Arnolds New Years Letter 2020
Happy New Decade!
Highlights:
- We’ve moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan! We miss Boston and our friends there (who helped us immensely with the move, by the way), but we’ve started to appreciate Grand Rapids on its own terms.
- Ken started teaching Computer Science and Data Science at Calvin University! The first semester was joyfully overwhelming. Ken feels increasingly thankful and blessed to be there.
- Susan has mostly been at home with Naomi and Esther. For ten weeks last spring, she went back to work part time for her former architecture firm, with the help of a wonderful nanny. She felt like that was a nice balance and is hoping to find a similar part time schedule here, once she finishes her architecture professional exams.
- Naomi and Esther celebrated their second birthday in November. They have learned so much, going from not talking at the beginning of the year, to putting ever more complex phrases together.
Other tidbits:
- 2019 started with a New Year’s Day hike in Maryland with Ken’s brother Austin and (now) fiancée Mason, and finished with Ken’s parents visiting us in Grand Rapids for New Years 2020.
- Ken’s parents visited us frequently during the year (coming from Maryland) and Susan’s parents visited Boston over the summer to help us pack up for our move.
- Naomi and Esther were baptized at Citylife Church in Boston in June, with all grandparents attending. Baptism is a symbol of the faith we share and our hopes that the girls will grow in that faith as part of Christian community.
- We enjoyed Christmas in Portland, Oregon with Susan’s parents.
- We are now located closer to Susan’s extended family in Michigan.
- We bought a minivan (a like-new Honda Odyssey)!
Looking forward to:
- Ken teaching another two classes this spring, and hopefully finally defending his PhD thesis (long story).
- Upcoming travels: to Ken’s brother Austin’s wedding mid-October, Ken traveling to Italy in March to present a paper at a conference (it finally got accepted on the third try), and maybe a few days vacationing by Lake Michigan this summer with one of Susan’s friends.
- Getting connected with a local church.
- Susan continuing in professional development and maybe starting work.
- Naomi and Esther continuing to grow, and we’re considering starting preschool this year.
Our new address is 3654 Palmer Ridge Road SE, Grand Rapids MI 49546.
With love,
Ken, Susan, Esther and Naomi
more photos here.