2024 Year in Review: The Year We Said Yes

If we had to sum up 2024 in a single word, it would be yes — the year we got engaged, bought our first house, raised our first chickens, and set a date to get married in Hawaii. Here’s how it unfolded.

Winter — a blessing and a “of course”

We rang in the new year with Hannah’s mom, dad, and sister in St. Lucia, staying at the Harbor Club in Rodney Bay. Between scuba diving in Marigot Bay, the Sulphur Springs mud baths, climbing Tet Paul, and long games of Rummikub, Derek quietly asked Hannah’s parents for their blessing to marry her. (Derek was under the weather for part of the trip, and Hannah caught it for a full week once we got home — but it was worth every sniffle.)

Back in Seattle, we celebrated Christmas on Ethiopian Christmas (January 6), joined the West Seattle Health Club, picked our salsa series back up at Club Sur, and Hannah was asked to be a bridesmaid in Taylor’s wedding.

Then came February. We flew to Playa del Carmen for Hannah’s 29th birthday and got scuba certified together — and at Cenote Suytún, Derek got down on one knee. Hannah said “of course.”

Spring — chicks, concrete, and cherry blossoms

March was a season of making things. We started a tiny mushroom operation, inoculating bags of rice with three varieties of spores. Derek jackhammered the concrete pad around the pizza oven and got promoted to PMT. We admired the cherry blossoms at UW, took a guided fly-fishing trip on the Yakima River — and brought home four baby chicks from Baxter Barn in Fall City, building their coop ourselves.

In May we celebrated our one-year anniversary at Harry’s on Alki and took a family trip down to Oregon with Derek’s family, visiting Seaside and The Dalles.

Summer — a date, a dress, and a whole lot of adventures

July was the month it all became real: we picked our wedding date and venue — Café Julia and St. Augustine by the Sea in Honolulu, Hawaii. We finished the flagstone paver pad in the backyard, Hannah found her wedding dress, and Derek’s manager Wei took our engagement photos at Alki Beach and the Woodland Park Rose Garden. Derek traveled to Amsterdam for a work conference (with a side trip to the Paris Olympics), and we squeezed in Brynn and baby Oakley in Kansas, a Shrek rave at El Corazon, Odessa at the Gorge, and our very first kayak-crabbing attempt off Alki Lighthouse.

And in August, our chickens started laying eggs — right as our save-the-dates went out into the world.

Fall — keys to our own front door

September was enormous. Derek bought us a family car — a 2025 Kia Sorento we named Dennis — and after a six-month marathon, we closed on our house. We flew to Oahu to tour our ceremony and reception venues, ran the Diplo 5K, harvested our first container-garden potatoes, and completed our Engaged Encounter weekend.

October brought a freshly stained fence, a roof on the chicken run, a pizza-and-pumpkin spooky party, and a surprise Ethiopian-style engagement party thrown by Messi and Wubit in Lawrenceville. (We also discovered we had a rat in the garage. More on that in a moment.)

Closing the year — fixing, feasting, and family

November was wonderfully ordinary in the best way: we fixed the oven just in time for Thanksgiving, Hannah baked her first-ever focaccia, we volunteered at Mary’s Place, and — yes — we caught our first rat on the 18th. December took us across the country: choosing matching gold wedding bands, Christmas in Lawrenceville with Hannah’s family, a road trip to Cincinnati, and Winner Family Christmas in Minster, where Derek’s grandpa Bill gave him a book of his life stories and Dottie met the whole Ohio family for the first time.

2024 gave us a ring, a house, a flock, and a date on the calendar. Onward to the wedding. 💍