Happy 2023!

Our most exciting ‘return’ is our return to travel, something we have always loved doing! Susan Jane and her father did some fly fishing in Colorado in May. We also made it up to North Cascades National Park with SJ’s parents (pictures here) - a trip we've been looking forward to for several years. Visiting a National Park each year is a great chance to get away from the daily grind and because we went in early October, we were able to avoid crowds. There was a decent amount of smoke from nearby wildfires the first day, but it cleared up during the week and we had great weather for our hikes.

Paul made it back to Valparaiso for the first time in 3 years and spent some quality time with family (including the 15th birthday of his oldest niece Malia and his father’s 77th birthday). It was great to see how much everyone had grown and to meet his newest niece, Maren (born June of 2020). Everyone is doing well and looking forward to more visits in 2023.

In November, we took our first international trip since 2019 - heading to Scotland for 2 weeks. Visiting dozens of castles, abbeys, palaces, museums and cathedrals kept us moving the whole time! We drove over 1300 miles, ate lots of haggis, drank lots of scotch (and Guinness, even though it is Irish 🙂), and even took in a ballet on our last night. After learning about the UK history of the last 1000+ years, Game of Thrones seems more like a documentary than a fantasy! Friends from Luton, England even flew up to visit with us on Paul's birthday - a great treat! You can see more pictures from our trip here.

SJ continues to keep herself busy with litigation, federal public lands policy, forest collaboration, and teaching. The new political administration has provided some opportunities for proactive forest conservation work, but successfully moving things forward remains a challenge. In particular, SJ’s collaborative work continues to suffer from the “COVID hangover” that has required local folks to rebuild relationships with federal government partners: this will be a work in progress for the foreseeable future. On the upside, SJ has been named to the Federal Advisory Committee assisting the Forest Service with implementation of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP), which has improved landscape and socioeconomic health on the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon where we spend significant time throughout the year. In addition, she is helping to guide WELC’s new partnerships with Native Tribes and Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest, which is very exciting and also challenging work. Finally, SJ has taken a new position at WELC - Senior Staff Attorney - that will allow her to focus more on her litigation, policy, and collaboration work. While her managerial responsibilities have been a growth opportunity, this new position will let SJ be SJ more of the time 🙂

As part of his role at Cinder, Paul has developed a strong interest in "workforce development" - not just connecting job seekers with good jobs, but also ensuring necessary training is readily available without requiring substantial financial hardship to get it. This year, Paul joined the board for Portland-based Worksystems Inc to dig deeper into this space. He was elected to the executive committee in November and plans to travel to the national conference in DC in March 2023. This is interesting work across a variety of political views to ensure we have the right job skills in the community and aligns well with the work that Cinder is doing! Paul did an interview with Berkeley on workforce development and building more inclusive workplaces - you can read that here. Paul continues his community work, this year facilitating racial justice learning groups with Oregon Community Foundation, Cascade Forest Conservancy, and even the Western Environmental Law Center (SJ’s firm!). Doing this work with organizations that are close to our hearts is very rewarding and Paul is looking forward to new efforts for 2023.

In June, we hosted our largest Garden Party yet! In spite of the rainy weather, 75 people turned out to meet new friends and reconnect with old ones. We are looking forward to a sunny and warm Garden Party in '23! Indy and Niki continue to entertain us - they are both happy and healthy. As we’ve been able to entertain more this year, they’ve been able to brush up on their social graces a bit... now they only bark at the first few people to arrive and everyone else gets greeted with wagging tails 🙂. Indy turns 10 next year and shows little sign of slowing down. Meanwhile, Niki seems to be gaining power as she ages!

We hope you and your loved ones have weathered the past year in spite of the many challenges that persist. We'd love to hear from you or visit with you in 2023. Please get in touch and let us know how you're doing - susanjanebrown@gmail.com and brownpr0@gmail.com.