December 19, 2025
Dear friends and family,
It is hard to believe that we are nearing the end of 2025. It has been a whirlwind of a year for us. The year started out rough with the passing of Jess’s youngest sister Gabby.
The family took a family trip to Chicago where we all enjoyed a trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo, and the Shedd aquarium. Isaac especially liked visiting all his fish friends. Navy Pier and the children’s museum.
Closer to home, Isaac has claimed the Blank Park Zoo as his own. With our family membership we have made multiple trips, and he knows where all his favorite animals are, including the giraffe, tiger, lion and even dinosaurs (they had animatronic dinos visiting for several months). Our last trip was just to have pizza and hot coco with Santa.
We also spent a long weekend in South Dakota visiting all the usual tourist hot spots including Wall Drug, Mount Rushmore, and even Bear Country. Isaac loved spotting all the animals, some even before us adults. On the way home we made a quick stop at the Bad Lands where we saw some of the locals including a large buffalo and Prairie Dogs. Unfortunately, while we were gone, our sump pump also decided to take a bit of break. Thankfully we had a remote sensor that tipped us off to the issue and were able to get help from our entire neighborhood to get the water pumped out, and basement dried out. (Especially thanks to Ron, Travis, Mike, the Colvin’s (and anyone I may have missed).
We continued to enjoy family camping trips in Bessie, our 1994 Pace Arrow Camper. It was a busy summer as you can see, but we were able to find a few weekends to go out in the woods. Isaac has still not found a playground he didn’t like, and it has been a joy to see his joy exploring new places.
It is hard to believe that Isaac is now 3 years old. He continues to thrive at Beautiful Beginnings where he is enjoying playing with his friends in the 2-year-olds room. Also, he just passed his latest swim lesson class at Foss Swim and his next step will be starting to swim on his own with a small class supervised by an instructor.
This year Jess turned the big 40 and celebrated with a big birthday bash. She continues to be a Senior Quality Assurance Specialist at Kemin. Her baking efforts continue to yield with another winning year at the Iowa State Fair with 31 entries and 5 first places.
Andy is still doing the same job at Corteva Agriscience but with a slightly different title, he is now a Scientific Computing Scientist. He also continues to be the president of the Central Iowa Linux Users group.
We hope all of you have had a great year, and that you all have a Merry Christmas, and a happy holidays!
Jess, Andy and Isaac