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Happy 2026! As always, we’re pushing this out a little later than most, so we’re already a couple of weeks into the year. It’s freaking cold so far and we’re balancing school activities, Simpsons and Star Trek episodes, and nagging flu symptoms. We hope your 2026 is off a a happy and productive start.

Misha (14!) is in eighth grade and Lev (9!) is in third. All of those facts (along with our own ages) are difficult to process; typing them here means I have a reference when I can’t remember. This year the boys were again deeply immersed in piano, and Misha is also very focused on violin. This year, Lev seems likely to also become a violin player this year despite my tuba advocacy. Both boys are also doing organized sports of various kinds along with coding and writing projects and an only-allowed-during-breaks obsession with Roblox.

Following on last year’s trip to Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains we decided to go urban and went to Boston and saw our friends Ronen, Stewart, and Tasha along with lots of cool historical stuff. The unpolished stuff is always the best, and faves included the USS Constitution, the Old Manse, and the guided tour of the Freedom Trail with a Mountain Dew guzzling guy named Poope.

This year also marks my 25th year at UWM, which is difficult to believe until I see my hair color in the mirror. We hope that all of you are doing well and looking forward to a great year.

A belated “happy 2025” from the ClarkenSteins! We hope yours is off to a great start. 2024 was a thing over here as well, and we spent the year striving for a balance among work, quantity time sitting around, and the upkeep of the shuttle service we’re operating for the boys.

This year involved a lot of sports and sport-related helmets. There was also a ton of musical practice and performances, often with less safety equipment. Between the two boys there is a currently a lot of running, swimming, violin, piano, soccer, and math and I’m probably forgetting something. Misha (13!) is in seventh grade and Lev (8!) is in second, and they’re managing to have good attitudes about all of their stuff as long as they get to watch The Simpsons on the weekends.

Following on last year’s trip to Kentucky we went to Tennessee to glamp in the Smoky Mountains. We have heard there are other parts of the US that also have things to visit. Seems iffy.

We hope that all of you are doing well and looking forward to a great year.

Happy 2024 from the ClarkenSteins! Hope you and yours are having a great start to the new year. We had a solid if somewhat quiet 2023, keeping busy with work and school and all our outside stuff with no huge changes.

Misha (now 12!) and Lev (now 7!) continue to be very busy; Misha is pretty focused; he’s still on the swim team and is playing both violin and piano while also learning how to code. Lev hasn’t settled on his things yet but is playing piano and this year tried out ballet, soccer, swimming, karate, and science camps; seems like he’s going to focus on soccer, but we’ll see after basketball camp!

This year we traveled less, but we made a trip to Door County and another to Kentucky to see Mammoth Cave and go glamping. Natalia is enjoying spending lots of time with the kids while she figures out her next career steps. Dave is still administering at UWM, staring at spreadsheets and going to spreadsheet-intensive meetings. Increasingly, the spreadsheets have interactive visuals!

We hope the world is treat you and yours with kindness; we feel so much gratitude to have relative peace and a solid ground cover of snow.

Happy 2023 from the ClarkenSteins! Hope you and yours are having a great start to the new year. We’re wishing we had snow but also deciding we might as well enjoy the weirdly warm weather.

Looking back, 2022 feels like a blur of school and extracurricular activities occasionally interrupted by work and sleep. Lev is now in K5 (age 6) and Misha is in fifth grade (age 11), and they’re pretty busy: Misha is taking piano lessons and violin lessons and he’s at swim practice at seemingly all other times. Lev is also taking piano and swimming and is starting ballet.

We were fortunate to get to travel this year. In addition to our regular Door County trip we took an Amtrak to Washington D.C., and then went on to New York City. We saw all the things and relied almost entirely on trains, subways, and walking.

Back at home, Dave continued his work co-leading the Division of Enrollment Management and Student Success, occasionally dipping a toe into actual teaching and research but mostly going to meetings. Natalia finished a long stint as a Post Doc at the Medical College of Wisconsin and is now working towards a new career in bioinformatics.

Oh, and we played board games. Lots of board games. These boys aren’t as digitally oriented as I would have guessed, perhaps in reaction to the pandemic. Paper books, cardboard puzzles, and Clue Junior.

Hope that the world is being kind to you. Here in SE Wisconsin we could use some real snow, dammit.

Happy 2022 from the ClarkenSteins! 2021 was maybe a little more normal than 2020. Dave’s job changed again; he’s now overseeing several departments and programs involved with student success and (in theory) he’s still a English professor. Some days that’s hard to remember. Natalia continues to work in Biophysics at the Medical College, but this year got to spend more time in the lab since (thank god) the boys were back in face-to-face school and daycare.

Stuff we did

Remember back in May when it felt like we were seeing the end at the light of the pandemic tunnel? We went to an indoor waterpark, which seems crazy now. It feels like we spent most of 2021 at home or outside, apart from work and school. And Natalia and Dave took dance lessons while masked up in a very hot room, and we can now do a passable rumba. What a shame that no footage survived.

Iron Monocle, for which Dave “plays bass,” also played a gig during that exciting early part of the year, but otherwise we mostly hung around outside and drank beer virtually.

The boys spent a ton of time on school and on music; Misha plays piano and violin (and is still having mostly virtual recitals, which is awesome), and Lev has started the violin. At the moment we’re excited to go sledding just as soon as we get some worthwhile snow.

Here’s hoping your 2022 is off to a good start, and that you’re staying warm or cool as appropriate. Happy new year!

Happy new year from the ClarkenSteins! This year was odd, but we were very lucky to be able to re-arrange work and school and stay isolated. Dave was asked to co-lead Enrollment Management at UWM, just in time for the pandemic and the weirdest enrollment cycle ever. Natalia continues her work in Biophysics at the Medical College, heading to the lab primarily on Fridays and weekends so she can help the boys with school during the week.

Family Fast Facts

Getting outside. Since we couldn’t go most indoor places, we were outside more than ever this year and stuck close to home.

House shit. The basement flooded in April and became useless for several months; we had to throw away tons and tons of stuff, and then bought this fancy hole out front for only $10,000.

Music. Dave continues to “play bass” for Iron Monocle, making the most of both the E and A strings, sometimes playing multiple notes in the same song. IM played only virtually this year; here’s a shot from our socially distanced concert:

Misha and Lev also developed their love of music, and can I just say that virtual piano recitals are the single greatest thing to come out of the pandemic? No dressing up, and the total time from login to “bye, everybody!” is 45 minutes.

New hobbies. Never satisfied with a more focused mediocrity, we spent the pandemic becoming mediocre at even more things. Dave is learning to be an aggressively unimpressive chess player. Misha learned to code in Python, shoot “let’s play” videos, and create stop-motion videos. Lev’s actually gotten pretty good at school stuff and at Smash Bros, which he calls “Mr. Smash Brothers on the Bintendo.”

Hair. Hair was an ongoing issue in 2020, given our concerns about going to the barber. Case in point:

In which Dave learns that his hair really requires pruning, not styling:

Lev

Lev likes to punch and wrestle, especially with his brother. He also insists that he is hungry non stop, sometimes while eating a meal. He is somewhat jealous that his brother gets to go to school upstairs.

Misha

Misha has been in virtual school, and it’s been ok. The district has made a significant effort to make it work 100% virtually, and we have a lot of respect for the teachers. Misha misses his friends a lot, and his usual activities like rock climbing and martial arts.

Our best to you and yours and hopes for a happy 2021; how bad could it be?

Happy new year from the ClarkenSteins! We kicked off 2019 with a visit to Natalia’s family in Israel, but then didn’t travel much the rest of the year. Dave continued his work as a 50% Associate Dean at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he also serves 50% as Special Assistant to the Provost (or “SAP”); he dedicates the other 25% to teaching and research. Natalia continues her work in Biophysics at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Among other 2019 accomplishments, she made a trip to Krakow to present at the eleventh “Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Workshop.”

Vital Family Facts

Family aging.  We continue to age at an alarming, perhaps disproportionate, rate. Disturbingly, Natalia, who was 71% of Dave’s age when they met, is now 80% of his age. Will she pass him? We will watch this trend closely.

Family bedtime.  Steady at 8:30 pm. 9:00 for parties.

Family fitness.  Dave shaved three minutes off his 2018 5K time and discovered an appreciation for lifting heavy objects and (this turned out to be important) putting them back down. Natalia took up swimming, and Misha seems to have an awkwardly scheduled swimming practice every day (5:35?). Lev works out by identifying carefully organized items and then scattering them throughout the house.

Family injuries.  Dave broke his ankle in June (ninjas) and temporarily became a strident advocate for accessibility.  “Who the f**k blocked that ramp?” he would say. All signs suggest he has returned to being oblivious.

Family rock star progress.  Misha has taken a break from guitar and has gotten into piano, with lessons scheduled in the brief gaps between swim practices.

Iron Monocle, for which Dave plays bass, has moved into its new home in the basement of a bilingual daycare. The band spent much of the fall finding ways to hide the tequila stash from the children.

Lev

Lev just turned three, and is an iron-willed force of nature. He loves music, including both Frozen soundtracks, Beethoven’s Fifth (“play duh duh duh dah!”) and The Nutcracker. Other hobbies include cuddling and random acts of violence.

Misha

Misha is very busy with swimming, karate (junior purple belt!) and piano, and he spent a lot of 2019 on rock climbing; we’re taking a break from that due to the swimming schedule. He’s also teaching himself to be a Dungeon Master, which combines his love for games with his love for making and solving mazes.

Our best to you and yours; here’s hoping for a healthy, productive, and sane 2020.

We had a busy 2018. Lev turned two and Misha seven, and they’re busy guys. Natalia continued her work as a research scientist at the Medical College of Wisconsin, where she’s working in the Department of Biophysics; she’s focusing on the role of cell membranes in the formation of cataracts. Dave was grateful to return (in August) to being an Associate Dean and English Professor after serving 18 months as Interim Dean of the College of Letters and Science at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Full Deans spend way too much time in meetings.

Vital Facts

• Family weight progress.  Overall, our household lost 45 pounds, after accounting for Lev’s and Misha’s and Tyomka the cat’s ongoing, significant increases.
• Family height progress.  We are four inches taller after 2018.  Dave is now 6′ 1″.  The cat is somewhat shorter.
• Family aging progress.  We continued to age this year.
• Family fitness progress.  Dave ran his first 5K in a time that wasn’t super embarrassing (ok, it was 30:09), and Natalia ran a five mile race that she thought was a 5K.  It did take her a little longer than she expected.
• Family rock star progress.  Misha can now play a recognizable “Wild Thing.”  Dave’s burgeoning second career as a rock star continues to bump up against challenges imposed by his early bedtime. This year Iron Monocle played bars, a block party, and a 40th birthday party.  And they finally broke into the lucrative bilingual daycare market.

Lev

Lev loves everything related to music and dancing and microphones. Many thanks to everyone who bought him loud instruments for his birthday. 

He’s very two. He only likes things that are his idea, and as we learned on an international flight, he hates being buckled in on a plane and lets everyone know it.

Misha

Misha is into lots of stuff: He’s taking guitar lessons at School of Rock, which is somehow still a thing 15 years after the movie. He also played a lot of soccer this year, took swimming lessons, and earned a green belt in junior karate. He’s particularly excited to be joining a rock climbing team in 2019. And he really likes video games; sigh.

He loves school, most of the time. Especially math.

Here’s to a peaceful, productive, and politically sane 2019.