Instead of sending a paper letter this year, we thought it'd be more fun to send postcards from our London holiday adventure and put our yearly updates online.
We started this blog with a plan to write about our food adventures, so let's start there. We spoiled ourselves when it came to restaurants this year, but our biggest celebration meal came attached to our biggest highlight of the year, which is that after 10 years of college teaching at three different institutions, Tim has tenure! We toasted the occasion at Eleven Madison Park in New York City. We racked up a lot of Michelin star meals in cool places, including Blue Hill and Gramercy Tavern and Kyo Ya in NYC, L'Astrance in Paris, and soon, we'll try Texture in London.
Aside from food tourism at home and abroad, most of our adventures have followed the usual themes: travel for work, fun and friends; theater; soccer. Kate didn't play any Scrabble in 2018, which was weird (though we spent our usual weekend in New Orleans in January for the tournament she helps to organize)--she played a lot of Pokemon Go instead, and she also picked up a Nintendo Switch and has enjoyed Zelda, Let's Go Eevee, and Katamari Damacy, among other games. She also nominally picked up bullet journaling, though it's mostly just an excuse to buy pretty pens and washi tape.
A couple of other departures from the norm: we took our oldest nephew, James, to visit a few colleges on the east coast. It was fun to pretend to be parents for a minute and also to learn about a few colleges we knew less about. We also spent a little more than a week on a European summer vacation: a few days in Madrid, a few in Paris where we were guests at the beautiful wedding of our friends Nadine and Ian, then a day each in Amsterdam and Brussels. We are now addicted to European gummi candy -- it’s somehow better than the Haribo you can get in the States. We met up with Nadine and Ian again in Chicago and cheered Nadine on as she ran a marathon in the rain, then visited with our friends Jessi and Kyle in Michigan before a quick visit to Ann Arbor. It was nice to be in the Midwest in fall rather than frigid winter. We also joined a gym near our house--Kate finds it motivating to have the trainers create new workouts for her every time, so we'll try to stick with that plan in the new year.
In the spring semester, Tim will be on a well-earned sabbatical, so he'll have some flexibility for new adventures at home--he might build a woodshed. The excitement never ends in the FC household.
If you're in or near NJ/NY, let us know! We'd love to welcome more guests to our place in 2019. The cats need constant love and affection, so you'll be doing us a favor if you come and pet them.
xoxo
Kate & Tim
x
