For us, last year marked a return to (a new) normal, after the COVID pandemic and after my mother’s illness and death in 2022. I am back in the office on a pretty regular basis, and we were able to travel without public health-related restrictions. Although COVID is not “over,” it has become integrated and […]

For me, last year was overshadowed by the illness of my mother and her death in September. I ended up taking four trips to Germany this year, none of which were particularly relaxing. Of course this was also year three of COVID, moving from pandemic to endemic. And COVID rules also impacted most of our […]

Year two of the COVID pandemic was a wild ride, and once again we have to just count our blessings that we stayed fairly healthy, and did not experience any existential hardship. All four of us received our vaccinations in the first half of the year and we experienced no unusual or lasting side effects […]

Uncertainty was a worldwide theme for 2020 and last year, we too felt the hot breath of that unpleasant reality much more strongly than usual. We were lucky, and we did not experience the full brunt of that aspect of reality, unlike so many people who lost their livelihood and/or health and are facing uncertainty […]

For me, 2019 was a good year. No major complaints. I am healthy enough, I am happily married and no major crises happened to our family (except for one of our horses getting very sick). I got to do some interesting things and work was busy, but not overwhelming. Laura was hard at work keeping […]

For us, most of 2018 was about staying on track, being patient and putting in the effort required to reach our goals. The year also seemed to pass rather quickly, probably due to the persistent effort we had to invest into our activities. The weather was one of the noteworthy features for North Carolina, with […]

2017 has been a year of transitions for us. Julia and I have started working as volunteers with a group of local political activists – the People’s Alliance of Durham. We started going to the meetings as a reaction to the current political reality in this country and we are working in community organizing around […]

(Auf Deutsch hier)  Most of 2016 unfolded more or less quietly for us with some new beginnings, changed expectations and gradual growth and adjustments. Laura settled into a new job, Julia’s journey took some unforeseen twists and turns, Jacob is just growth all around :-) and I experimented a bit with changing my diet and […]

Most of 2015 went really quite well, but the last few months of this year did pack a bit of a wallop for us. The highlight of the year was in May, when Julia graduated from Middle College High School as valedictorian of her class. She got to speak at her graduation ceremony and she […]

2014 brought us many changes: new jobs, new critters and a new school for Jacob. 2014 also was the year when both our kids officially grew over our heads. Jacob is now taller than I am, and Julia is taller than Laura. Right at the beginning of the year, Henry the cat moved in with […]

2013 was quite the roller-coaster. We experienced loss and sadness as well as some real highlights. We saw our children grow a lot last year, physically (!) and mentally, but we also lost a family member. We traveled quite a lot, but not all of it was for fun. We also lost two of our […]

Overall, 2012 was a pretty good year, although it also presented some real challenges to us. The most significant development of 2012 is unfolding right now: Dec. 31 was Laura’s last day at her job of 8 years as Executive Director of One World Market in Durham. Jan 2 she will start her new job, […]

Auf Deutsch … 2011 was a rough year. I’m trying to come up with some good stuff that happened this year, and it’s not easy. One personal highlight was participating in the Doughman race with the 11-foot-8 team. We raised $340 and came in 8th place (out of 75 teams). Besides the race, I ran […]

Boy – what a surprise that year had in store for us! Perhaps the greatest change in lifestyle for Laura an me since we had children … and a much bigger surprise than the children! Of course I am talking about our horses, Waldo and Cleo. While building our horsefarm and figuring out the ins […]

… took a lot of energy. This was not a bad year for me, but it did wear me out a bit. The first half was dominated by our trip to Togo and Ghana. It took a lot of preparation to get ready. The trip itself was great, but quite exhausting. Work turned a bit […]

2008 was a pretty good year for us. We stayed healthy, sane (more or less) and employed. Jacob and Julia grew a lot. We had a great family vacation in the mountains of North Carolina and we did a couple of short trips to the beach. Both kids changed schools. Jacob and I started learning […]

What a year 2007 was. For us, it had some tough decisions, some crises, some major changes and some really positive accomplishments. In January we backed out of contract to buy a house because of serious structural problems with that house, and because of our lack of faith in the engineer and the contractor dealing […]

Last year had a couple of surprises for us, although most of these have yet to be completely realized: we found a new house, but we have yet to move there; we began planning our trip to Togo (and Ghana) for the upcoming July; and the Democrats won back the U.S. Congress. One of the […]

What a year: Nature terrorized humans with hurricanes, earthquakes and floods. Awareness rose of the threats of a global flu pandemic and global warming. Terrorists killed innocent people around the world. Human rights abuses, government secrecy and spying were uncovered in the U.S., in Europe and in many countries around the world. The new pope […]