2025 Recap

If you've been here before you know this is going to be long. Get another cup of coffee and settle in. If you're new to the Doolen Family Christmas card, block off your calendar, you'll be here awhile. OR...

TLDR: Hana is still super fun, is fully potty trained, and can use chopsticks. She loved Sesame Street Live and Touch-a-Truck. As a family we traveled to Tucson, Tahoe, Lake Moraine (New York), 1000 Islands, Tupper Lake, Rochester, Banff/Moraine Lake (Canada), Calgary, and Disney World. Melanie did a lot of work travel in 2025, spending time in AZ, NM, and Green Bay, WI. Shawn has gotten into cooking turkeys. Last, but not least - GO BILLS!

If you're staying - we kicked off 2025 with work travel and solo parenting. Melanie had the honor of working with Navajo Nation, spending lots of time on the reservation which is predominantly in New Mexico and Arizona. There were lots of video chats back home and everyone was surprised that most days, Hana's pants matched her shirt.

We introduced Hana to the Clarkson Community (Let's go Tech!) at the 2025 Telecast and made many trips to the zoo, Children's Museum, and Museum of Natural Sciences. Hana continues to thrive at her preschool. She participates in soccer (her favorite), gymnastics/tumbling, dance, and Spanish language lessons - all extracurriculars offered through the school. 

Our first trip in 2025 was to Tucson, AZ to check out Saguaro National Park. We loved walking through all the 100+ year old cacti and eating all the food Tucson had to offer. As we were leaving we got news that Houston was about to get walloped by snow so Shawn and Hana took off early and Melanie headed straight to Navajo Nation for work. It was a weird sight to see - Houston covered in snow, but it happened! Hana and Shawn even made a snowman in our front yard.

Then our girl turned TWO! We had a super fun birthday party for her at the house with all her friends and a few of ours. Hana got a scooter for her birthday which she zooms up and down the street on every chance she gets.

Then we were off to Tahoe for our annual ski week! We saw colleagues and Chris Ball and got a powder day on our last day. The wind was whipping and we were too out of shape to enjoy it but Hana loved the snow. We still haven't gotten Hana out on skis but maybe 2026, maybe 2027.

For a time, Hana was obsessed with Elmo. EVERYTHING was Elmo. When Sesame Street Live came to Houston, we were there. She was completely mezmerized. She blinked maybe once the entire show. Safe to say she loved it. Of course, by June she had moved on from Elmo and is now enthralled with Daniel Tiger. She's so-so on Mickey and will watch Bluey when it's the only option presented to her.

In the spring, we potty trained Hana. She did great...for the most part. In addition to picking strawberries, Hana also started picking out her own clothes. And we started leaning into Hana's love for arts and crafts - she's just like her mom.

All three of us ran the St. Arnold Art Car 5K. Art Cars are a part of Houston's culture. They're vehicles transformed into rolling works of art, celebrated with a namesake beer, a 5K, and a whole big parade. Our neighbor is a wonderful artist who is responsible for some of the famous art cars displayed around town. Her friend took us for a ride in the Banana car and later in the year let us get up close and personal with the Stevie Ray Vaughn art car after it finished its stint at Hobby Airport.

Despite the fact that it was only April, it was already hot in Houston and we were at the pool. Melanie took a break from her travels to the Southwest and headed north to visit clients in Green Bay, WI. She had hoped to align her travels with football season but the client politely declined a five month delay to make it happen. When the Minnesota Twins came to town, we took Hana to her first MLB game. She loved the crowd's energy and in the sixth inning tried to take off her Twins shirt to join the masses. 

Summer means venturing north to NY for time with the Doolens. This year was a reunion year so we got time with all the great aunts and uncles, aunts and uncles, cousins, and second cousins! There was endless activity, karaoke, more than one Jameson toast, and a deep fried turkey. Now Shawn hopes Santa is bringing him a turkey fryer for Christmas. Pray for us.

After the reunion we headed up to Clayton, NY for some time on the river. We love spending summer in the 1000 Islands. We walked the Fourth of July parade, took the boat out, went to the beach and built sand castles, swam in the pool, painted on the porch, did all the fun summer things. 

With time to kill, we made a stop in Tupper Lake, Shawn's hometown. Hana loved the Wild Center and was happy to spend the afternoon at Raquette River Brewery. She danced to the live music, colored with chalk all over the patio, and made friends with a North Country bear.

Our last stop on our trip was Utica, NY. A short drive from the reunion site and the place where both of Shawn's parents grew up. Utica hosts the Boilermaker 15K, which has over 10,000 runners annually. Everyone finished and everyone signed up for the race in 2026!

In early August, we made another trip to NY, this time to Melanie's hometown outside Rochester, NY. We celebrated her best friend's vow renewal on their fifth anniversary. While it's wild to think back to 2020 when weddings were being postponed and cancelled, it all worked out because waiting meant giving our babies a chance to meet and become friends. Hana got to dip her toes into Canandaigua Lake and eat her first Abbott's. Next time we'll get her a Zweigles white hot and a burger from Bill Gray's.

Unable to sit still, we took a trip to Banff, AB in early September. It's been on our list of places we'd like to go for years and we never made the time. We can wax poetic about how perfect Canmore/Banff/Lake Louise is for a family vacation. We all had a great time. We hiked, collected acorns and pinecones, threw rocks into lakes, and ate beaver tails. It was pretty smokey the day we had passes to see Lake Louise and Moraine Lake but the views were spectacular nonetheless.

We capped off our trip with a few days in Calgary; another perfect place for young families. Hana loved taking public transit to nowhere - she just wanted to ride the trains and buses and we let her because, why not? Then we took her to Heritage Park, which had a real working steam train that she got to ride multiple times. We also got to take a horse drawn carriage and tour a town that would have resembled Calgary around the turn of the 20th century.

Back in Texas...Melanie drove up to Austin to see her favorite podcast, My Favorite Murder, live. While she was there she had dinner with her cousin Jeff, which made it the perfect trip. Melanie and Shawn continued their involvement at Hana's school, helping the parent teacher organization up the ante with new carnival games for their Fall Festival. 

Hana's personality is out in full force. She had the most fun as a princess at her school's fairytale ball. But she's happy to put on her zubaz and shout "GO BILLS!" on any given Sunday. She completed the library's 1,000 books before Kindergarten challenge. While we definitely read the same book over and over, we did manage to read 373 different books.

Staying close to home, we went to an awesome Touch-a-Truck event, where kids could climb into all different sorts of trucks. Hana only had eyes for the helicopter. She hopped onto the jump seat, buckled up, and refused to leave. 

We did all the spooky Halloween things. We carved pumpkins for the first time in years. Went to Zoo Boo and ran up and down the block trick-or-treating. Hana was Kirkland Peanut Butter (RIP), Melanie was peanuts, and Shawn was butter. If you haven't checked out the details of Hana's costume, make sure you zoom in on the labels. 

Halloween also marked Melanie's mother's last day of work. Scary how much free time she's going to have. We went out to dinner to celebrate. Picture credit goes to Hana. Shawn also celebrated his father's milestone birthday (we won't tell you which one) in South Bend, IN. They cheered on the Fighting Irish and made a pit stop in St. Joseph, MI where the family lived for a number of years when Shawn was little.

When the Bills came to Houston, we made our way to NRG Stadium. Our Houston friends were gracious enough to let us join their tailgate, but they probably knew that Buffalo wasn't much of threat. Buffalo has lost every game played in Houston since 2006. Melanie added "shoe painting" to her lengthy list of crafty hobbies. They did not bring the Bills good luck. Bills lost to Houston 23-19.

If you're still with us, we made it to Zoo Lights to kick off the holiday season. Still shorts weather in Houston. Hana is enjoying time with the chickens in the backyard. She likes to pet them and they like to chase her. She's become pretty skilled with chopsticks. Ambidextrous too!

We had Thanksgiving at our house this year. Hana made the stuffing while Shawn smoked the turkey. We'll see if his transition to a deep fryer yields even better results. The turkey had its desired effects and knocked Hana out before we could finish her bedtime story.

As soon as the turkey was consumed, we hopped on a plane to Florida and took on Disney. We were joined by Shawn's college friends, Maggie and Ryan, and Melanie's college friends, the Romeis, for two days in the parks - one day at Animal Kingdom, complete with a character breakfast, and one day at Magic Kingdom. The kids did great, the adults did great and we had the most magical trip. It was way more than we could have hoped. $10 bubble wands procured from Amazon before the trip were probably the biggest hit.

All the Christmas decorations at Disney should have been a sign that Christmas is here but we missed the memo. We've been frantically trying to do all the things for the holidays while wrapping up work for the year. We still managed to catch a viewing of Rudolph in the park - Hana says she likes Frosty better - and Melanie finished knitting Hana's Christmas dress the day of her Christmas concert. Hana looked great and sang great! No stage fright for this little woman.

Shawn and Melanie watched the Buffalo Bills Hallmark movie and were influenced. We ordered an inflatable Buffalo as soon as the movie was over. Don't try to convince us this isn't a Christmas decoration. Hana is fully indoctrinated and insists we name him 'Josh'. Last weekend, during the Bills vs. Patriots game, she cried for the Bills song and was displeased when we told her it was only for when the Bills score and first downs don't count. We'll be at the Bills game in Orchard Park on 12/28; our last game at the Ralph. 

If you've made it this far, congratulations. Twenty pages of updates. We're grateful for all our friends and family who love and support us from near and far. We loved seeing everyone on our travels in 2025 and hope to see more of you in 2026.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Love, The Doolens