I’ve been a proud Tesla Model 3 owner for 2.5 years, but have followed the company long before that. Before that, I had been a bit of a gearhead, though nothing approaching the people who mod their cars for track days and the like (though I did once do a track day with my Mini and raced a Ferrari too). From the time I first drove my first EV, I knew the world was going to change because the thrill and performance of driving an electric motor can’t be beat.

I’m typing this on what is unquestionably the best computer I’ve ever used, and the one I’ve quickly come to prefer over just about every other device in our home. As great as my new iPhone is, especially for taking pictures, and despite the amount of hours I’ve spent running with my Powerbeats Pro, it’s our MacBook that I keep turning back to these days. It’s the perfect device for both consuming music and video as well as getting stuff done.

Yes, that’s a Justin Bieber reference and yes, it’s too late now to say sorry. When you’re sitting poolside in Palm Springs, it’s hard not to channel some Biebs. The same circumstances also make it the perfect way to rest, recover, and restore after nearly two years locked down with three kids. Just as we hoped, a few days away from home on our first getaway since the start of the COVID pandemic and away with our kids in California turned out to be just the break we needed.

Somewhere between my childhood and my kids’, I forgot how much fun a family camping trip can be. I wouldn’t say it was a regular event in my family growing up, but we camped often enough to enjoy it, but it was only this fall that I finally got my kids out camping and remembered just how much fun it can be for a family. After a night out under the stars (and of course the planets which the boys identified), roasting marshmallows and broccoli (I swear they requested it), I realized it would be the kind of trip we’d make sure to do more regularly.

Our kids have been in pre-school since they were six months old. While the first few years were mostly like daycare, as they started pre-k last year, the experience became more like what I expected from public school. Their assignments, daily curriculum, and activities started to look more like what I thought they’d be doing in Kindergarten. So when they started public kindergarten this year, I figured I knew pretty much what we’d be getting into.

For as many things as the pandemic took from us like traveling and in person events, it did provide an incredible transformative opportunity for us to reimagine work and rethink some of the basic foundations of how we get things done. No longer tethered to our offices and commutes, many of us got to reconsider what actually makes for productive work and how we can best balance our work and home life.

I’ve had my new iPhone 13 less than a month now, but I absolutely love it so far. Not only is the overall design great, and the battery better than my two year old iPhone 11, the camera is outstanding and has already enabled a ton of great photos I couldn’t take before. After finally making it more than a year between phone upgrades, I’m glad I waited for the 13 and really feel the big upgrade.

My last flight was in January of 2020 to Seattle for work. Two months later, while we were actually in Washington DC (we took the train there interestingly), our offices began shutting down, work was moved remote, and shortly after, daycare even closed down for the next several months. A month later we would welcome our third child in the hospital in the midst of pandemic uncertainty and likely the height of the early pandemic anxiety.

At the start of the year, I made a resolution to switch at least the majority of my diet to vegetarian, and even try to make vegan choices as often as possible. Three quarters through the year now, it’s been mixed, but there have been some major wins to balance out from the slip ups and misses. At this point, I have a pretty good sense of where the biggest challenges lay and what goals will be feasible for the next year and beyond.

With this week’s news that Pfizer’s vaccination trials on kids 5-11 has shown positive results and that they will request FDA emergency approval soon, there is finally some cause for optimism for parents after a long year and a half. However, every time I tell people how excited I am to get them the shot, they ask if we are really going to do it right away. Here’s the thing, yeah, we are.