2022
To our family and friends,
I'm excited that you successfully accessed our first digital Christmas letter! We decided to save paper and also give you access to other fun memories from this and prior years. Our family experienced so many changes this year that we will try to briefly recap.
Camryn celebrated her 5th birthday with a ballerina themed party, she started pre-academy gymnastics, participated in two track meets, swim lessons, and played Snoqualmie Valley Rec soccer, with Phillip as the assistant coach. She started Kindergarten at North Bend Elementary this fall and is excelling in reading and math. She has become a great little snow skier on the ‘green’ runs and even attempted some ‘blues’, trying to keep up with her dad and cousins. She enjoys anything active and can beat anyone at a game of Memory.
Blake turned three this summer with a spaceship “blast off” birthday, started swimming lessons, and switched to a new Montessori Preschool in North Bend this fall. He enjoys playing with Legos, tractors and trucks, and anything his sister is interested in. Phillip has already taken him up snow skiing several time using the ‘leash’ which he loves, and even laughs after a ‘great crash’.
Briana is still enjoying her career at Seattle Children’s Hospital and was able to travel several times to Juneau, Alaska, Great Falls, Montana, and day trips to Yakima to assist with clinics. In July she published an abstract as lead author in the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography on equity during first-time echocardiograms. She presented this as well as a case study on coronary arteries for the American Society of Echocardiography at the Seattle Convention Center this past summer. She is currently completing her first manuscript for submission in the spring of 2023. Briana has also made time to volunteer in Camryn’s kindergarten class occasionally on her day off, helping students with either math or reading lessons.
Phillip continues to work for WSP as a structural engineer. His role has largely shifted away from technical design over to project management, with his primary project being design of a new aircraft carrier capable dry dock at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. The project design will last 3 years and take another 7 years to construct. Phillip travelled to Japan in October, supporting a short fuse planning project at Sasebo Naval Base. On his trip, he was fortunate enough to be able to spend a day in Fukuoka with his aunt and uncle (Kim and Paul) who currently live in Japan. Phillip enjoys watching Camryn and Blake find passion in many of his favorite activities including swimming, soccer, and skiing.
We got back into the swing of traveling this year with trips to Roslyn to celebrate New Years, several days of snow skiing at Mt Bachelor, Westport with Phillip’s family, camping at Dungeness Spit in Port Angels, and a week-long vacation to Puerto Vallarta where most days we swam from sun up to sun down and Blake learned to swim on his own! This was the kid’s first international trip. We celebrated back-to-back weddings, our 9th anniversary, and ended the year with Phillip and I traveling to Vietnam visiting cities including Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, and Ho Chi Minh. Along the way, we enjoyed an overnight Ha Long Bay cruise, rode bikes through the countryside, explored night markets, visited cultural sites, ate delicious Vietnamese food (often not knowing what we were ordering), and relaxed by the beach.
Amongst all the joy of the year, we were devastated with the passing of Briana’s Dad in June, just after his 68th birthday. Not too long after, Grandma Lobeda passed and then Briana’s Aunt Donna. Our memories of them are definitely at the forefront during this first holiday season without them.
We continue to be blessed to have the family and friends that we do and wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and Happy 2023.
Love,
Phillip, Briana, Camryn (5) & Blake (3)