a romantic weeklong cruise in the Adriatic Sea which departed from Venice and had stops in Croatia, Montenegro, and Greece. More Cruise Pictures

The happy couple in Kotor, Montenegro and exploring their favorite stop, Santorini, Greece

June brought some important family events, including one of the highlights of the year, Grace's Bat Mitzvah. Photos weren't allowed for the actual event, but it was beautiful and moving. Gregory and Julia were honored to be asked to open the ark during the ceremony, and Karen and Leo recited a prayer for peace.

Some extended family had come to town for the celebration, so we enjoyed some fun family time, including a trip to Provincetown (the ferry was a bit nausea inducing for some but we really enjoyed walking around the town) and a tour of Fort Independence on Castle Island (the first time we've been inside despite our earlier years living nearby in Quincy). Karen and Linda had some additional adventures visting the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum with cousin Marie and going to Capron Park Zoo with Heather and her kids (Karen had a hilarious ride on the tiny, coin-operated carousel for which she may have been a tad too large).

Lots of family fun time

Around this time the kids headed off for their summer adventures. Julia spent two weeks at Emagination game camp. She was the only girl there, but had fun, and was a bit of a celebrity because several of the guests from the game industry knew her through Leo. Next, she spent a month in Seville, Spain in a Spanish immersion program. She thrived as she studied, took day trips, and lived with a wonderful, warm host family who didn't speak any English. She got really into the Spanish immersion aspect, so she started sending text updates exclusively in Spanish. This was funny since Leo and Karen couldn't read Spanish. They used Google translate to read the texts and then compose texts back. Meanwhile, Gregory attended MathILY, a math camp in Philadelphia. It was apparently a great camp and he had a fantastic time, although it was difficult to get many details out of him.

Greg at math camp and Julia in Spain

Leo and Karen had fun during the summer too, with weekend trips to our favorite spots in Southern Vermont, plays and nature in the Berkshires, and a fun day trip to Newport.

Visiting Edith Wharton's house, The Mount, in the Berkshires with Leo's Mom and Sister

We enjoyed our bike and barge trip in Prague so much a few years ago that we decided to do a similar trip in Germany this summer. Eight of us travelled first to Berlin, for a few days of sights in the big city and learning about the Cold War and Berlin Wall, and then a week biking and boating down the Main River in beautiful Franconia. We biked through lots of adorable little German towns, feasted on our boat chef Alv's delicious meals, and Greg, Leo, Karen, and Karen's Dad (aka Bepa) played bridge nearly every night. The barge we were on was quite a bit smaller than our last trip and we made up half the passengers, so we got to know everyone and all became friends. We rode together and every day one person was assigned to be the "sweep", who went last and made sure no one got lost. Our guide also assigned a "corner" every time there was a turn, who would point the correct direction. All in all, we had another fantastic bike trip. More Germany pictures

Scenes from Germany

The day after getting back from Germany, Karen and her cousin Jimmy had a "cousin day" which was full of new adventures, including a trapeze and lyra lesson, board games and pastries, and a paint bar.

Cousin day

Grace and Bepa joined the four of us at Six Flags New England. Greg had a Rubik's cube that he left in his pocket on a roller coaster that met its end, dramatically smashed to pieces on the ground, but it was generally a very fun day.

Six Flags

We mixed it up a bit this year so instead of our usual Labor Day camping trip, this year we did a Labor Day Tree House camping trip (or "tramping", as the kids called it, ha ha). We actually had three tree houses, two were full houses on stilts, with wifi, plumbing, kitchen, beds, etc. and the last was a much small, primitive tree house out in the woods with an outhouse and a few small lights run by a battery. The kids stayed out there and had their own adventure while the adults basked in the comforts of modern life. The tree houses were on a property that also included a disc golf course, and a nice hike to the top of the local hill where you could ring a bell and climb a tower.

"Tree house camping" (that wasn't really camping)

Since Spring we had been doing various local college tours (Tufts, Harvard, Northeastern, MIT, Brown, etc.), but in September we embarked on a four day road trip to visit a few schools that were farther afield: Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, and RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute). It was pouring rain for much of the time, but we made the best of it. In fact, Julia loves walking in the rain so she was quite happy. We enjoy listening to audio books on long drives, so the time went by quickly. For our extra time in Pittsburgh we visited the Natural History museum and had a wonderful lunch and supplemental tour of CMU by Barb's college friend, Walter. With our extra time in Ithaca, we took a hike to a waterfall.

Pouring rain and puddles in Pittsburg and a waterfall in Ithaca

We had a delicious Japanese/Korean dinner for Leo's Mom's Birthday

Baba's birthday

For Halloween, Julia hung out with friends while the rest of us played a fun and spooky session of the board game "Betrayal at House on The Hill" at Ken Marin's house. Oh, and Karen and Blissy had matching costumes!

Karen and Bliss in their vampire capes

For Thanksgiving we headed down to visit the Langs in Connecticut. There was an extra large crowd this year because although Jimmy and Thomas were in Ohio, we had special guest Bepa plus cousins Chris and Marechiel and two of their adult children. We played games, helped put up the Christmas light display, opened presents, and feasted on amazing food. We truly appreciate the wonderful family time together.

The Thanksmas crowd

The last hurrah for the year was a week in the Florida Keys with 12 of us sharing an Airbnb house. We visited the "Coral Castle" (which is neither made of coral nor a castle), kayaked through the mangroves, visited Key West (including all the polydactyl cats at Ernest Hemingway's house), swam in the pool and at the beach, took a visit to the turtle hospital, and enjoyed Baba's delicious food. More Florida Keys pictures

The Florida Keys. Aren't those cat shirts the perfect present?

Leo continues to have fun working on Game of Thrones: Conquest at Turbine (now known as WB Games Boston). He got to go to the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco and was super excited that Karen was able to come along to Las Vegas when he went there for the AWS re:Invent conference. In his spare time, he continues to play bridge, MTG (Magic the Gathering), and many mobile games. He also picked up the Rubik's cube bug from Gregory and is often seen playing with his 4x4 and 5x5 cubes, which he has both at home and at work. On the home front, he's proud of his invention of the "dish meister" role. On a rotating weekly basis, one person is in charge of making sure all the dishes are done. It's such a wonderful feeling to have someone other than us parents nag about bussing dishes and putting them in the dishwasher! This combined with our Blue Apron teams twice a week (two people cook and two people clean up), makes us happy that we're at least trying to teach our kids some good habits. We won't mention the "scrounge for yourself" nights that sometimes happen when there is no dinner plan. Cheerios for dinner anyone?

Leo hanging out with work friends

Karen's been really enjoying her new career as a technology consultant for nonprofits. She's earned two Salesforce certifications and worked with some great nonprofit organizations, including Eliminate Poverty Now, Keshet, and Outward Bound. She loves working from home (woo hoo, no more commuting!), spending more time with the kids, cooking and baking more, taking time for travel, decluttering the house, and doing more activities like a fun Cardio Hip Hop class three times a week at the local YMCA (first exercise class she's ever actually enjoyed!) and serving on the ministerial search committee for the Unitarian Church of Sharon. She and Leo have also been loving seeing Jimmy and Thomas more often due to the legacy board games they're playing (they've completed Charterstone and are in the middle of Pandemic Legacy now).

Karen enjoying life!

Gregory didn't want to write his own paragraph so he gave me (Karen) full editorial control to put whatever I want here! Muhahah! Oh the power! Let's see. He's a Senior. He still loves math. His new favorite hobby is writing college essays at the last possible moment. He's planning to apply to Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, MIT, Northeastern, RPI, and the University of Waterloo. A few hobbies that he picked up this year were chess, speed solving rubik's cubes, and playing bridge. In other news, he loves his wonderful mother dearly and promises here and now to send her pictures and write regular emails after he goes to college.

Gregory's senior picture

Julia is now a sophomore. She was very excited to make the high school tennis team last Spring, along with several of her good friends. Highlights this year included the Sharon Science Olympiad team getting in the top 10 at States, getting to know new friends and her host family in Seville, Spain, 3D printing models in her Engineering Design class (like a turtle, lovingly named Yertle after the turtle from Stranger Things #JusticeForYertle), playing marimba again with the Sharon High School Marimba Ensemble, and spending time with her three little cutie cats ("they should be arrested for being so cute!").

Julia in Spain, and a picture of her laptop case which is "too cute to not include"

Our cats are happy to report that they have had another year of being adored by their human subjects.

Momo is wishing you happy holidays, Bliss is blissful, and Rosie is concerned that you're looking at her

We're very grateful to have had such a wonderful 2018 and we're wishing all our friends and family a happy and healthy 2019!