Our Milestone Year Reviewed
The highlights in activities, media, food and experiences
The Highlights
January: We welcomed the new year with my grandma, hosted the gal at ABWE who champions my writing most.
February: a thrifting, poke and coffee date in Madrid with Susanna.
March: introduced Cedarville students to Spanish delicacies, and a Semana Santa trip to Calpe. Lowlight: Susanna had pneumonia.
April: warm enough to eat outside. Austin was Joe in the elementary play about Joseph.
May: I turned 40, hosted a favorite things party with some expat friends, and got planter boxes for my terrazas.
June: We became the parents of a teenager, we celebrated 6 years in Spain. Lowlight: one year without Dick milestone, unexpectedly had to pay exorbitant Spanish taxes.
July: Spain won the EuroCup, our family came to visit, and we went to London! Fulfilled a lifelong dream, thought I was scratching an itch that would never return, but now I want to go to every corner of England in every season. Chris and I celebrated 20 years of marriage.
August: Chris turned 48, we spent nearly every day at the pool.
September: We left elementary school behind when both kids started school in Middle School (Susanna 7th, Austin 6th). Austin turned 11 years old and got 11 on his fútbol jersey.
October: I got a huge squash from our landlord (the size of two butternut squashes, no joke) and made so many squash dishes.
November: We celebrated Thanksgiving with a traditional meal at our church, explored Sevilla, and spent a week in the Algarve with colleagues.
December: We got the keys to our church’s new meeting space, hosted a few holiday parties, and celebrated Christmas as a family—Aunt Carol came to visit.
What I Read
I had an ambitious 105-book goal this year, mainly an effort to cut back on screen time, but I had to adjust it near the end of the year. Ah well, I still read 75 books. Get your TBR list ready, because these were some of the more notable reads:
:: The Emily of New Moon series by L.M. Montgomery was a pleasant surprise. It’s hard to admit, but I think I relate more to Emily than Anne in some ways. Her ambitions and tenacity as a writer inspire me, and I found her a little more mature and serious than whimsical Anne. As for other fiction reads, I enjoyed How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang, Funny Story by Emily Henry, Claire Keegan’s award-winning novella Small Things Like These, which was a favorite of my English reader’s club as well, and The Women. The story I devoured, but I do not consider this Kristen Hannah’s best work in terms of writing.
:: One of my goals for this year was to read more memoirs, one of my favorite genres that has recently fallen to the wayside. I thoroughly enjoyed the restaurant memoir and business book Unreasonable Hospitality, journalist Meg Kissinger’s moving family memoir While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence, and my top book of 2024 by a landslide, Lisa-Jo Baker’s It Wasn’t Roaring, It Was Weeping.
What I Wrote
:: Last December, our sending org featured my article No Room in the Inn, and encouraged me to continue submitting pieces for their blog. In 2024 they published two more pieces, Kingdom Work is People Work, and a prayer I wrote for Austin.
:: I was blessed to edit the book The Strawberry Girls: The Journey to Freedom from Human Trafficking and participate in the art exhibit that my friends created to raise awareness about this problem in Spain. Their efforts reached the Spanish government, Christian and secular organizations combatting trafficking, the national police, and more.
:: For our annual ministry letter, I had so much fun creating this newsletter that is also a fun activity for kids.
:: This newsletter is a simple labor of love and an overflow of my efforts to practice my craft. I am grateful for every one of my readers and appreciate every heart, comment, and reply. One of my favorite pieces from Memoirish Prose this year is…
You've Got the Good Life if you...
An underutilized resource for Bible study is The Bible Project podcast. A lot of people know about their videos, which are great, but my favorite way to spend a car ride is listening to Jon Collins make Tim Mackie use more words, smaller words, or non-religious words to help him understand what a word in the Bible really means. In 2024 they are hon…
What I Watched
:: A lot of crime documentaries. Chris and I really enjoyed the Netflix series Homicide, with seasons in New York and Los Angeles.
:: “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” was the best surprise movie of the year. We watched it as a family on the second Sunday of Advent and it will be in our yearly rotation for sure.
What I Cooked
:: A lot of meals from Danielle Walker’s new book, Make it Easy.
:: Christmas desserts this year included coconut rangers, almond crescents, fudge, chocolate dipped oranges, and pumpkin pie.
:: For every party, I make a variation of this Festive Dipping Oil. People absolutely rave about it, and there’s never any left.