Disneyland 2019

We surprised the kids this year by planning a trip to Disneyland for their birthdays in November. With Star Wars land partially finished the timing was good. As always, Tracey researched a bunch of deals and found a great hotel and airfare for a reasonable price. Still not really sure it was a vacation cause we walked our feet off. In the 4 days at the park we (according to Malcolm's fitbit) walked 146k steps, or 111kms! That's two and a half marathons!

For Roger, Star Wars land was a highlight and for the kids it was the magic of getting on all the big rides. I'm not sure what the highlight for Tracey was. Here's a slideshow of the days at Disney and Universal.

The best of 2018

Here are the highlights in point form:

• The family tried skiing for the first time. Highs, Malcolm loved it. Lows, Tracey lost a toenail and it took almost 8 months to grow back! 
• The family had a wonderful multi-family vacation to Maui. We swam with live sea turtles! 
• It was the year for experiences over gifts, Roger and Tracey saw Lauryn Hill, Ed Sheeran (the kid's first concert), P!NK, Conan O'Brien, and Tessa/Scott on ice. 
• Roger made a bunch of new motorcycle friends and said good-bye to some of his old friends. I think Marie Kondō put it well: “The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.” 
• Epic ride with Calvin and Keith to Vernon on the bike this past summer. Roger put close to 9k kilometres on the bike this season. It'll be interesting to see what 2019 brings:
• Malcolm got his braces off and Melody in turn got them on. 
• Tracey was connected to a new found family with some crazy twists and turns along the way. 
• Roger and Tracey's department won an award for excellence and shared a $1k prize. 
• For the kids, TKD continues with both of them advancing to blue stripe. They should be able to make it to red belt by the end of next year. 
• Academically, both kids are doing well and the extra curricular is on the upswing. Malcolm's ringette team is actually quite good, they've lost very few games so far. Melody is still excelling in gymnastics, we'll see where that goes this year. 
• Over the summer we took a trip to Oregon, just the four of us. We managed to survive an 8.5 hour car ride from Portland! You know as a photographer, I take a lot of photos and of the 20k + photographs I took in 2018, this one is by far my favourite and it was taking with my iPhone no less:

Here's a video slideshow of year gone by: