December 2025

Greetings from the Rotton / Finifter household! As we close out another busy year filled with work, travel, and college applications (!), a quick update on everything we’ve been up to.

January: We started the year with another beautiful performance by Sasha at her vocal recital.

February: Mark, Tracy, Lois, and Brian sailed on another Star Trek cruise, joining old friends and making new ones.

March: Sasha performed again, this time with the Maryland All-State Senior Treble Chorus, and starred as Toby in her high school production of Sweeney Todd. Things got interesting when, on her “off” night, she had to go on at the last minute when her double-cast was unable to perform.

April: Tracy joined in the Hands Off! rally in D.C., and she and Sasha began a series of college visits, starting with Salisbury University in Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

May: Tracy and Lois embarked on hiking Scotland’s West Highland Way, completing 96 miles from Glasgow to Fort William over the course of nine days.

June: Lois was off again, this time with Brian cruising the Danube from Hungary to Germany.

July: Sasha spent most of her summer working again at the local JCC summer camp, bringing home entertaining stories of herding four-year-olds, while Sam continued his classes in Digital Animation at Montgomery College.

August: We were excited to welcome our dear friends Hennie and Tommy, visiting the U.S. from Denmark. We spent a week showing them around the Washington area, then spent a few more days with them in New York before parting ways.

September: More traveling ensued, as Lois and Brian sailed from Los Angeles to Tokyo on a Trans-Pacific repositioning cruise.

October: More college visits, as this time Sasha and Tracy flew up to Boston to look at a school there, while Sam went to the Baltimore Comicon to draw inspiration from animators he admires.w

November: Mark and Tracy also went on a repositioning cruise, this time from Boston to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Sasha was again on the stage, starring as Scorpius in her school’s production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, as one of the first schools in Maryland to perform it. College acceptances started coming in, with University of Delaware, Towson University, Salisbury University, and Penn State University all accepting Sasha.

December: We enjoyed Sasha’s last performance of the year in her show choir concert.

We hope everyone is doing well, and that everyone has a great holiday season and a happy and healthy 2026.

December 2024

Greetings from the Rotton / Finifter household!

Sasha’s big year included playing Madame Thénardier in her high school’s spring musical production of Les Misérables and starring as the narrator of The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon this past fall. Over the summer, she started her first year as a summer camp counselor working with 4-year-olds, and is especially excited to have gotten her driving learner’s permit. She also joined Psi Alpha, the high school psychology honor society, and recently was accepted into the Maryland Senior All-State Treble Chorus (more on that next year).

Sam continues to work towards his digital animation degree at Montgomery College. In February, he and Tracy both competed in Snowshoe Mountain’s Cupp Run Challenge giant slalom race. We were able to celebrate his birthday in Cleveland while viewing the total solar eclipse.

In the fall, we made some long-overdue visits to relatives around the country. In September, Lois and Tracy drove out to Wisconsin to visit with their cousin Connie and her children and grandchildren. Then in October, Mark and Tracy flew out to Colorado to visit with Mark’s mother and sister to celebrate his mother’s 80th birthday.

Tracy is still running her own website development business, working with other agencies as well as clients across the U.S., and Mark continues his work with a federal contractor at the National Institutes of Health providing computer server and cloud support. Lois continues to knit all the wool in sight, while also joining a local hiking club with Tracy to prepare for a big trip we’ll share with you next year.

We’ve prepared a slideshow that highlights our year: