Tax Day 2026
Tax Day 2026
Quick recap, details to follow: Robert is on track to graduate from UW with a B.A. in Geography while still working as game day manager with the professional ultimate frisbee team and as an usher for the Seattle Seahawks and other activities at Lumen Field (which should include some World Cup Soccer matches this summer). Sarah is still working part-time at the Library of Congress (Federal Research Division), and David remains happily (successfully?) retired and enjoys, among other things, access to the Potomac River on weekdays, without struggling for a parking place among the weekend crowds.
Just after last year's tax day letter, Sarah and David were fortunate to catch up with about half of the crew from last year's Galapagos trip when we all met up at the Hillwood Estate in Washington, DC. It's a very cool museum/manor house/garden that we all enjoyed. But the best part was the company. Hank and Sally stayed around for a few days and David and Hank were able to have some fun on the Potomac River, a throw back to the days before they moved up to Hull, MA (https://kayakero.net/link171).
Shortly after that, David and Sarah were in the first of many protests against the current administration and its insane policies. That was a theme for much of the year (including just a couple of weeks ago).
Sarah got an epic Mother's Day gift from Robert: using his GIS (geographic information system) skills, he mapped all the previous Mother's Day photos from our website (https://kayakero.net/link172). And later in May, David and Sarah spent the weekend of her birthday at Barboursville Vineyards. A lovely spot close to Charlottesville and Monticello. That made for an entertaining, local-ish trip (https://kayakero.net/link173).
In June, with his junior year over, Robert came back to his Alexandria home where he undertook a metro speed run – you should ask him about that (https://kayakero.net/link174). Then we all headed to a new scuba diving destination for us: Curaçao. It's another of the ABC islands (Aruba and Bonaire being A and B). The diving was nice. Not as free and easy as we've become used to in Bonaire, but still really enjoyable. It was also great to share our evenings with Kelly and her family. They've been in Seattle for a few years now after she left federal service (where she and Sarah formed a friendship) to take on homelessness in Seattle (https://kayakero.net/link175).
For Father's Day, David was presented with a Bird Buddy, a feeder with built in camera that is very fun to watch. Robert had to head back to Seattle for a summer internship at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. That gave him some professional geography experience as he worked on mapping resources across King County.
We started July with a quick visit to NYC to see the newest Zapolsky: Ms. Zoe was about 4 months old for that visit (https://kayakero.net/link176). She, Sophie and Ian are doing great and we expect to see more of them as Zoe grows. (We also get to see more of her grandparents as David and Lynn come back east to check in on her and her folks.)
And then it was time for us to head Seattle-ward to celebrate Robert's 21st birthday! It was a great, interesting trip and Sarah and David only smiled a little bit as they waved goodbye to Robert when he went off to work at KCRHA while they enjoyed a relaxed breakfast. Times have changed a bit. Among many things we enjoyed, was taking advantage of an opportunity to try out "pack rafts" while in Seattle: that experience turned us into fans of the very lightweight, inflatable kayaks – they are sure to make an appearance later (https://kayakero.net/link177).
In August, David and Sarah drove down to Atlanta to help celebrate his brother, Loren's, 70th birthday. It was great to catch up with Williams family and friends and to be around for that momentous occasion. And, of course, great to spend some time with Loren and Susan's grand-kids! (https://kayakero.net/link178)
While Robert started his senior year at The University of Washington in September, Sarah and David packed up the car for a northeast swing. That drive took us to several cool locations: The Corning Glass Museum, Niagara Falls, Hull (to visit with Hank and Sally), Acadia National Park and the Bay of Fundy made up the highlights. David can now (finally) say he has been to Niagara Falls! And we both really enjoyed the Cadillac Mountain hike and appreciated the park ranger's recommendation on which trail to go up vs. down. Fundy's Hopewell Rocks was the most unexpected: Sarah arranged for a kayak tour at high tide before we walked around the same rocks and through the same arches a couple hours later at low tide – 40 foot tides are very impressive (https://kayakero.net/link179).
In November, Sarah and David flew out to San Diego for a Zapolsky clan wedding. Elise and Martin are a lovely couple; the wedding was beautiful and we really enjoyed connecting with that branch of the family. We also took advantage of being out there and spent some extra time at the beach, in Los Angles checking out the La Brea Tar Pits and Seal Cove before flying back to Alexandria (https://kayakero.net/link180).
Robert joined his friend Aiden's family for Thanksgiving (they are Seattle natives); Sarah and David were pleased to be invited to the Hubbard's to celebrate in Springfield.
While he stayed in Seattle for Thanksgiving, Robert flew back to Alexandria for Christmas. We all had a great time relaxing, touring DC, celebrating and recovering from the celebrations and flu (https://kayakero.net/link181).
After getting the sad news that the last of Sarah Green Williams's sisters, David's Aunt Betty, passed away, he and Sarah flew out to Phoenix for the celebration of life in January. Kevin and Meg really did a great job encapsulating her life and beliefs for that ceremony. We were able to spend more time with that branch of the extended Williams clan and enjoyed some extra travel with David's brother Loren and sister-in-law Susan. We enjoyed the hike with Betty's ashes to one of her favorite spots, Wind Cave, and the hike a few days later with Loren and Susan in Sedona at Soldier's Pass (https://kayakero.net/link182).
Sarah and David came home from Arizona to winter: Alexandria was preparing for the most snow in years as a storm headed our way. Sarah drove up to celebrate college roommate Michelle's birthday in New York just ahead of the storm and came home after the worst of the storm had passed.
The snow stuck around longer than usual for us as the temperatures stayed extra cold. But we ventured out in early February to see the Alvin Ailey Dance Group. Sarah found tickets available after they canceled on the renamed Kennedy Center and moved to the Warner Theater. We were happy to ensure they didn't lose attendance after shifting venues in protest of the name change.
One of the Christmas presents David and Sarah got each other were pack rafts after the positive test in Seattle. Ours are made by Alpaca Raft and took several weeks to be built for us. They arrived in February and now we're waiting on warmer weather to go play with them on the river (which was frozen over again when they arrived). Maybe by the time you read this...
In March, Nanette flew in from Perth, Australia – we met her and family as part of the moms' group 21 plus years ago. She was coming to catch up with her daughter, Taylor, who is three days Robert's senior :). Taylor has been living the van life and after a few days with us, including a really fun project for David helping them build a more permanent bed frame in the van, she and her mom took off for the south (and then west when our east coast weather turned cold again). They came back through just before tax day so we had time the hear about their travels and adventures (https://kayakero.net/link183). Sarah and David are taking notes on Utah with Canyonlands and Arches as future destinations.
As tax day approaches, Robert is gearing up for his final quarter at UW, hanging out with his girlfriend, Brooklyn, and for Easter, with their family in Everett, WA. Sarah and David appreciated that he avoided flying during the TSA funding shortfall and are very happy he has folks to hang out with. Sarah is leveraging her Library of Congress part-time position to research prison hulks (on her own time, of course) in anticipation of writing a book. David recently added topic tags to his kayakero blog and enjoyed learning about the Rust programming language in the process.
Please be like Hank and Sally and Nanette and Taylor and come on by if you're anywhere in the neighborhood. We love hosting folks and showing off both Alexandria and Washington, DC.
As always, you can keep up with Robert on Bluesky (https://kayakero.net/link169) and Instagram (https://kayakero.net/link170), Sarah on Facebook (https://kayakero.net/link76) and David on his blog (https://kayakero.net/link44).