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The Marshes had another busy year full of adventures and exploration!
With the addition of a new truck this year, we took the camper to a variety of new and further locations not just in Michigan, but meeting up with family members in Harvey’s Lake, Pennsylvania, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Taughanuck Falls, New York .
Outside of the camper, most every weekend was filled with adventures including the boy’s first winter backpacking trip, a dads-only Sylvania Wilderness kayak trip, camping with family friends, pontoon days on Torch Lake, cowboy-themed camping, and Winchester’s first canoe trip with Scouts. The travel highlight was a Disney cruise with grandparents and cousins, but lots of time was also spent just enjoying our North Campus lakehouse.
Geoff is still overseeing IT at Kettering University and led the successful completion of its multi-year ERP cloud migration. It was a busy year for personal projects as well, including getting the ‘95 Jeep Wrangler back on the road, rescuing an abandoned M101 military trailer from a field, and adding a Snark sailboat and mini catamaran to the North Campus armada. To keep up with pursuing more advanced 3D modeling, a new 3D printer was added in May and has been running practically non-stop ever since. He also picked up hunting and tanning again this year and got his first deer since Texas (and then 5 more after, including his first-ever 8-point buck!)
Dianna is still working for Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts), has taken on a new camp, Hiawatha, in the UP, and gives direct support to the D-Bar-A working Scout Ranch. Now overseeing the entirety of the state, work travel has kept her busy but led to some really fun events like National Camping School, visiting Mackinac Island, the UP, and petting burros. She spent the whole summer running the Aquatics Area at Camp Rotary and got to bring the boys along. To accompany her second-degree black belt in taekwondo, Dianna also picked up Krav Maga and earned her White Belt rank!
Winchester (11) had a busy year, starting strong on new horizons. He officially crossed over from Cub Scouts to Scouts BSA and earned his Scout rank alongside his first 9 merit badges while attending multiple weeks at summer camp. He moved up to Middle School this year and was honored as a Student of the Month in October. As part of middle school, he has started learning trumpet and his consistent practice is yielding very impressive progress. Outside of Scouts and academics, after watching Geoff and Namaari complete a canine obstacle race in June, he joined them in October, carrying the not-as-built-for-obstacles Hammy (4) through much of the 3 mile course!
Rutherford (9) has been picking up skills left and right in 2025. This year he learned to shoot, how to sail, 3D model, split wood with an axe (he’s been using a hydraulic splitter for years) and earned his very first pocket knife! He spent 3 weeks at Camp Rotary with Dianna doing odd jobs and was the best “after-meal-table-cleaner-upper”, and general staff mascot. Most significantly, he completed the goal he began at 3 years old and became one of Victory’s youngest taekwondo Black belts!
The animals have been nearly as busy as the humans in 2025. Our previous foster, Spike, made the local news for being such a hidden gem and was adopted shortly after. We also fostered a sweet shy pittie needing to come out of her shell and a hilarious grunty mini bulldog named Baconator. New fowl additions this year included incubating our own chicken eggs, raising 4 (very tasty) turkeys, and a new adventure of 14 guinea fowl (brooded in the bathtub for the first 6 weeks!) Both Corgis, Sam and Hammy, got to visit camp and quickly became Camp Rotary staff’s favorite fuzzy visitors. In addition to kayaking, backpacking, and camping trips, Namaari (3) tested for her Therapy Dog certification in April and has been volunteering at nursing homes, schools, and libraries since then. She not only raced in the Midwest Canine Obstacle Race in June, but she did 2 of the 3 laps in the ‘Beast Mode’ category in the October race. The third lap was completed by this year’s addition to the family, our new Corgi puppy, Scampi, who was brought home in August. Unfortunately, we lost Sammich (7) suddenly to kidney disease in late November, but for a brief moment Dianna got to have her 3 corgis (which makes a ‘parade’) march as part of a corgi group in the Grand Rapids holiday parade. It is a very sweet memory of our exceptional pup who was taken far too soon.
It was an incredibly full year, so we are looking forward to the holiday break to take some time to slow down, enjoy our time as a family, reflect on the year past, and ponder the year ahead. We hope you get a similar opportunity. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
