Season’s Greetings! It’s a great time to recap the adventures of the past year — and to wish you many more wonderful adventures in the year ahead …
For our family, 2024 was a big year for taking in the wonders of the world, ranging from a total solar eclipse to the Great Pyramid. But you could argue that the biggest wonder is the newest addition to our extended family — little Cal, who had his first birthday in June. That’s where we’re starting our holiday look-back at 2024.
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The adventures of Natalie, Dan and ‘Mister Baby’
Natalie, Cal and Dan.
Natalie and her husband, Dan, marked their fifth year at Penn State, where Natalie is an assistant research professor and the coordinator for educational programming at the university’s Insect Biodiversity Center. Dan is a research scientist at Penn State’s Applied Research Laboratory.
Meanwhile, Cal marked his first year of existence: He and his parents paid two visits to the Boyles in Bellevue, in April and in September. Both visits mixed business with pleasure. Natalie and Dan found time to attend a Mariners game and visit friends in Seattle. Tonia and Alan treasured the opportunity to practice their role as doting grandparents.
Evan explores the frontiers of biotech
Mom and Dad take a selfie with Evan.
Evan lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and this year he left his biotech job at Exai Bio to become a data scientist at Octave Bioscience. He’s part of a team working on genetic methods to measure the activity and progression of Parkinson’s disease. The project is supported with a $10 million grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Tonia revisits the Oregon coast and tends her garden
Tonia finds a jellyfish, and we enjoy a Pacific sunset.
Tonia and Alan decided to take a trip down memory lane in September and spend a few days at Cannon Beach and at Arch Cape, the Oregon community where we took the kids on annual trips when they were in their teens. The VRBO home where we stayed was just a five-minute walk from the house we used to rent — and we found enough rosehips near the beach to make a nice batch of jam.
Rosehips, blackberries and tomatoes.
Speaking of jam, Tonia was busy making her signature raspberry, strawberry, blackberry and apricot preserves, plus tomato sauce with homegrown tomatoes. This year she added ground cherry jam to her repertoire. We also brought in a bumper crop of blueberries, plus green beans and leeks from Tonia’s garden boxes.
Alan travels to see an eclipse, plus Egypt and Jordan
An eclipse, the aurora and a comet.
Alan is continuing in his role as a contributing editor at GeekWire and a contributor to Universe Today. He’s also still the mastermind of Cosmic Log, the blog he has maintained for 22 years; and Fiction Science, the podcast that he co-hosts with science-fiction author Dominica Phetteplace.
This year’s memorable stories included the investigation into last year’s tragic loss of OceanGate’s Titan sub, the test flights of SpaceX’s Starship super-rocket, a series of robotic moon missions — and April’s total solar eclipse. To cover that event, Alan accompanied his brother Dave, and Dave’s partner Nancy, on an expedition to Indiana.
In December, Alan took on an even bigger expedition with Dave and Nancy, Steve and Joan, and Sarah (a friend of Nancy’s) to Egypt and Jordan. We started out with a couple of days in London (focusing on the British Museum). Then we flew to Cairo to see the pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx, some of the tombs in Saqqara and a colossal statue of Ramesses II in Memphis.
Tut’s mask, the Pyramid and Sphinx, and Petra.
Our next stop was Luxor, where we visited the Karnak Temple, the Luxor Temple and the Valley of the Kings (including King Tut’s tomb). An early-morning ride in a hot-air balloon over the Valley of the Kings was a bonus. We also took a long drive from Luxor to see temples in Abydos and Dendera.
Next we boarded the Jax Regent for a three-day cruise up the Nile River to Aswan. Along the way, we visited the Temple of Horus in Edfu and the Philae temple complex (where we saw an impressive and somewhat spooky after-dark light show). We also took a spin on a traditional Egyptian sailboat, known as a felucca.
Then it was off to Abu Simbel, where we saw more colossal statues of Ramesses II at a temple that was rescued from the rising Nile back in the 1960s at a cost of nearly $40 million.
We flew back to Cairo for one more action-packed day that featured guided tours of the newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum and the “old” Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square. The old museum is where the richest treasures from Tut’s tomb — including his golden funerary mask and his 250-pound solid-gold coffin — are still being displayed.
The next morning, we flew to Jordan for a tour of the Petra archaeological site (featured in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”) and a night of glamping at a camp in the Wadi Rum desert (featured in “Lawrence of Arabia”). We were thrilled to be shown ancient petroglyphs by Yasser, a guide whose enthusiasm exceeded his command of the English language. After one night in the geodomes, we returned to Amman to sample the Jordanian capital’s famous falafel and sweet kunafa — and to get a tour of Amman’s Citadel Hill.
After Amman, our little tour group split up for the return home. For a more detailed day-by-day report about our trip, head over to Alan’s Facebook page and do a search on “Egypt” and “Jordan” (or just check out the timeline postings for December 2024).
Ollie: The quintessential ‘good dog’
Ollie loves to lounge.
We’ve had our rescue dog, Ollie, for more than three years — and he still ranks as the mellowest dog we’ve had over the past 30 years. He did have a couple of medical issues come up, including a mole removal that ran into complications and a scratching spell that required attention. In 2025, we suspect that he’ll need an echocardiogram to check out his heart health. But all things considered, it’s been a good year for Ollie. He even had a vacation on the Oregon coast!
For the record: Other events worth remembering
January’s “Randy Rainbow for President” comedy show … A series of summer hikes to Mount Rainier, Snow Lake, Wallace Falls and Talapus and Ollalie Lakes … A long-needed repair and re-staining of our 1960s-era redwood fence … And a November windstorm that left us without power for three days and marked the first use of our gasoline-powered generator.
Look back at our ex-Xmases:
2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019
2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014
2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009
2008 | 2007 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003
2001 | 2000 | 1996
