OUR YEAR: We Settle In

**On Thanksgiving our family gathered in our apartment for a feast.**

This year we’ve been adjusting to our new life in our retirement community and exploring our new environment indoors and out. We’ve especially enjoyed getting acquainted with other residents and are enriched by the many weekly lectures and concerts. We also appreciate the many services provided by the community as well as the companionship and support of fellow residents.

Our neighborhood is urban: high rise apartment buildings and offices where thousands of tekkies live and work, high level medical organizations such as the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and homeless encampments. Members of our retirement community contribute to and volunteer at organizations that serve the latter population, in particular the nearby center for homeless teenagers.

We enjoy spending as much time as we can painting. We’re pleased to see progress in our work and in what we attempt. Bill prefers doing portraits and an occasional still life. People now regularly request that he paint their portraits. Some examples.

**Maggie accompanies us when we go to our studio. She especially likes to share Bill’s tuna sandwiches and seems to have learned the word “lunch.”**

This year Becky was invited to show work in six shows. She also took an origami class and continues to learn Italian. [On the latter note, we highly recommend The Late Mattia Pascal by Pirandello, which Becky read in her Italian class, and Bill’s book group enjoyed reading in William Weaver’s translation.]

Becky also attends the tai chi class, which has saved her from several falls already; Bill attends the meditation group and reads to residents who are visually impaired. Contributing to scholarships, annual bonuses, and in Bill’s case serving as a volunteer mentor, are some of the ways we residents help the employees who help us.

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OUR FAMILY: Moving Around

CASEY, LISA & SOPHIE

**Lisa and Casey visited the Whitman campus on Parents’ Weekend and for some of Sophie’s volleyball games..**

Empty-nesters Casey and Lisa decided to downsize. They sold their home and are taking time to decide what they’ll do next. Stay tuned.

**Sophie ordered, managed, and sold soccer teams’ swag.**

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TIM AND KEVIN

Tim and Kevin

Travel to faraway places is always a feature of Tim and Kevin’s life. This year they visited Toulouse, France, and scouted potential vacation residences in the South of France with the idea that they might retire there. How time flies: now our kids are thinking about retirement!

They celebrated Tim’s fiftieth birthday with a cruise in Norway’s fjiords.

Food, castles, and cathedrals were among the pleasures they enjoyed in France, Wales, Norway, and Finland.

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BEN AND NICOLE

Ben and Nicole began their travels early this year. In February they left our Seattle winter behind for a Caribbean cruise.

In October, they spent two weeks in Italy and visited Venice, Ravenna, Bologna, Parma, and Modena where they successfully practiced their newly-learned Italian. They enjoyed many famous and not-so-famous sights, not to mention the food and wine. A highlight was attending a ballet at the historic La Fenice (The Phoenix) opera house in Venice, where they saw a performance of Prokofiev’s “La Cenerentola,” Nicole’s favorite.

**Ben and Nicole enjoyed the pleasures of an evening out in Venice.**

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WISHING YOU JOYFUL HOLIDAYS AND A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR.

**Looking southwest from the 6th floor into the busy intersection where our retirement community is located.**

**When we need a respite, we like to go for walks in Volunteer Park.**

We participated in the No King’s Day events and continue to demonstrate regularly on our urban corner and/or write postcards to voters for special elections and initiatives. Somehow, one of our demonstrations ended up on Tik Tok with more than four million views and counting:

Casey, Lisa, Sophie, Maggie (our dog), Ben and Bill model the Samurai helmets Becky made in her origami class.

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Now a junior at Whitman College, Sophie is majoring in environmental studies and plays on Whitman’s women’s varsity volleyball team.

Sophie was elected captain of the Whitman’s women’s varsity volleyball team by her teammates for 2026-27 .

**Sophie, third from left, and some of her teammates.**

Last summer, granddaughter Sophie loved her internship with Ballard FC, a semi-pro soccer team, and its sister team, Salmon Bay FC. Among other things, she managed merchandising for the team. She looks forward to working for the team during vacations and next summer, too.

Both remain in their respective positions, Tim at the International School of Business at HAN University of Applied Sciences, and Kevin at Wageningen University and Research in the Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Group.

In December they took a ski lesson at Big White ski resort in British Columbia, Canada. Of skiing, Ben said, “It was awesome!” Nicole agreed: “It was the best!”

Kenzie approves of Ben and Nicole’s new, all electric VW.

When they weren’t traveling, both continued in demanding careers, Ben at Metzler Real Estate and Nicole at Swedish Cancer Institute.