Holiday Letter 2021
Merry Christmas!
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Apparently we're on the two year card and letter cycle, and if you're sensing an early New Year's resolution, you wouldn't be wrong. As in the past, plenty to talk about in 2020 and in '21, so we'll jump right in...
Lots of news with Jeremy. He began looking for a house during the spring of 2020, and ultimately decided to build a house in Palm Bay closer to his office. December 2020 was a bit of a whirlwind month for him, as he and Jenna became engaged and he closed and moved into their new home. Like many software engineers, Jeremy spent much of 2020 and 2021 working from home. Recently he became a team lead and he has found it beneficial to be in the office more frequently. Jenna continued her pharmacy studies; all of those classes have been online during the pandemic, allowing her to reside in Palm Bay. This spring is a return to in-person instruction, so she will be back in Tallahassee in a couple of weeks. They have two young dogs (Chowder and Buffy) that (we think) have stopped growing but, unfortunately, Jeremy’s cat Mickey, who moved with Jeremy in December 2020, passed away suddenly (as cats tend to do) in May.
Bryan graduated from Florida State (#SoccerSchool #BasketballSchool) in December 2021 with a degree in computer science. He parlayed his two completely virtual summer internships in 2020 and 2021 at L3Harris (still the family business) into a full time software engineering gig with the same company starting at the end of January. Like his brother before him, he has also moved back into his childhood bedroom for a short period of time to get his feet under him. Bryan shut down the Lunar Surf business as it interfered with his classwork and, as we say, the juice ultimately wasn’t worth the squeeze but it was still an excellent entrepreneurial experience. He has taken an interest in hiking, planning many weekend hikes in and around Tallahassee, and longer hike trips to the southern Appalachians and Smokey Mountains. Last spring, he and three friends went hiking in west Texas, complete with unplanned car repair stops in Austin and Shreveport. He continues to surf, and also likes to mountain bike although one wonders where in flat Brevard County he will find a place to ride.
2021 for Lyndsey has been exciting. Everyone is glad to say that she finally moved back to the Space Coast!! She quit her jobs over in St. Petersburg throughout the year, put her house on the market in October, and just closed on a townhouse in Palm Bay. She is working at an eye doctors office at the moment while she studies for her tests to become a teacher. Come January she will be a substitute teacher for Brevard County Schools as well.
For Cheryl the pandemic has surprisingly brought many blessings and also a ton of frustration, extra work, and the tanking of her travel business. Her travel business was her hobby; she loved almost everything about it and had record number of sales and bookings for 2020. Then the pandemic hit and unfortunately even now going into 2022 she is still dealing with many canceled 2020 bookings. She is no longer taking new clients and booking new travel. What once was her fun escape has now turned into her worse nightmare and she’s not sure if she’s going to continue to keep the business going. However, there were also so many positives! As you all know Cheryl is an extreme extrovert and has spent a fair amount of her career working remotely but she never thought she would enjoy working full-time from home. She can’t believe how much she loves working from home! Her overall health has improved, she’s less stressed, more productive at work, and while she does miss seeing her co-workers daily she does get together with a lot of them frequently for lunch, book club, or to play Mahjongg. She has also reconnected with her High School girlfriends. When the pandemic started one of her girlfriends mentioned feeling very isolated so Cheryl setup a weekly zoom call with about 25 of us. Their numbers have dwindled down to less than 10 on a weekly basis now but they’ve kept up the weekly zoom calls for almost two years and she loves reconnecting with these women that she has wonderful childhood memories with.
Devin is back in his office about 75% these days and greatly appreciates the new Covid induced flexibility available for his work schedule. Frankly, there are a surprising number of things that work much better from home than in the office. Problem solving is still the rule of the day, mostly due to a wave of retirements at work (some demographics, some delayed by Covid) placing different people in new positions. One of the early Covid changes was the closure of the Patrick SFB gym, but Devin and Bryan had -unknowingly- build a pretty nice garage gym over the previous five years allowing them to continue their workout routines. Devin, for one, never plans to go back to a public gym just for the convenience and ease of use. Golfing, especially in Florida, was hardly impacted by the pandemic. Unfortunately, everyone else figured that out too, making it difficult to find an open tee time in some cases.
Traveling during Covid is obviously difficult. Our planned big May 2020 Italy-Barcelona cruise has been postponed twice, and we hope to actually go this April and May. By the time August 2020 rolled around, everyone had gotten a little restless, so we planned a vacation to somewhere outside – and decided on Utah. A week of outdoor activities in Bryce Canyon, Moab, and Park City was an excellent tonic for being stuck in the house (even if it was 110 F). Cheryl, Devin, and Bryan followed that with a hike trip to New Mexico (Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos) in May of 2021. One hike found Devin and Bryan knee deep in snow and therefore back in the hotel before lunch. Cheryl and Devin also traveled to Los Angeles in July; first time in LA for either of us. Cheryl met her high school friends on Catalina Island (which included a ferry ride through the supply-chain delayed container ships at Long Beach) while Devin lost golf balls across southern California.
We added a new dog, Raven, to the family in May 2020. We had always planned for Arnie to have a canine family member, and when Covid cancelled our May 2020 vacation and kept us in the house, we figured it was an optimal time to add a puppy. She is a mini-aussidoodle, just like Arnie but a little smaller. They are a good match for one another, and keep each other entertained through much of the work day. They've even made a couple of unplanned appearances on work conference calls. Pre-Covid, we enrolled Arnie in agility training, where he learned how to go over, under, and through all of the agility course obstacles (just like at the dog shows on TV). Training stopped because of Covid, however the humans in the house weren't disappointed when they realized they were getting themselves into "comp-dog", which was just like "comp-soccer" only with different barking and different treats.
Like many others, home improvements and renovations continued apace. We started by hiring and subsequently filling a dumpster to clear 18 years of clutter and stuff from the house. Painting and repairs to the pool deck along with restructuring the pool screen were next. The big project was a replacement of all flooring on the first floor, which had given out after 18 years of kids, dogs, cats, and, in one case, fish. This required everything to be moved out and for Devin and Cheryl to relocate to the boys bedrooms upstairs. Demolition went fairly quickly, however we learned (thankfully just prior to installation) the new flooring we selected wasn't the best product for our house. Reordering new product, and then getting back on the installer's schedule added a few months to the job. Since the floors were gone, naturally this presented an opportunity to paint most of the downstairs as well. In the end, and despite going considerably over schedule and over budget, we're very happy with the new floors. Upgrades will continue; our bar area was just finished in December 2021, and there are bathrooms to overhaul as well.
We hope you have a safe and happy holiday season!
Love, Devin, Cheryl, Jeremy, and Bryan Dean
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