Highlights of 2022

JANUARY: Pierce wasn't the only adorable animal who got his belly scratched this year, and Katie fulfilled her dream of being colleagues with Dwight Schrute.

FEBRUARY: Winter moves faster when spent outdoors, and this might have been the sunniest winter in Michiana history. February alone included hiking, ice skating, cross country skiing, Mishawaka's river walk, snowshoeing, and a maple syrup class. (Next time you talk to Katie, be sure to ask her about sugar shack construction.)

MARCH: One of our favorite live acts, Postmodern Jukebox, was traveling through the area and asked to take a picture with us. (You may need to zoom in a bit.)

APRIL: April brought a diverse variety of live music: Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster in New York, an extra from The West Wing in South Bend, and a delightfully-tacky pipe organ pizza parlor in suburban Milwaukee. The jury is still out on which evening Kyle enjoyed the most.

MAY: May was all about the birthday boy, making it ... well, not all that different from any other month around here. Pierce celebrated 14 years at his favorite brewery, and he returned to Harbor Country for a Memorial Day camping trip. Surprisingly, this was the first time we ever took him to the beach, which he (also a bit surprisingly) loved.

JUNE: Concerts were back in the realm of possibility this summer. June brought Billy Joel to Notre Dame Stadium. Then Kyle finally received his Christmas gift from 2018 with an Elton John show at Soldier Field. The first iteration in 2019 was cancelled while we were driving to the show, and then a parade of reschedules followed over the next 18 months. Since Reginald hasn't exactly treated his body as a temple, we were relieved he made it through the pandemic unscathed.

JULY: Once a decade or so, Kyle's college roommates gather to recreate this picture from the night before graduation. (Apparently only one of us consistently receives the memo about doing sad faces on account of the bittersweet occasion.) After several years of saying we needed to get together, we finally made it happen, with fourteen family members enjoying a long weekend at the Lake of the Ozarks.

AUGUST: Because Kyle's new gig in private practice includes business development responsibility, this year's social calendar consisted mostly of filling tables at fundraisers. After two years spent primarily in sweat pants, 2022 brought plenty of occasions to dress up. In August, we celebrated both the South Bend Civic Theatre and the South Bend Symphony Orchestra.

SEPTEMBER: Our seventh annual Labor Day Extravaganza brought fun for all ages. Mark your calendar to join us at the eighth edition on Sunday, September 3, 2023.

We are in the season of our lives where these pages too often remember a grandparent lost. Grandma Carol Chamberlin provided a shining example of how to live one's final days, not letting a terminal diagnosis keep her from celebrating with family at our Labor Day party. Just three weeks later, we were celebrating her life at her beloved St. Monica Church.

Grandma spent the last five years eagerly anticipating a reunion with her 'deary,' Bruce. While it was Grandpa who was known around town from his profession as a teacher, Grandma was a teacher as well. She taught us with her actions, her love, and her steadfast faith. Raising six children in their cozy home, she exhibited selflessness and patience beyond comprehension. And, together, they provided us an aspirational example of lifelong love.

Even with sixteen grandchildren, each of us always felt like the special one in her presence. We are blessed to have enjoyed many celebrations with Grandma Chamberlin, right until the end of a great 90-year run.

OCTOBER: 2022 brought significant challenges for the Chamberlin family, but October was a month of healing.

Back in June, Kyle's mother (once again) stared down a potentially-fatal situation and (once again) came out on top. After a week in septic shock with no clear cause, Kim was rushed to emergency surgery to remove a large section of her colon. Given her compromised cardiac condition, neither the procedure nor the subsequent recovery could be taken for granted. Each week though June and July seemed to bring a new complication: fluid on the lungs, COVID, defibrillator activations, and more. But after 68 nights between the hospital and inpatient rehab, Mom was quite excited to come home! By October, with a lot of effort in physical therapy, she was working her way up the stairs. Kim's heart continues to function as well as can be expected, and we are so pleased she is headed in the right direction.

Decades of constructing theater sets alongside students have finally caught up with Kyle's father's back. For the last two years, Ed has been fighting through extreme pain while lovingly caring for his wife and elderly relatives. Several years ago -- after injections, therapy, and other treatments proved ineffective -- a specialist told Dad to return for surgery when he could no longer walk. ... It seems that advice was taken a bit too literally. In October, Dad got in on the emergency surgery action for himself, with a late-night spinal surgery to stave off permanent nerve damage. Fortunately, he was back up and walking the next day, and the surgeon is optimistic he will have some long-term relief. This picture from the recovery room might reflect the least pain he felt all year! As the anesthesia wore off, Dad was quickly back to his loquacious self, conversing with the nurse, who was of course a former student.

Even Pierce was not immune to 2022's health challenges, experiencing a scary flare-up of his pancreatitis in October. After nearly a week without eating, our little buddy was losing weight and energy; we were close to a difficult conversation with the veterinarians at Katie's office. But then, almost overnight, he turned a corner and started eating. Since then, his appetite has been ravenous and his park walks as fast as a puppy. Pierce perked up just in time to celebrate his German heritage for Halloween.

NOVEMBER: And now, back to our regularly-scheduled programming. Thirty years and five days after the Penn State-ND Snow Bowl, we experienced our own whiteout game. Fortunately, we came dressed for the occasion.

DECEMBER: We wrapped up 2022 in similar fashion to last year, celebrating the holidays with Katie's father in Arizona. We took him some comforts of home, including three days of gray, Indiana-like weather.