2015 kind of got away from me

2015 has come and gone with nary a blogpost.  I feel like my boys will have a hole in their childhood, if sometime in the future they sit down to read about their childhood days.  The year had it's ups and downs.  New challenges that included removing dairy from Eli's life; after tired tears over the first attempt at dairy free pizza, he has come to accept this fate.  They both grew.  Eli got his driver's license.  Theo spent more days away from home this summer than in the house.  We had adventures big and small.  Below is the 2015 holiday letter that tries to encapsulate a whole year.

Hello!

When I think back on 2015 I get this image my friend once shared with me of a young man at the YMCA.  He was on a treadmill, while wearing saggy jeans.  He made the mistake of increasing both his velocity and his slope to degrees that could not be maintained without grasping on to the handles for dear life.  Problem was, one hand also had to be grabbing his pants, or they would drop around his ankles.  So he was stuck wanting to decrease the speed, drop the incline, and keep his pants on.  I can’t remember how the story ended, maybe because I don’t want to, as it sometimes feels similar to life at this house.  

I work hard to think of our life as full rather than busy.  Most the time it works, and when it does get to that place where I feel like the treadmill is out of control and my pants are sure to fall off, we look around and see how we can adjust.  Sometimes I skip a meeting to hang out with my boys and talk about school.   Sometimes (often) dinner doesn’t start until 8pm, but we still find the time to all sit around the table together, take a deep breath, and chat.  Maybe our favorite decompressor is to put aside homework, reports, and the reading of student papers, and retire to our comfy basement couch to watch an episode of something funny together.  

So what has been keeping us so full? Jon is pumping right along as St. Paul stretches and grows.  St. Paul is on the move, winning the soccer stadium deal, planning for the Ford site, becoming an ever more awesome place to live.  Eli (16) and Theo (13) are working hard in school and keeping busy evening and weekends by working on various projects.  Theo had a summer I envied; he was constantly packing for the next adventure.  He took two trips down the Namakagan (one with me, thankfully), spent time at various cabins, and backpacked on the North Shore with Widji. Eli has discovered graphic design.  He spends hours creating posters and t-shirts for school, plus games and such for himself.  This summer he meticulously studied the Napoleonic wars and created a custom deck of cards based on the army uniforms from four countries.  Weird.  But it keeps him entertained and we plan to use his new skills for our own profit sometime in the near future….because that’s what kids are for, right?  I’m still at Avalon where things are different every day, except my co-workers, who never change.  We are going to be wizened old toothless fools, still reporting for our 7:45 meetings with a smile.  Says something about the cool little community we’ve created, just not sure what it says.

Outside of those daily endeavors we’ve done some travelling.  Our biggest trip was to meet up with our China-based Dutch friends in Italy.  They usually come all the way over to Minnesota to head up to DuNord, but this year we met them halfway and rented a villa in the Italian countryside. Thank goodness it was on a winery, as between the two families, plus the addition of our Russian foreign exchange student from yesteryear, Ildar, there were 6 boys from 12-21 in that house with us. Honestly, it was a joy to hang out with such a great pack of boys, and lovely to reconnect with Ildar.  I also very much appreciated happy hour with Jon, Remco, and Esme, relaxing outside, taking in the view.  After a fabulous (but hot!) week exploring Umbria with pals, the four Sage-Martinsons headed off to England.  We were thrilled to wake up in a little cabin in Cardiff to temps of 59 and a light rain.  We took in a bit of Wales, then were off to London where the boys were equally delighted by historical sites and Sherlock locations.  

Overall, even though at times it seems as the treadmill is set too high and I feel my hands clutching at my pants to avoid a calamity, I think we’ve mostly got our pace set correctly, the incline adjusted just steep enough. We’ve enjoyed sightings of all of you as you move past on your own journeys. Thanks for all the light you have shared with us this past year, and happy holidays to all of you!