2016:
A Year in Photos

Happy Valentine's Day.

Have we got a lot to share with you! 2016 was an incredibly eventful year, personally, professionally, academically, pet-ly. Fami-ly? Traila has a new frenemy. We just got used to saying "fiancé(e)" before we needed to start saying "husband" and "wife."

We're still happy here in New York City, seeing as much theater as we can and going to trivia nearly every week. (And we actually won!)

Let's start with the big story here. We got engaged! And married! (But that comes later.)

Teresa asked me to marry her while we were celebrating nine months together.

All throughout our courtship we wrote letters to each other. So I thought this was the perfect way of asking.

I said yes.

(And I got this sweet secret decoder ring!)

We got right to work planning our wedding. The first choice was where to host it. At the top of our list was Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I grew up going to Santa Fe every year for Spring Break. It has special importance for my family. But first I had to show it to Tom.

So we planned a trip out there to scout it out. And, as with Colorado, I loved it immediately.

(Teresa was happy to be back.)

With the date and location picked, we set about making plans and invitations. But before we get ahead of ourselves...

... a lot happened at home.

We adopted a dog!

Her name is Ruby. She's a programmer's best friend. Here we are, taking her home from the adoption event.

Although she is scared of everything, she took to us and her new home quickly.

Ever since meeting her, Ruby has wanted nothing more than to become Traila's best friend. Traila, unfortunately, doesn't feel the same way. Quite the opposite in fact.

But I'm still hopeful that, one day, they'll be buddies. Any day now.

This year I also finished both of my master's degrees. My MFA culminated with a thesis show in April, where I showed prints, paintings, and videos in a gallery on campus.

I also finished my degree in History of Art and Design in December. This was the most I ever worked on a single essay in my life. Turns out writing a thesis is hard. Who knew?

At the same time, I worked an internship at Artforum in Manhattan. I also showed my work in three different galleries around NYC, an essay I wrote was included in the Queens biennial catalog, and helped curate a show on campus.

I've stayed very busy at Schoology, where I was promoted to Engineering Manager. I'm now in charge of two teams of engineers, one building our iOS and Android apps, and the other making our software work with the other software schools already use.

It has been a fun, challenging new role, and I'm learning every day.

But it wasn't all work. We continued to explore together, both in and out of the city.

I finally walked across the Brooklyn Bridge!

And Tom showed me around Governor's Island.

We saw the Cyclones play at Coney Island, including fireworks after the show, ...

... saw the Mets play for Teresa's birthday, ...

... and spent many wonderful afternoons in Central Park.

We also took quite a few weekend trips out of the city. We started by visiting Philadelphia. It was the first time either of us had been there. We didn't expect to nerd out on the history of the city as much as we did. But, still under the influence of Hamilton, we couldn't resist seeing where it all happened.

Or tasting the founding fathers' original beer recipes. They knew what they were doing!

And, of course, we had to have the original cheesesteak while we were there.

We went up to Rhinebeck, New York for the Fourth of July, where we met some of my old college roommates to celebrate and catch up.

I took Tom up to Camden, Maine, where we visited Aunt Sarah and David, hiked, and took a ride on the Schooner Olad.

Ruby visited Big Wolf and met her uncle Cody for the first time. (Cody is the cute black lab mix.) He taught her how to play with sticks. She taught him how to swim.

Now, where were we? Oh right! And in the middle of all of this,

We got married!

Hitched. Man and wife. And we had an amazing wedding.

We rented a property north of Santa Fe for three nights and hosted all of our immediate family. It was relaxed. In the days around the wedding people came and went as they pleased. We explored Santa Fe. We hiked. We went to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. And we just generally had a good time together.

It was nice having our families together in one place, the first time we were actually able to do that.

The property was beautiful, isolated, neighboring the national forest. This is the main building, which was built in the traditional New Mexican style.

Ruby liked it too.

The day before the wedding, a group of us hiked through Bandelier National Monument outside of Los Alamos.

On the day of the wedding, many of us got up before dawn to go to the Balloon Fiesta. There we met Teresa's friend Mollie. It was a cloudy day and we almost got rained out. But it was our wedding day! And the story can't go like that.

After a two hour delay the mass ascension finally started.

And lo! The sky was full of balloons.

After the balloons we came back to prepare for the wedding. We took a quick nap, got dressed, transcribed our vows, and decorated the house.

And then the ceremony began, at sundown.

I was excited! The only thing I was nervous about was tripping in my heels on the flagstone steps up to the house.

Carole Owens, a longtime family friend, was our officiant. Carole (Teresa's sister) was the maid of honor. Kayleigh (Tom's sister) was the best man. And Ruby was the flower girl. Alex (Kayleigh's husband) played our processional and recessional. And Carole and Teresa played a duet on violin during the ceremony.

The wedding ceremony and dinner were exactly what we'd hoped they'd be: cozy, intimate, and easygoing. Tim and Carole chose a signature cocktail for each of us: the Spicy Tom and the Teresa No. 5. The food was delicious: New Mexican standards, enchiladas and chile rellenos. Everything felt perfect.

In lieu of a large reception, we decided to take our celebration on the road. We drove from Santa Fe back to New York City, stopping to visit with friends and family along the way.

The scenery between New Mexico and Colorado was stunning. Teresa offered to drive the first couple of days, since she had made the drive many times before. And I'm very glad she did. Otherwise I expect our car would have ended up in a ditch because I couldn't stop looking at the vistas all around.

Our first night on the trip, I surprised Tom with a stay at Pagosa Hot Springs in Southwest Colorado. It was his first time to that part of the state. But it was an old favorite from college and I was eager to share it with him.

Natural hot spring geysers like this heated all of the pools. Some were rather cool, like lukewarm bathtubs. Others, like the aptly named "Lobster Pot", were hard to stay in.

At least, they were hard for me to stay in. Teresa was comfortable in all of them.

After a night in Pagosa Springs, we continued north to Denver. Driving through the Rocky Mountains, we saw all four seasons in the span of five hours. We went from full foliage, to fall foliage, to no foliage, and back to later summer conditions in Denver.

In Denver we had dinner with my Grandma Alice, uncle Peter, aunt Lucille, and might-as-well-be-family Lea. The next day we had lunch with Grandma at her apartment.

I am sad knowing now that this was the last time I would see my Grandma, but happy that we had such a good time together, sharing beautiful weather and good conversation.

I'm also very grateful to have had this time together, and for having a chance to get to know Alice. She wore such a warm, welcoming smile every time I met her. She made me feel immediately part of the family.

From there we continued on to Fort Collins. We hosted a party at Fort Collins Brewery, where we celebrated with people from all different periods of Teresa's life. Some she's known since very early childhood, some from high school, others from during and after college. It was fun bringing together such a wide range of people.

The following morning, before making the long drive to Iowa, we met up with Uncle Norm for breakfast at the Silver Grill Cafe.

Norm isn't actually my uncle, but he becomes an uncle to anyone who takes the time to get to know him. Since co-hosting Runaway Fiddle with Norm, many years ago, seeing him has been a must every time we come home to Fort Collins.

This is the world's largest Swedish coffee pot. You can see it firsthand if you go to Stanton, Iowa, where we had our next reception. Teresa's father and step-mother hosted us and threw us a great party. Family from all over Iowa came to celebrate with us.

In Chicago — stop number five on our trip — we met up with friends from college. Though I'd meant to visit for years, this was my first time in Chicago. We had a blast. But we plan to return soon; we have a lot more to see!

I was born in Chicago but have no memories of it; we moved when I was a month old. This was my first time visiting in more than half a lifetime.

To break up the drive between Chicago and Upstate New York, we made a quick stop in Ohio, home of the most rollercoasters in one place: Cedar Point. This one was easily our favorite. It felt like you were flying. We rode it twice, getting our last ride in just before the park closed.

Some of my friends from Utica joined us for a delicious dinner of Chicken Riggies and Utica Greens. It was great to see my old friends and catch up. And the Riggies were just as delicious as I remembered.

And here we are, at our penultimate reception party in Lake Placid. We spent a great afternoon celebrating with my family and many of my close high school friends. And, though we didn't play, Twice on Sundays (my high school band) had its first reunion in many years.

We had one final party in Brooklyn when we got home, though sadly we don't have any photos of it. It was a nice way to end the celebration, bringing people from both of our lives together in one place again.

For Thanksgiving we went to the Pacific Northwest. We celebrated in Oregon wine country with my sister Carole, her husband Tim, and their dog Hudson. We were excited to be invited to spend the first weekend in their new house with them.

We tasted wine at one of Carole and Tim's favorite wineries, Brooks, and at the first vineyard in Oregon, Eyrie Vineyards.

To wrap up our trip, we traveled north to Seattle. We visited MoPOP, which was still the Experience Music Project the last time Teresa was there. Carole and Tim brought us to the famed Pike Place Market. And we had phenomenal coffee, the likes of which we unfortunately can't get back home.

And here you thought New York had everything!

Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow!

This was Teresa's first Christmas in Lake Placid, and the Olympic village didn't let us down. We had a beautiful white Christmas.

We left for our honeymoon after Christmas. We wanted to include that here too, but this story is long enough already. So we'll be back soon with photos from our trip through Scandinavia. (Reindeer are involved!)

We hope you had a wonderful year too. Love and good wishes to you and yours. Until next time...