The Ewert Family 2022

Andy

Andy enjoyed watching a fantastic Astros season and is thrilled to have another World Series title (before the Rangers have one 😉). He's been inching closer to his goal of seeing a game at every MLB ballpark. This year he visited Cleveland, Atlanta, and Baltimore, bringing him up to 22 out of 30. He and Megan continue their friendly travel battle, and he has taken additional trips to Mexico City to celebrate his birthday during Día de los Muertos, as well as Portland (ME), Savannah, and Jackson Hole. He also traveled to San Francisco with Allen and Kathy this year, and showed them all around his old haunts and favorite restaurants. It was a fun and delicious trip.

Megan

Meggy dipped her toe into the stadium game, visiting Coors Field in Denver, and has added a new continent to her travels. She went to Morocco where she learned about the food and culture, and rode a camel to a sunset in the Sahara desert. She has already incorporated some Moroccan recipes into her home cooking. At work, she was also picked as the first person from her team to participate in a special project to develop new online resources for customers.

Allen, Kathy, & AJ

Allen turned 30 this year, and has taken a new position as a design engineer with Appliance Innovation in Plano. He has also started volunteering at the library as a math tutor. On top of her regular job, Kathy has become a volunteer interpreter for a new program at work called Read Play Learn. She scans a children's book with a kit of corresponding activities, records herself, and compiles an interpreted video of the book. It's to help promote literacy in young deaf students and encourage their families to learn more sign language. Allen & Kathy continue to impress us with upgrades on their home, this year fabricating and installing a concrete sink in the bathroom, and zinc countertops in their kitchen. They have also both invested with Andy & Patty on the second Clann Rua rental house (and the renter is just amazing 😉). AJ (now 18 months) continues to delight us with his toddler antics, and is thriving under the love and attention of his parents.

Patty & Mike

Patty and Mike have been homebodies, yet somehow we always seem busy. We have started volunteering once a month at a nearby food pantry with longtime friends Marybeth and Gregg. This year, Patty earned her board certification as a Hospice Medical Director, and Mike continued teleworking for NASA, with monthly visits to Houston. One of his projects initiated a contract to build a fancy trash compactor (that recovers water) for testing on the International Space Station in 2025. We continue to make strides toward finishing our house. This year we planted a tree that hopefully will survive this freeze and become a mighty oak - and a driveway is underway.

There is no doubt that we are happy and blessed, but we did say goodbye to some special people in 2022. Kathy's father, Bill, died unexpectedly this summer, followed shortly after by Patty's brother Bobby, and her Aunt Pat. They are sorely missed, because they were much loved.