Merry Christmas 2023
This was a crazy busy year, but maybe I feel that way every year. Noah and Josie had big milestones this year, and we went on two family road trips. I tried to capture the highlights in our annual video above.
Author: jerry
Holiday Concert
The SLSO is temporarily performing out of the Stifel Theater downtown while Powell Hall is being renovated, but we maintained our annual tradition to see their Christmas Concert. This year included a couple of notable pieces – Charleston Christmas (Stephenson) and Tom Lehrer’s Hannukah in Santa Monica!
Sister Behind the Wheel
Josie took the written test today and passed on her first try! Time to start practicing and logging her 40 hours behind the wheel. I’m proud of my little girl.
Thanksgiving 2023
As per usual, we hosted the family for Thanksgiving, although the crowd wasn’t as big as some years because Laura didn’t come in town, we still had a good time and plenty of Dixie’s great food!
New Workshop
Well, it’s not exactly new. It’s been my workshop since we moved into this house in 2006, but for the last three years (since we sold the house in Illinois), it’s been so full of junk that I couldn’t even walk in there. So I’ve spent the last couple of months cleaning it up, selling stuff on Craigslist, dumping stuff...
Homecoming 2023
I was happy to see that the kids enjoyed last year’s homecoming enough to repeat the experience this year. They had more of their friends attend this year, so they really had fun. I guess next year we’ll be going to Mizzou’s homecoming. I’m looking forward to that.
Eagle Court of Honor
Tonight we celebrated Noah earning the rank of Eagle Scout, and (since he’ll age out next week) his entire Scouting career with the retrospective video below. We rented the lodge at Beaumont and had quite a few guests attend, many of whom had great things to say about our young man. Needless to say, we’re very proud of him.
Memphis 2023
We took the kids to Memphis for a long weekend and stayed right down on Beale Street. It was a nice little getaway and we saw some cool stuff and ate some great food. Photos are now up in my album and check out the video below.
Seattle
After 27 years at Boeing, I finally got an opportunity to travel to the company’s heritage site of Seattle, Washington. We recently reorganized and our team is now part of an enterprise group that does modeling and simulation. This was a summit meeting of the new management team and despite a couple of long days, we still had a bit...
Abby’s Wedding
My goddaughter Abby Zyk got married at the St. Louis Basilica. It was a beautiful ceremony and a great reception at Twisted Tree. We are grateful for being a part of their special day and we wish her and Joe all the happiness in the world.
Great Lakes 2023
We just got back from our loop around the Great Lakes. We drove 1,600 miles, with stops in Mackinac Island, Ottawa, Montreal, and Niagara Falls, among others. We took almost 2,000 photos, some of which are now in my photo album. We saw a lot of stuff and made some great memories. See the video below.
Jesus Christ Superstar
The musical Jesus Christ Superstar is currently touring to celebrate its 50th anniversary and it made a stop at the Fox, so I took the kids to see it. They really liked it, and now I’m hearing the songs coming out of Alexa.
Pottery Class
As part of art this year, I signed us all up for a six-week pottery class at Lamplight Studio in Overland. We had a good time learning to throw pots on the wheel as well as hand-building some other creations. The kids had fun and now we have a bunch of candy dishes that need to be filled up with...
Run Noah, Run!
Noah ran his first half-marathon today after several weeks of training. He finished in two hours, twenty-two minutes. He was pretty wiped out at the end – tired and hungry. But we’re proud of him for challenging himself and finishing!
Disagreement With Gravity
Josie’s rock-climbing class just happened to be on her birthday this week, so I went along to get some photos of her bouldering. She’s really enjoying this hobby, and getting better every week.
Happy Birthday Josie!
For her birthday this year, Josie chose to return to the Mastermind Escape Room in St. Charles. We had to find the Mona Lisa in DaVinci’s workshop and we completed it with 13 minutes to spare! Way to go, Pipes family!
