A BLOG ABOUT A FAMILY: December 2018

TL;DR: Happy holidays from the Peters! We're good. Scroll down for photos. Come visit!

2018 took another 365 days to take place.

During the turn to 2018, our home underwent a significant upgrade, making it possible for the first time in twenty years for all six family members to share a room and a bathroom with only one other person, to maintain regular family ping pong tournaments, and to not do our laundry in a garage. Can you believe it!

The summer ushered in other transitions: Elliot attended Hale Scout Camp for the first time with Ben tagging along as mosquito bait, while Kourtney, Aaron, Libbie, and Maya joined a Lambert family reunion in a cabin on the North Carolina beach. Tucker, a cousin and son of one of Kourtney's sisters, lived with us for some summer months, after which another beloved cousin, Penelope, and her mother (another of Kourtney's sisters) lived with us for the Fall semester before returning to their home in Utah just before Christmas. Penelope attended second grade in the public school just behind our yard, while Maya, Libbie, and Elliot forged ahead at Holland Hall, where Kourtney teaches both advanced and remedial mathematics for fourth through eighth grades. Ben continues to teach at the University of Tulsa, while Aaron has begun Booker T. Washington, a public magnet high school in north Tulsa. At about the same time, Tulsa itself got a major upgrade in the form of (NYT-covered) the Gathering Place, an extraordinary 100-acre public park.

Maya, now six, has been attending Kindergarten with her wonderful teacher, Ms. Ward, where she names friends such as "Ellie, Claire, Dylan, and Maddie F." Maya is also following her siblings in tinkering away on the piano. She loves art, especially crafts like Valentine Day cards and coloring books. She reports loving swimming in the summer, leaf-pile jumping in the autumn, ice skating in the winter, and snuggling down in the spring with an early reader book (or her new Kindle!). Her infectious enthusiasm for everything brightens our days, and her unfathomable ability to snuggle even her brothers who generally squirm at the thought of human touch, warms us all inside and out.

Libbie, now nine and a half, continues to bloom: her excellent year has been punctuated by the sadness of watching her best neighborhood friend move out of state as well as leavened by visiting that very same friend for three days in her new home, teaching herself bits of piano, rehearsing for dancing and singing roles in school plays, and diving into many new exciting (re)reads, including the Harry Potter series, the Tuesdays at the Castle series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the Babysitters Club series. A dedicated craftsman, she jokes about almost having burned down the house while making candles (she didn't), making countless batches of slime with friends, cooking cookies, cakes, and breads, performing headstands and even handstands, and loving (from a far) "doges" (noting that Sophie, the temporary family dog, found a better home in the countryside last year). Her self-applied nickname "Libobers"--a portmanteau of "Libbie" and (naturally) "Bob"--has the virtue of rendering almost zero competitors on a Google search. She also leads the family, alongside Elliot, in the courtyard sport of four square.

Elliot, recently turned twelve, is making huge strides in sixth grade at school and the newest deacon in the young men's program at church. He is rehearsing for theater roles and taking occasional voice lessons. A center on the basketball court, he continues to anchor his school team (scoring, for example, 10 points in the last game's 26). A budding author, he is working on a debut novella about a highly trained show dog who yearns for the life of a carefree house pet. In his spare time, he enjoys reading (especially comics, science fiction like Ender's Game and historical fiction like A Night Divided), performing magic (especially card tricks), solving Rubik's cubes (including 2x2, 3x3, Pyraminx, and Skewb, etc.), playing video games with friends, coding on Scratch, meme memorizing, and Ultimate Frisbee in the backyard. To the general frustration of the adults in the house, he now maintains a winning record against his parents in chess and, occasionally, ping pong (the title of resident ping pong champion remains a highly contested).

Aaron, recently turned fifteen, is maturing into his role as a now phone-wielding, stylishly coiffed freshman in a large public magnet high school, where he maintains a few good friends from his former very small middle school and is making friends in the wider world of adolescent Tulsa. Catapulting himself into a challenging mathematics course, he has also tried out for cross-country and the Ultimate Frisbee teams at school, which he enjoys. He also completed an annual (adult) obstacle-course mud run with his parents, who also lead him in a monthly reading group tied to his family phone contract. Currently a leader in his youth group, he is considering tackling his Eagle Project and will soon serve as a Priest at church. Having placed sixth nationally in the 2017 US Junior Grand Prix, he continues to blow his family out of the water in competitive chess.

Kourtney (or "Ima" among the natives) continues to teach mathematics at Holland Hall Middle School and is preparing to present her work on problem-solving pedagogy at a national mathematics teachers' conference in the spring. She tutors Aaron in his calculus class while still relishing the fact she can tackle him at any moment, despite his now being taller than her. Her teaching continues provide a social bedrock for Elliot, Libbie, and even Maya (the first two have her as a teacher). In her spare time (ha!), she also manages to support her extended family while teaching kids at church, including Libbie.

Ben (or "Tato" among the natives) continues to serve alongside his wonderful and growing Media Studies department at the University of Tulsa. Despite efforts to do less, his research continues to whisk him around the world, with 2018 destinations of Oklahoma City, St. Louis, Denver, Stanford, New Haven, Boston, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Prague (there is also talk of the family returning to Lüneburg, Germany for part of summer 2019). This sabbatical year he is finding new purpose, teaching himself to play the drums, to cook and read Latin with less embarrassment, and continue toiling away on the next book or so (on the proverbial stupid history of smart technology). A few favorite reads in 2018: Jessica Riskin's The Restless Clocks, James Gleick's Time Travel: A History, and Robert Alter's The Hebrew Bible, a source text for his lessons in Sunday School.

2018 in photos: