The Original St. Paul headquarters

In 2024, we got around.

It started with our trip to California in January to celebrate Altai’s birth with Nate and Glasha, and frequent trips to Milwaukee to see Henry, Alli, Auggie, and Abe.

In March, it was off to Hawaii with the whole family. Then in May, we jetted to Sicily for an over-the-top Juergens cousins’ wedding, followed by a week-long hike along the Sicilian coast. That all occurred before a long-planned Schubert Club music-focused trip to mainland Italy, visiting Puccini’s and Verdi’s birthplaces, among other lyrical spots. So, it was a month of walking, toasting, tuna, pasta, and prosciutto.

We somehow snuck in trips to Boston, Madeline Island, and Warba, Minnesota.

In September, we traveled with Altai, Glasha, and Nate to friend Jake Duscha’s wedding in Den Bosch, the Netherlands. (We grandparents came along as staff.) Once those festivities passed, we went to Lübeck, Germany, for a sweet visit to meet Glasha’s grandmother, Svetlana. She held her great-grandson for the first time. We parted in Hamburg, and Ann and Jay trained up to Copenhagen to research pastry.

Suddenly, it was October. That meant our annual three-day retreat to Viroqua, Wisconsin, and a couple of trips to Milwaukee to see Auggie and Abe play soccer and, in back-to-back games, score goals. Oh, and to visit their parents, too.

In November, we stayed home to vote. In case you missed it, our side lost.

In December, we did what most Minnesotans don’t do: we went North. We spent a weekend in Ely, Minnesota, with Ann’s retired law school colleagues and then sledded off for 10 days to Kodiak, Alaska, to celebrate Ann’s sister Carol’s 75th birthday. It was dark. It was stormy.

Of course, we did more than travel. Ann was active as a Schubert Club advisor and will become the organization’s Board president in 2025. She is also a founder of the Taproot Investment Cooperative.

Jay had a small amount of free-lance writing and editing gigs but spent much of his time completing his Patty Hearst-Jack Scott-history-of-sportswriting-grand jury-prison “memoir”—50 years in the making. It’s about a lot of stuff. The book will be published in 2026 by the University of Minnesota Press.

We both are active in our coop’s committees, which we’ll tell you about offline if you have a few hours. Our Zvago coop, a great building with active and friendly neighbors, is sort of like the TV show Only Murders in the Building, but with no murders . . . yet.

Like most of you, we are concerned, anxious, and heartbroken about the nation’s and world’s future for us and our grandchildren.

On November 16, 2024, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of our meeting. We’re happy that happened.