All posts by Tracy Rotton

About Tracy Rotton

Tracy Rotton is Founder & Principal of Taupecat Studios. With twenty years of web development experience for large corporations, government contractors, and boutique agencies, she has experience building dynamic web experiences for clients both large and small. She's also a co-organizer of WordPress DC, one of the most active and popular WordPress meetup groups in the world, and has spoken at WordCamps and other technology conferences throughout the U.S.

Holiday Letter 2020

Dear family and friends,

2020 has been quite a year, with lots of great adventures for the whole family:

  • We finally got to see Hamilton live on stage at the Kennedy Center;
  • The whole family went on a wonderful cruise through Scandinavia, Scotland, and Iceland;
  • We saw Cirque du Soleil when it came to the D.C. area;
  • Sasha competed in a number of Irish dance competitions around the region; and
  • Tracy resumed her WordCamp speaking presence with talks in Washington, D.C. and Lancaster, PA.

At least, we assume that’s what our counterparts did this year in the alternate universe where COVID-19 wasn’t a thing.

Instead, like you, we spent much of our year hunkered down and doing our best to stay healthy. Fortunately, none of us caught the virus, at least as far as we can tell.

And so while our Hamilton tickets went unused and we contented ourselves to watch the Broadway recording on Disney+, we were grateful that Mark’s job at the National Institutes of Health is going well (albeit from home, of course) and Tracy’s WordPress development business had a strong year. Lois couldn’t attend her knitting camps in Vermont, of course, but busied herself knitting and cooking at home.

The kids (Sam in 10th grade, Sasha in 7th) have been “going” to school via Zoom all year, and will probably continue to do so in the second semester. Sasha’s drama club still did its fall play: a radio drama version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol; details on how to hear it will be posted on the family here when available. Sam found ways to connect with his friends through online gaming, and Sasha did virtual “movie nights” with her friends, and kept up her voice lessons and dancing remotely.

We hope you’re all doing well also in this crazy, topsy-turvy year. Here’s hoping that 2021 brings a more normal year and an end to this pandemic. Keep safe, stay healthy, and have a happy holiday season.

All the best,
The Rotton + Finifter Family

Summer Vacation 2017

Another summer vacation is in the books. This year, we took a road trip through the southeastern United States. The highlight of the trip, of course, was the Great American Eclipse, which we saw at totality in Hopkinsville, Kentucky with our friends Tara, Doug, and Liam.

Our activities:

  • Furniture shopping in High Point, North Carolina
  • A day at Nashville’s Adventure Science Center
  • Seeing Rifftrax live in Nashville
  • Visiting the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky
  • A day at the amusement/water park
  • Exploring Mammoth Cave National Park
  • Solar eclipse viewing in Hopkinsville, Kentucky
  • A visit to the Makers Mark distillery in Loretta, Kentucky
  • Horseback riding in Snowshoe, West Virginia
  • Buying way too many books at the Green Valley Bookfair in Virginia
  • Wine tasting at Shenandoah Vineyards

Sasha at Great Wolf Lodge on May 4, 2013
Sasha at Great Wolf Lodge on May 4, 2013

I’m not nearly as good a photographer as this photo might have one believe.  I just had an amazingly beautiful subject to work with.

Sasha Skis!

Saturday was our last day of skiing for the season.  Having had a good lesson at Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid earlier in the week, I wanted to take Sasha for one more lesson closer to home.  She was a little scared at first, but quickly got the hang of it.  We can’t wait for next season!