2024: A Year in Review

Twelve seasons of Adventure Time (and its spin-offs). This show replaced The Adventures of Gumball as Oscar's obsession this year, which means that all of us are now familiar with Jake the Dog, Finn the Human, and the Ice King (a.k.a. three-quarters of our family Halloween costume this year).

Eleven races for Jeremy, most of them in Colorado. Living in a state with so many race options–and living at altitude full time–has been huge, though we definitely still take the opportunity to travel to gorgeous places for him to run. Not all of these races were finishes, and one wasn't even a start due to car problems in the race parking lot, but he got some good times and good pictures.

Ten years old. Somehow, our goofy, curious, creative, funny, smart, energetic baby has turned into a double-digits-aged kid with all those qualities (plus the occasional flare of tween attitude).

For his birthday, we took Oscar and some friends to a magic show and then stuffed them with ice cream before returning them to their parents. (Yes, this picture was taken in December in Colorado. Two days later we got four inches of snow.)

Nine cross stitch or embroidery projects that I started and/or finished this year. One was a finish for the Loose Ends Project, a group that pairs unfinished fiber arts with crafters who complete them. I stumbled across the group in 2023 and got paired almost right away; I finished it in February and sent it back to the family of the original stitcher. If you know of any unfinished projects that you'd like to see completed, reach out to Loose Ends–they have tons of finishers all over the world, but not enough projects for everyone.

Eight months with our new dog, Turtle McDurdle Day, a smart, silly heeler mix. We adopted him from the Humane Society in April after being dog-free since November 2020. Oscar named him after the dog in Judy Blume's Fudge series and Turtle Wexler from The Westing Game (one of my all-time favorite books).

Although he's pretty large, he's still a puppy–just turned one in November–and we have been getting good reminders of how puppies are different from grown-up dogs. He loves giving hugs, playing fetch, stealing shoes and anything else he can get his paws on, and treats. He does not love sitting still, riding in the car, or eating his regular meals. (Like our small human, he would rather just snack all day.)

Seven summer camps, some new and some repeats from 2023. This year Oscar split his time between the great outdoors, space camp, and art camps, with a bonus week of Lego camp. He got to build and shoot off rockets. He got to visit a wolf sanctuary. He got to create a bunch of puppets and perform in an original show. While trying to find and schedule summer camps is the equivalent of 3D chess for me, we have been really excited to see him trying out news things and getting to make new friends who love the same things he does.

Six belt colors in taekwondo. Since joining the Black Belt Club, Oscar has enjoyed weapons training (especially nunchucks) and sparring (though he still has to work on keeping his hands up). And in the fall, Jeremy decided to join Oscar and is now the oldest (but not necessarily the tallest) person in their class.

(Six is also the number of jackets, coats, and hoodies Oscar had left at school so far this year. He returned home with all of them in a giant pile that would make Sammy, the dead rat in the Wayside School books, proud.)

Five national parks, with plans for lots more. Jeremy and I hit Arches in August; the whole family made it to Wind Cave and Badlands in September, Rocky Mountain National Park in October, and the Great Sand Dunes in November. We're already planning a lot of our 2025 travel around other national parks (including a return to Arches, which has been my favorite so far). In case you have a fourth grader or will soon, check out the Every Kid Outdoors program, which provides free park passes.

Fourth grade! This school year has gotten off to a really good start for Oscar, who has a goal of making all A's this year. This year, they started drama class, which he (unsurprisingly) loves, and they've been doing coding and other cool stuff in their tech class. Math is still his favorite subject, which is fascinating to me, because I distinctly remember fourth grade being the year that long division broke my brain.

Three summer concerts– Oscar's first! We started with Fastball and Gin Blossoms in July at this great outdoor venue in Castle Rock; it was a gorgeous night.

Then we hit Empower Field in Denver to see Mammoth, the Pretenders, and Foo Fighters in August. We tapped out before the show was over, but it was a great time (and a good reminder of why we invested in noise-reduction earbuds for Oscar). Our final show was Toad the Wet Sprocket and Barenaked Ladies in September at the new concert venue in Colorado Springs, which isn't actually all the way finished yet. Our weather luck ran out–it was cold and rainy, to the point that we were soaked through by the time the Barenaked Ladies hit the stage. We bailed pretty early, which was a bummer. We made a mental note (and now I guess a less metaphorical note) to remember that September is not to early to bring out puffy coats in case the weather turns, which we will need to keep in mind when we see Weird Al there next year.

Two train rides. The whole family took the cog rail to the top of Pikes Peak in June, after our original trip in March (and then two or three more trips after that) got rescheduled because of wind. In July, Jeremy and I celebrated our twenty-first anniversary by taking the narrow rail train from Durango to Silverton, which gave us some of the most spectacular views we've seen in this state (and that really is saying quite a lot).

One grand plan for becoming a millionaire by walking dogs and winning Is It Cake?

Apparently, he plans to split his profits with us, so we're on board.