I'm about a month late with our holiday greeting (again!), but hope you enjoyed your holidays and that your 2020 is off to a good start...
(Click on photos to expand them)




We started 2019 off the grid - on a small island off the coast of Southern Belize.  (see last year's ecard for details.) It was an amazing way to start the year.









For the dad-daughter dance (she's outgrown "daddy-daughter") in the Spring, Katelyn was again decked out in a swirly, sparkly dress and glittery high heels.

John wore his "traditional" dad-daughter dance suit and polished his shoes. 










 In July we went on a cruise to Mexico with my family. Swimming in cenotes was fantastic!











And we loved swimming with dolphins...










Or, more accurately, hanging onto their fins or standing on their noses (superman-style) as these amazing dolphins did all the swimming...








In August, we headed up to Colorado. As always, it was a great trip and fabulous to get off the grid to camp up in the mountains for a few days.

We hiked up from our camp site to a meadow below the peak of Mt. Columbia and had a snowball fight at about 11,600'. John hatched a plan to load up on snowballs to throw at me, but Katelyn surprised him with a snowball to the back of the neck. Ha! Gotcha!!







One morning, Katelyn did a remarkable job of starting a "zero-match fire" (from the previous night's embers.) She's turning into quite the little outdoor pro!


















With our toasty fire going, we're ready to start breakfast.

At 3am the next night, we woke Katelyn and all lay bundled in our sleeping bags to watch the Perseid meteor shower at its peak... It was truly awesome!








A highlight of the year was Katelyn's birthday in October. She turned 10 (double digits!!) We spent a fantastic weekend at a horse ranch, with lots of horseback riding, learning to throw a lasso, feeding cattle, even helping to shovel horse poop (pee-yew!)











Celebrating with lots of family, Katelyn described it as the "best birthday EVER!".






We hit a speed bump in September when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully, it was caught early. I had a marathon surgery in late October, and - with thanks to my family and many friends for their love and support - was back on the tennis courts 7 weeks later. I have a new appreciation for... well, pretty much everything.... And I'm very grateful to be moving forward.

For the first time in >10 years, John went caving in Mexico for a week. He remains the only person in our house who considers it fun to be cold and muddy and underground for a week. Above ground, he continues to do CrossFit 5 days a week and ran a Spartan Race and the Vertical Mile stair climb. (Who doesn't want to run up 50 flights of stairs 12 times? ... That's 9,684 steps in 1:18:39, or 124 steps/min for 78 minutes, btw.) Never lacking ideas for new hobbies, he recently added archery and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to his schedule.

We wish you good health, much joy, and many adventures in 2020.


Love,
Donna, John, Katelyn & Lovebug