2022 Holiday Review
Posted by James & Myke Savage, on Dec 20, 2022
Somehow another year is almost over, and while it’s a common refrain we don’t know where the time went. A lot went on for us this year, but we thought we’d have had some time to write about more things before it was over.
Myke continues to work too much but is excited that he has built up a fantastic team and enjoys working with his new boss. He’s still managing the project management team for Xcode and celebrated 20 years at Apple. James took a break from Safari for the year, and instead worked on external display support for iPadOS 16.
James also spent lots of time cooking and baking this year. For Christmas, Myke got him a mead making kit, which he’s been running almost non-stop. We’ve now got several batches of aging in the basement, although they’ll still need to be aged for a while. James also picked up a new cat-shaped bread pan, which he proceeded to try out with every bread recipe he had. Cinnamon-raisin cat bread looks amazing, although didn’t hold together well. He’s has also been trying out a bunch of recipes from Brian Lagerstrom on YouTube. The ones for pan pizza and turkey pot pie turned our really well.
Running through the year, after our record setting December snowfall, January through March were fairly dry. That meant the ski and snowboarding conditions were a little on the weaker side for the ‘21 season. We didn’t let that stop us though, and managed to put in our highest number of hours on the mountain to date. James got in 25 hours over 11 days, and covered 81 miles and 60k vertical feet! Myke is continuing to improve his boarding with 51 runs, 59 miles, and 46k vertical feet. We also branched out this year, hitting up Northstar in addition to Heavenly. It’s about an hour drive from us, but the runs are also nicer (and a little less crowded).
As winter wound down, we got to celebrating Myke’s 34th (er… 43rd) birthday. Continuing our escalating battle for “best cake,” James concocted a super sweet, five layer, chocolate and caramel cake. Inspired by a candy bar, it combined chocolate cake with chocolate chip cookie, layers of nougat butter cream, caramel sauce, and peanut and nougat ornaments. Myke’s review? Possibly too sweet, which was never something he expected to hear from him. Maybe next year we’ll have to tone things down.
For James’ birthday, Myke made Milkbar’s Tiramisu Layer Cake. It has a vanilla cake soaked in coffee, coffee frosting, chocolate crumb layers, and cannoli cream.
After our birthdays, Myke decided that it still wasn’t warm enough in Tahoe, and planned a “birthday” trip to Hawaii for the two of us. You can read all about it in our photo gallery from earlier in the year, but the big highlight was that James got his PADI open water certification. Myke also picked up some new gear to complete his kit, including a fancy dive watch, and completed his Rescue Diver certification.
After Hawaii we had assumed we would be returning to the office, but because of COVID that got pushed back. This was great news for us, since it meant we’d be spending the summer in Tahoe too, which meant more time for Myke out on the water. Our boat, Blue Bear, continued to get a lot of love as he went out nearly every weekend, with or without visitors. This year we also got to take the boat to the Emerald Bay boat-in campground, which is only accessible from the water. We brought our friends Harris, Miles, Scotty, and Eric with us; and everyone had a blast relaxing on the boat in the day time and making s’mores at night. Myke definitely can’t wait to go back.
For the 4th of July, we also planned a trip out to surprise Myke’s mom for her birthday. Everyone did a great job keeping our arrival under wraps and we definitely were unexpected (but welcome) guests when we knocked on the door. It was our first time back out to their lake house in at least a few years, and we had a great time floating in the lake (which unlike Tahoe, is actually warm). The fireworks in Georgia were also awesome, since in California we were still in a drought and couldn’t really have any.
We left Georgia shortly before our own 2-year wedding anniversary. Despite Myke’s threats to plan another party, we had a quiet day enjoying our cake from last year’s big celebration. After that came Hannah & Evelyn’s wedding. Like us, they had gotten married during COVID but delayed their actual celebration. It took place at Roaring Camp in the Santa Cruz mountains, where they renewed their vows under a grove of redwood trees after we took a train ride through the mountains.
We returned to Tahoe for August, where we continued to enjoy the warm weather. We also checked another item off our lake adventures list with our first scuba SCUBA dive in the lake. Myke planned two days of diving for a weekend, with our first being at 07:00 at Sand Harbor, not far from where we had renewed our vows the year before. That early in the morning the lake water was actually just a bit warmer than the air (72º vs. 65º), but we were still glad to be wearing a heavy wetsuit. The next day we out with Just So Scuba for two dives near and in Emerald Bay, including California’s only underwater state park.
In September our orders finally arrived to return to the office for real. While sad, we planned out a fun Labor Day weekend with friends up at the lake before heading down to the Bay for work on Tuesday. September itself had a lot of fun plans though. The next weekend we went up to Sonoma for Nick & Em’s wedding, which took place at a beautiful restaurant in Healdsburg, CA. The weekend after that we spent camping at Folsom Lake, where the weather (mostly) held out and didn’t rain on us. Sadly, after camping, we also had to make one trip back to Tahoe to pull our boat out of the water, since we didn’t know if we’d get another chance before snow came. And ending our September, we went up to SF to celebrate Donovan & Charlotte’s wedding at the University Club of San Francisco.
Not to be outdone, October also packed quite a few adventures. Myke’s friend Jeremy had invited us out to Oahu for his birthday, and never one to pass up a diving opportunity Myke was more than happy to join. We first spent several days on Oahu, driving around the island and trying out some new restaurants. Myke even convinced Jillian to attempt her first dive, although we’re not sure she really enjoyed it. We had also planned a second half of our trip in Kauai. Having gotten his dive gear Myke was eager to try it out in warm water, and was especially excited to get out to Ni’ihau. The Forbidden Island of Ni’ihau only allows natives on land but for a few months out of the year is home to some amazing diving. It’s been on Myke’s bucket list for a while but we keep seeming to miss it when we visit. This year though, he made it and the diving didn’t disappoint. Unfortunately though after being without cell reception all day, Myke returned to a text from James saying that he tested positive for COVID-19. Myke tested positive a day later. So instead of getting in his 16 dives, we ended up spending most of the week in bed trying to sleep things off.
We spent Thanksgiving up in Tahoe with our friends Geno, Rachel and Nate, and Daniel and John. While we got a light dusting of snow in the weeks before, Thanksgiving itself had nice weather, getting back up into the 50ºs during the day. After that we had to head back to San Jose to avoid a snow storm, and so that Myke could deliver Christmas trees to the neighborhood again. Then we were off to Ohio for a week to visit James’s mom for her birthday. We’re back in California now, where we’ll be spending Christmas in Tahoe again with a few friends, and are looking forward to a quiet New Years and new year having more adventures with family and friends in 2023.
