Chicago Shooks' Year in Review

So I believe in our post last year we mentioned how we started off 2022 with two rounds of COVID within the family.  Kids in December and parents in January.  It delayed our planned trip to Kansas twice!  First in December and then again over MLK weekend.  So, our first trip of the year finally happened in February in celebration of our 13-year dating anniversary.  We went to NYC for a long weekend (sans kids!) and saw two excellent Broadway shows, Six and Come From Away, as well as connecting with both friends from college and family in the Rutherfords!

Mom/Vicki ended up getting a double dose of the grandkids as she was flown in to watch them while we traveled, and then hosted us all a week later in our twice delayed Christmas trip!

The traveling did not stop as the calendar flipped to March.  Andrew and Dad/Tim visited Erik in Alaska for a 5 day trip over Southwestern's Spring Break.  It was the first time Andrew had seen Erik in over 2 years!

On the return trip, Dad had his flight canceled due to weather but at the last minute, he was able to talk the airline into sending him to Chicago so he spent an extra two days with Andrew and family instead of sitting alone in a Seattle hotel room.

In February, we welcomed a new nephew as Bennett was born to Katie's brother John.  In April, Katie was able to spend a weekend in Cincinnati with them to meet him for the first time.  Andrew had a work conference in late April that included the multinational team he has been working with to develop the new routing software at work.  Natalie turned 2 on April 25th and we celebrated with a smaller family gathering.

May brought about still more travel with Katie visiting her grandmother in North Carolina for Mother's Day and a weekend trip for all of us to Wisconsin for some R&R at her parent's house.  Finally, on the 24th, Theo celebrated his 5th birthday and saw Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Samuel come to town over Memorial Day Weekend.  While we had everyone in town, it felt like the appropriate time to have Natalie join the ranks of the baptized.  Despite being a relatively small ceremony in the little chapel at church, it was wonderful to have many of you join us digitally over a zoom livestream as well!

June saw a return to normal life rhythm and Andrew's 35th birthday.  The biggest note for the month was probably the arrival of our new Chrysler Pacifica Plug in Hybrid van!  The first 30 miles we drive each day after charging overnight is on electric and it was extremely welcome during the height of gas prices this summer.  In the closing days of the month, we took a trip to North Carolina to celebrate Katie's grandmother's 90th birthday.  

We returned just in time to celebrate the 4th of July before driving in the new van up to Minnesota for our annual trip to the lake house.  It felt a bit different knowing the massive changes in store for the property with the build of the new house launching in the fall.  It was bittersweet, spending the days in the trailer but the rest of our time there was full of the standard lake-based joy!

The end of July saw us attend a wedding of Katie's long-time friend from grad school in Philadelphia.  We were only there for two nights but it was a wonderful time reconnecting with friends who have scattered across the country.  We even had time to make the requisite stop at the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

August was a time of great change for the family.  As a 5-year-old, Theo made the transition from daycare to Kindergarten class at our neighborhood elementary school, Orrington.  It was another very bittersweet moment as we said goodbye to our friends at Bright Horizons daycare where Theo started when he was 4 months old!  We were considered a "Founding Family" since we joined shortly after it opened.  We spent 59 months and a number of dollars we don't want to think about at that school with Natalie joining him in the fall of 2020.  Natalie also moved to a new daycare closer to our current home where she is in the same class as the daughter of our neighbors/good friends down the block.

 

Newly bound by the school schedule, we had to be more intentional about when we planned big events and trips.  On Labor Day weekend, Theo and Andrew participated in Bike the Drive, where they shut down Lake Shore Drive for a morning and allow tens of thousands of cyclists to ride up and down the iconic roadway.

At the end of September we traveled to Austin to stand in support of Spencer's baptism and celebrate his newfound church family.  A week later we drove to French Lick Indiana (home of Larry Bird) to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of Katie's parents.  We were joined by both of Katie's siblings and their families.  

October saw another trip to Katie's parents' house in Wisconsin before the first solidly post-COVID Halloween celebration.  The neighborhood was alive in a way we hadn't seen since moving in at the height of the pandemic and some of the neighbors raised the bar on Halloween decorations.

Katie and Andrew each had a couple trips for work over this period.  The big work news for Katie is that in the fall she officially accepted an offer to transition from her analytics and modeling role at American Ag to a new role as an account executive in the client relations department.  There was a lengthy period where she was doing both jobs this fall before finally, fully transitioning to the new role with the passing of the new year.  

Obviously, the other non-work BIG news is that around this time we discovered that Katie is pregnant and we are expecting a baby boy to join the family in late June of next year!

Because we were subject to the new school schedule, we realized in the summer time that Theo was going to have the entire week around Thanksgiving off, which made the adults realize we'd be taking those days off as well.  So at that point, we made a decision to cash in all of Katie's travel miles earned through work to help fund a trip to Spain for the entire week.  It was a very quick trip but was just what we needed in terms of time away as well as some solid family bonding time.  We started with 3 days in Valencia, visiting the largest aquarium in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the many wonderful parks in the city.  Then, we met up in Madrid for another 3 days with Katie's best friend from childhood who now lives in Spain with her Spanish husband and daughter.  It was not the vacation we would plan for a visit without kids (so many playgrounds and so few museums!) but we couldn't have imagined a better 6 days together.

Once back stateside we were thrust into the holiday season!  Theo spent the next couple weekends practicing for his theatrical debut as a member of the sheep herd that visited Jesus after his birth for the church pageant.

We did the usual routines from decorating, to cooking, to candle-lit Christmas Eve service.

Finally, on the afternoon of Christmas Day we began our drive (we do that a lot more with the van now!) back to Kansas to celebrate with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Samuel, Hannah, James (briefly!), and Spencer.  It was great to watch the next generation of cousins play together and think back to the holiday parties when we would run around Grandma and Grandpa Kinast's house while the parents talked in the living room.  

Finally, on December 30th, we returned to Chicago and rung in the New Year with our family here.  2023 promises to bring new challenges at work and at home!  But we can't imagine it being any other way and we're loving every minute of it.  We wish you the same joy and fulfillment with your 2023 and we're looking forward to visiting everyone again soon, especially with someone new to introduce to you in the back half of the year!  Love to all!