This has been a really satisfying year for me. My daughter Leona was born in September of this year, 4lb, 11oz. She was a cute tiny little baby, and it has been really sweet to be able to see her grow. Thankfully I’ve had nearly 4 months off of work to get to experience this and also get to spend a lot of time with Alan. That was the most recent experience of the year, but we also did some other fun trips and adventures this year.
The main bulk of work centered around the AI Cyber Challenge Final Competition where I got to play a cool role supporting the competitors and game infrastructure. It was a grueling several months from January leading up to August, but also one of the most rewarding because of the top-notch team I had the opportunity to work with.
We took three trips this year. Our “baby moon” trip was to Savannah, Georgia. Val and I went for a week to explore the city, enjoy tasty food, coffee, and the really neat architecture of the city with its many “squares”. One of the highlights of our trip was going out to a nearby nature preserve and seeing a lot of alligators in their natural habitat. We kept yelling ‘GATOR! every time we saw one. We took a trip once more to North Mrytle Beach with our friends in Newport and enjoyed family memories at the beach. We then went to Las Vegas on what can only be characterized as a “work trip”, but it was still very fun to get to show off the work we did and celebrate it together. We had one other trip, with me, Alan, and my mom to go to the Air and Space museum Annex for a Kudu 10th anniversary party while Val stayed back with Leona.
We did get to fly the Tri-Pacer this year, although we didn’t go on any major trips. We went to Urbana for breakfast a few times. Alan and I went to Packer (5E9) then on to Mt. Victory for lunch. Even though we didn’t get to do a lot of trips, a lot of maintenance work was done to get it into tip top shape.
There was one final personal victory that I was able to achieve this year. I was able to lose 50 pounds using Noom. I feel so much better, and also I’ve been able to exercise way easier as well. I’m hopeful to get to continue this momentum into 2026 as well. A healthy family is a happy family. I am excited to see how the kids grow and begin to interact with each other over the next year.