2024 was generally another good year for us, the only exception being Paula’s hurricane-related broken arm when she tripped over outdoor items John had moved into the garage. Other than that, we stayed healthy and continued on our mission to replace body fat with muscle mass by walking/hiking, reducing carbs and working out twice a week at Orange Theory fitness centers.

Consistent with recent years we travelled a lot. John scored Diamond Medallion again with Delta and is approaching 3 Million Miler Status. Paula scored Platinum Medallion and is now a Million Miler. International destinations in 2024 included French Polynesia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Italy, Peru and Egypt. Those added four new countries for John and five for Paula. Domestic destinations included Rotunda West in Florida, San Antonio in Texas and Charlottesville and Alexandria in Virginia twice.

Our immediate family continues to mature and prosper. Stephen and Tanja live near us in Central Florida. Matt and Stephanie are in the DC area of Virginia and Danielle is in Central Virginia in Charlottesville near the Blue Ridge mountains. Leon and Julian are both teenagers and both, especially Leon, are now taller than we are. They are both into basketball big-time. Leon is learning to drive and Julian is focused on robotics. Ben is 8 and is refining his skills as a LEGO master. Jack turned three in late December and is obsessed with trains.

We continue to ramp down our consulting activities and John officially retired from management of 60 Hz. Users’ Groups in San Antonio in June.

More detail of 2024 in the pages below.

John and Paula

2023 was a pretty good year for us. We were healthy most of the year, did a lot of walking/hiking and finally felt comfortable going back to the gym after an absence of over 3 years, trying to replace some body fat with muscle mass.

We travelled a fair amount. International destinations included Italy, Sicily, Malta, Cornwall/UK and Turkey. Domestic destinations included Savannah, Colorado Springs, St Augustine, Boston once, DC twice and Charlottesville twice.

Our immediate family continues to mature and prosper. Stephen and Tanja live near us in Central Florida. Matt and Stephanie are still in the DC area of Virginia and Danielle is in Central Virginia near the mountains. Leon is a teenager now and got taller than both of us this year. Julian is getting close to both of those milestones. Ben is 7 and Jack turned two in late December.

We are continuing at a reducing pace with our consulting activities, coordinating in-person events this year in Orlando in June and Bursa, Türkiye in November.

More detail of 2023 in the pages below.

John and Paula

2022 was better than 2020 and 2021, although that is not saying a lot. We managed to stay healthy most of the year and John got out of his leg brace in February.

Becoming more confident with international travel, we ventured to the Dominican Republic, Scotland and twice to England. Domestic destinations included Wyoming, Atlanta, Asheville, DC twice, Boston three times and Charlottesville twice.

Our immediate family continues to expand and mature. Stephen and Tanja live near us in Central Florida. Matt and Stephanie are still in the DC area. Danielle moved this year from San Diego to Charlottesville, Virginia. Leon is a teenager now and Julian is getting close to that milestone. Ben is 6 now and just got a new brother Jackson.

We are trying to stay close to both of our extended families, visiting Colorado Springs and Boston for reunion-like events.

We are continuing at a reducing pace with our consulting activities, with in-person events starting to return. That led us to Atlanta and London this year.

John and Paula

2021 was another year of recovery and reopening. We got vaccinated in January and began to feel able to travel and visit more freely. We didn’t leave the US but got as far as San Francisco and the US Virgin Islands. Unfortunately, John injured his leg in San Francisco in June and spent the rest of the year in a full leg brace.

Matt, Stephanie and Ben visited Florida in April and July. Steve and Lucy visited in April. We got to see Stephen, Tanja, Leon and Julian regularly.

John continued to do consulting, but all of the 2021 Users’ Conferences were conducted on-line instead of in-person.

We finished off the year with a three and half week visit to Matt and Stephanie’s in DC and Danielle joined us there. The celebration included Christmas and the birth of Jackson on December 28.

John and Paula

It’s really good to be able to wrap up this difficult year. We had the same disruption and isolation that you all had, plus the additional stress and sorrow from being among the first in Central Florida to contract COVID-19 as well as losing Paula’s mother to the virus.

The year started off normally enough, with a great trip to San Diego and La Paz, Mexico with Danielle. Then John travelled to Yokohama and Takasago, Japan in late January and was in Yokohama when there first started to be concerns about a cruise ship that was headed there with some infected passengers.

We did complete (barely) a great “bucket list” trip to Jordan and Egypt, but seem to have acquired COVID-19 while there. So the international travel score for the year was 3 countries accomplished (Mexico, Jordan and Egypt) and 7 cancelled (Japan, Turkey, Virgin Islands, Greece, Montenegro, Croatia and Italy).

Also cancelled were our 50th Anniversary family gathering at Club Med and John’s 50th anniversary of his graduation from MIT, which was held virtually, causing him to miss participation in the prestigious “March of the Geezers”.

At Uluru in the middle of Australia – in the chair the Dalai Lama sat in last year.

2019 was another generally good year.  It was a major milestone since we both turned 70 in 2019 — but we don’t feel 70 on most days.  We continued to run our consulting business, and did a fair amount of business and pleasure travel in 2019.  We also try to spend plenty of time with our family.  A negative on the family front was the unexpected passing of Paula’s younger brother Tim on December 29, 2018.

We have documented some 2019 events on the following pages.  We logged six other countries this year (Iceland, a new one, plus Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Paraguay and Mexico) and made domestic trips to San Diego, New Orleans (twice), Washington D.C. (three times) and Boston (three times).

John and Paula

2018 is coming to a close as we write this posting.  We are in Paraguay for Christmas with Matt, Stephanie and Ben.  It was another good year.  We got to do a lot of travelling, seeing new things and visiting family and friends.  We logged 12 countries this year, including 9 new ones in the Caribbean, South America and Southeast Asia.

2017 was another busy year.  But busy is good.  We spent time in five countries and visited family and friends all over the US.

Welcome to our annual update for 2016.

2016 was a pretty good year for us.  We traveled quite a bit (UK, Ecuador, Japan, Boston, Utah, DC) and tried to spend more time at the Beach.  We coordinated Conferences in York, England and two in Tysons Corner, Virginia.  And John’s consulting business kept him busier than average as well.

Best Wishes to you all in 2017.

John and Paula