2024 Winter Newsletter: Salt Lake City

Another new year is upon us. How did that happen? In some ways it feels like the last four years flew by in an instant.

In other ways, it feels like we’ve lived a lifetime or more since 2020. Life is definitely not slowing down in my household these days. Our kids are in high school and middle school and keep us very busy. They are particularly great at making all sorts of plans even though they cannot yet drive and have very little money.

Our daughter, Coraline, is half-way through her first year of high school and is enjoying it. She has a few honors classes that she’s doing well in and has taken some fun elective classes that are helping her stretch and grow. She’s on the school’s JV Cheer team and loves it. The team cheers at all football and (boys and girls) basketball games, but they also compete in cheer competitions. The team took first place in their most recent competition and will be heading to California next month to compete at Nationals. This is a huge accomplishment for our daughter and her team – we couldn’t be more excited.

Our son, Michael, is still laser-focused on baseball. His competitive travel team played a little bit of baseball in the Fall. Then they officially kicked off the next season with a tournament in November in St. George, Utah and won the championship! Luckily, the boys have an indoor facility for winter practicing and we will hit the ground running the first part of February with tournaments, taking us through July this year and to states like Arizona, Nevada and Colorado. When Michael isn’t playing or practicing baseball, my wife and I help keep him focused on school. He’s finding his footing in his first year of middle school. He has his first Science Fair coming up and, of course, did his project on…you guessed it…baseball! (Does the temperature of the baseball affect how far it can be hit?)

My wife, Erika, continues to keep us all in the right place at the right time with the right gear and clean uniforms. She and I enjoyed another holiday season with the kids. I was lucky enough to be able to take a little time off during the kid’s school break to spend a few days in St. George as a family. We enjoyed warmer weather and sunny skies. But high school basketball season didn’t stop, so our trip was cut a little short this year so Coraline could get back and cheer at the games.

We are looking forward to 2024 and all of the ups and down and surprises it will bring. But really we are just hoping it doesn’t fly by too fast.