Happy New Year!
(Yes, it's February 2025 and an 2024 annual update might appear late but, thankfully, we can dust off an old proper theory for late annual updates.)
The Peters family, a motley crew of young giants and their middle-aged admirers sporting sweet winter hats (thanks Grandma Karen!), remain inexplicably well. 
As a double major in philosophy and the history of mathematics, Aaron, our now distant giant, continues to tutor in mathematics as a junior at St. John's College (Santa Fe) after spending the summer knocking doors selling pesticide in Tulsa. Working on game research, he is eyeing graduate school with his girlfriend after college.
Elliot, our vertical giant, is finishing high school before looking to college next year (he applied to 22, heaven save us all!): he stays busy with senior year APs (Literature, Physics C, Calc BC), academic bowl, friends, exercising, early morning seminary, church, and piano practiced (how else?) at fortissimo at midnight. He is eyeing economics and philosophy in college.
Libbie, our giant in spirit, is having a superlative sophomore school year having doubled up in science and orchestra (violin) with extracurriculars circling around friends, early morning seminary, mathematics, piano, academic bowl, soccer, and both Tulsa City & Church Stake Youth Councils. Libbie lived with dear family friends in Switzerland last summer. With her Spanish and German, she is eyeing a possible senior year abroad in a third language.
Maya, our giant at heart, is prospering in sixth grade at her new school, which she adores, on Ben's campus; before or after school, she can be found participating in student council, a collaborative maker club, robotics, and speech club. Away from school, she fills her remaining waking hours with mathematics, piano, cello, youth activities, new friends, art, and books. She is eyeing the weekend: whew!
The parents, now respectively almost the shortest by gender, feel decidedly less giant:
Ben continues to enjoy teaching, writing, and serving as chair at the local university. In 2024 he gave talks at Cambridge, Yale, and in Los Angeles, with articles appearing in Nature, the Journal of Communication, Wayfare Magazine, and participated in a rewarding second books workshop, among others. For some reason--call it a managed midlife crisis--he became obsessed over the summer with the real of acoustics (and phony home audio), eventually assembling bookshelf speakers for Kourtney's home office (i.e. closet).
Kourtney has paused her graduate study in data science to accept a new position with a national mathematics education consultancy, which has since taken her on business trips to Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Switzerland, Chicago, and Austin. Looking to cover one seventh-grade mathematics class at her previous school in 2025, she also traveled with a sister to New York City and San Francisco in an entertaining search for the archetypal opera performance (which began with that same sister in Italy in 2023). Apparently, 2024 was a year for adults to pursue quixotic hopes--in our case, audio.
Other highlights include our somehow surviving 14 separate no-fault auto incidents among now almost five drivers (oh, American carpocalypse!), making nine pies for Thanksgiving dinner, and a visit to grandparents, uncles, and aunts near NYC for New Years.
Our 2024 book recommendations include Is Math Real? by Eugenia Cheng, A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume, The Story of Your Life & Other Stories by Ted Chiang, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, Avant-Garde Post- by Marijeta Bozovic, Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Struggle by Emanuel Lasker, The Wandering Earth by Liu Cixin, and, when in doubt, How to Get an A in Biology.
2024 was hard for those who read the news too. We do not fully buy New Year Resolutions either. Instead we will cheer a future world that improves on 2024. Here is to building a better future together!
A-Carolin'
