2023 A Year in Review: The Start of Something New

PersonalYear in Review
Written By Joel

When we look back on 2023 it will be the year where everything changed. It was a beautiful year, filled with memories I could have never dreamed of, adventures that would fill our hearts, and the start of something truly miraculous. 

The year began at home returning just before the ball dropped in Times Square from our dinner at The Modern. We went right back to work and enjoyed the first weekend of the young year with a symphony at Lincoln Center. There’s something transcendent about going to see a ballet, opera, or symphony at Lincoln Center. For one you get dressed up, and second, you're transported to an experience that you don’t get that often. Any time I am there I always tell Jenn we have to do this more. Over the Martin Luther King Jr holiday weekend, I went to California to visit the family while Jenn’s Dad came to New York. Not only did I get to celebrate Gracie’s 3rd birthday but got to spend some time with Cam and Abby and go down memory lane in Orange County. Jake and I had some good dinners in Newport and Amy, Ryan, Jake and I went to our normal KBBQ spot in Riverside. It was a fun and exhausting trip out. 

I came back for only a week before hitting the road again to Europe for my first of six work trips in 2023. As most of my trips did, I started in Paris and finished in London. I would love to say that I got the hang of this, that I mastered jet lag, and was never worse for wear. But the first few days were always hard and by the time I was flying home on Friday, all I wanted to do was be home with Jenn and Frasier and not look at an airport again.

We didn’t have a lot of downtime when I got back though. I had a massive work event in Miami while Jenn was out in the Bay Area at the haunted Claremont Club (Fairmont), a hotel she has vowed never to return to. Jenn met me in Miami at The Setai at the tail end of my work event where she subsequently got fried in the February sun. We enjoyed a nice weekend in Miami though, getting some nice dinners and walks around the beach. On our last day there Jenn was so burned that we ended up going to see the re-release of Titanic in 3D. 

February didn’t slow down in the slightest, five days after returning from Miami, Jake came to visit for the first of two trips in 2023. We didn’t let the cold weather stop us from having a jam-packed holiday weekend with visits to Le Coucou, Cote, and Thyme Bar. Not to mention a Broadway show (A Doll’s House) and a walk through Central Park with Frasier. It may have been cold but we enjoyed every second of it.

We celebrated Frasier’s birthday which is hard to imagine him being 4 years old already. That rolled straight into March which outside of some beautiful weekends seeing shows we were on back to back to back work trips. Jenn went to both Nashville and Portland and sandwiched in between those two trips was my second work trip of the year to Paris and London. We closed out the hectic business travel month with our first Nets basketball game. I got the tickets through work and they weren’t great seats so we only made it through half of the game but it was a fun experience. 

The travel didn’t end in April, if anything it was just ramping up. Jenn and I went to California to celebrate Passover with my family and Jenn’s Dad’s upcoming 70th birthday. Jenn surprised her Dad with an overnight trip to Disneyland to relive some of her favorite childhood memories with him. It was great to spend time in California, spend time with family, and go back to some of our favorite spots. I left for home to be back with Frasier while Jenn went straight from California to Denver for her teams offsite. 

Looking back I’m not sure how we did so much travel during these months but it was only a week after Jenn got back from Denver that we were off again, but this time for our first personal trip of the year. After a 3-year delay, we booked a trip to South America to enjoy 10 days in Brazil and Argentina. This was the only big trip we took this year that didn’t coincide with one of our work trips. A fully separate standalone adventure. We started the trip with a few nights in Sao Paulo, then took a short flight to Rio for a few nights, and finished the trip with 4-nights in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I don’t know how else to describe it other than to say it was magical. From the first night's dinner in Sao Paulo at Evvai to being at Christ the Redeemer, to sipping cocktails in Buenos Aires it was the best trip we’ve taken since COVID. 

We arrived back from this magnificent trip with a less busy May ahead of us. One of my favorite memories from May was going to the Hamptons with Frasier. It’s become an annual tradition to make the drive out before Memorial Day so Frasier can go run around the beach. On the way back we stop at a small winery with outdoor seating and sip on wine with Frasier. We’ve done it a few times now and it's always special. Around the same time as our trip to the Hamptons Jenn got a private office rented out by her company near Lincoln Center. It’s a beautiful office overlooking the ABC studios next door. Of course, Jenn wasn’t satisfied with it being any office so we had to fully decorate it with a new rug, wallpaper, and lighting. 

What will go down as my craziest work trip took place at the end of May. I was in Europe the week before and after Memorial Day. Because of some last-minute changes in schedules, it meant that I needed to be there for two weeks but didn’t want to leave Jenn home alone for the long holiday weekend. I arrived back home on Friday, May 26th, and was back at the airport to fly back to London on May 29th. I arrived back home on June 1st and on the morning of Saturday, June 3rd Jenn boarded an Air Canada flight to Tokyo. I’m not sure we will ever have a crazier travel schedule again in our lives but this was insane. Looking back I struggle to even remember how it felt.

I left for Tokyo on June 6th (only 5 days after coming home from my second Europe trip) on a direct flight from Newark. Jenn wrapped up work a day after I arrived and we spent the next few days re-exploring Tokyo before flying to Taipei, Taiwan, and then to Seoul, South Korea. It was almost a 3-week trip for Jenn and just over two weeks for me but it went by in a flash. One moment we were having sushi on the top of the Mandarin Oriental and the next moment we were having a Korean barbecue lunch on our last day in Seoul. In between were memories that will last a lifetime. It’s not lost on me how lucky we are not only to travel to such extravagant places for work and vacation. As of this writing, we’ve now visited 43 counties and each one of them holds a special place in my heart. This was an unbelievable trip filled with amazing food, unforgettable tours, and time for Jenn and me to be away from work and enjoy life. 

We arrived back in New York after a canceled flight tired but invigorated. We spent much of the summer at home. Jenn was done traveling until the fall and outside of a trip in late July we mostly stayed in the city. Jenn’s cousin Holly visited when I went on my one work trip over the summer, and I know they both had a great time. I arrived back before our birthdays and the following weekend we celebrated with a road trip to Portland Maine. I say this every year but we should do more of these types of trips. The lack of airports sometimes makes for a much more relaxing trip. We had a beautiful weekend in Portland, walking around, going to some wineries, and enjoying the long weekend. 

At the end of the month, Jake came to visit for his second of two trips for the year. We always have a great time when Jake comes out but this was far and away the best visit we’ve had since moving to New York. Whether it was going back to Rezdora, driving to the wineries in the Hamptons, or having brunch with the drummer from That Thing You Do it was a weekend that we won’t soon forget. My favorite memory of the trip though was going to dinner at Bom not yet a Michelin crowned tasting counter where we had one of the best meals of the year. 

Jake’s departure after Labor Day leads us to what is far and away the biggest moment of 2023 and really in Jenn or my life. We both had work trips over our anniversary, Jenn was in San Francisco at the Four Seasons and then in San Diego to visit her Dad and I was in Europe for my fourth trip of the year. Because Jenn was gone I ended up spending an extra day in Paris where I had one of the longest meals of my solo travel career. Jenn got home from her flight from Orange County on Sunday the 24th. After saying hello to Frasier she handed me a bag and in an instant I knew my life was never going to be the same again. I didn’t even open the gift for ten minutes because the first thing I said when I saw it was “your pregnant.” I screamed with joy, cried happy tears (a lot of them), panicked a bit, and cherished a moment that I knew I’d never experience again, the words “pregnant” on a test showing that our first child was only 9-months away. I was so overwhelmed that night I couldn’t eat dinner, little did I know (and soon was to find out) that the first few days hadn’t been very fun for Jenn nor would the next 6-8 weeks. 

The next few weeks went by in a whirlwind of emotions. Once the joyous fog lifted over the announcement at home we had a lot to figure out. We had to find a doctor in a hospital network that we liked, we had to think about how we were going to tell friends, family, and work, and we had to start thinking about how our lives were going to change. The first two we solved relatively quickly. We chose Dr Nabizadeh who is part of New York Presbyterian who we had heard great things about and the hospital is one of the best in the city. As for telling everyone we decided even though it was early that we would announce it on our trip to California in mid-October. 

We arrived in California on October 4th and had dinner with Jake, Amy, and Ryan at Vaca. Before we walked over there we surprised them with the announcement of Jenn being pregnant by pretending to do Jenn’s patented kissing to the camera. Seeing each of their faces was a moment we won’t soon forget. The next day we did the same thing with Jenn’s Dad and Joan who were also just as floored. We got to spend our Friday with Amy, Ryan, Gracie, and Cam at Universal Studios which was a fun but brutally hot day. Jenn struggled a bit with the heat and not riding rides but otherwise made it through pretty well. The next day we went to Menifee to see my parents my Grandma and the rest of the family. Ally and Tim arrived with Abby wearing a cute t-shirt saying she was about to become a big sister. We had a feeling that Ally might be pregnant but who would have guessed that there would be two birth announcements on the same day? About an hour after everyone had just finished processing Ally and Tim’s big announcement we announced our happy news as well. To say everyone was shocked was an understatement both my Dad and Mom’s faces were floored. 

With all of the announcements out of the way, it was like clockwork that our baby knew it was time to ramp up the morning sickness. I’ll never forget flying home on Monday and leaving Jenn to go to her work event in Denver and seeing how exhausted she was and starting to not feel well. She made it through her work trip (I’m not sure how) and arrived back completely wiped. That’s when the morning sickness (poorly named) took hold and for the next 6 weeks, she had bouts of 5+ vomiting sessions a day. I’ll never forget going to the ER on a Thursday night and seeing how bad it had gotten. Jenn was dehydrated, malnourished, and lethargic. It was that late night that we got to see our baby on the ultrasound for the first time. Ironically it was the next day we had our first appointment with our doctor and got to see her again. This was by far the most trying part of the first four months of the pregnancy. Jenn took a lot of time off of work and very rarely left the confines of our bed. We tried a couple of different medications and one seemed to help but only if she was perfectly diligent about it and even then it wasn’t always perfect. 

Jenn had some truly trying weeks but she was stronger than I’ve ever seen her, determined to get through it whatever it took. The mom instincts kicked in early for her. Jenn’s Dad came to visit at the end of October on my second to last work trip of the year. It was perfect timing because I needed someone to make sure Jenn was alright while I was gone. When I arrived back not much had improved, the pregnancy and medicine were wiping her out and she very rarely left the apartment. I’ll never forget going to Central Park to take our holiday and announcement photos and remembering it was the first time Jenn had been more than a few blocks from our apartment in over a month. 

Thankfully things started to improve right around Thanksgiving. The combination of medicine and getting into her second trimester had massive impacts on her energy and ability to keep food down. One of the best moments of the year was when we found out that we were going to have a baby girl. I had flip-flopped on what I thought it was going to be a few times but landed on a boy. Jenn on the other hand was convinced we were going to have a girl. Jenn picked up an envelope from our doctor and with Frasier on our couch in our living room we opened the envelope to reveal that we indeed were going to have a baby girl. We went to The Musket Room (our favorite restaurant in the city) to celebrate and I almost shed a tear it was such a triumphant moment. It was so nice to see Jenn out and about and able to enjoy a nice meal even if she had to skip the raw fish and caviar. 

That got us to Thanksgiving which was one of my favorite weeks of the year. We took a few days off of work and had a brilliant Thanksgiving meal at Gramercy Tavern. Jenn got some sparkling cider that made her so happy. She missed the champagne and wine but felt somewhat normal having the non-alcoholic counterpart. When we arrived back we announced that we’d be having a girl to both of our families with an adorable PowerPoint that Jenn put together.

The next day we decorated for Christmas and began the long process of buying new furniture for our apartment. We started that process with a new bed, nightstands, dresser, and sectional. But the biggest purchase was my dream for at least a decade the Eames Lounge chair, the exact chair I’m sitting in to write this recap. It came a few days after we bought it and I haven’t left its embrace since. 

That brought us to December, Jenn’s baby bump was just starting to form and I was off on my last work trip of the year. It was a very cold and wet trip and out of all the trips this year the one I wanted to get home from the most. We had planned to go to California for the holidays following Jenn’s work trip to Napa Valley but I had a minor cold and Jenn who had ramped back up at work was flat out exhausted. We made a very hard decision (went back and forth on it more than a few times) that we should cancel it. Jenn did her work trip remotely, and we ended up staying the rest of the year in the city. Now looking back we couldn’t have made a better decision. We got back out in the city a lot more than we had since September, having brunches, seeing a few Broadway shows, and getting a lot of Jenn’s doctor appointments squared away. 

We had a wonderful end of the year. We enjoyed a quiet Christmas at home with lots of gifts, mostly for Frasier. It was nice to be home for Christmas, not waking up in a hotel, or driving all over. The year culminated in a phenomenal meal at The Modern on New Year's Eve. Jenn looked spectacular in her black dress and we had the best time. The excitement for the year to come, and the dream of our family growing lit the flame on what was a joyous evening. As I write this now we’re likely 5-6 months away from meeting our baby girl. We talk about her almost as much as we talk about Frasier, and that’s to say nonstop.

I know 2024 is going to look a lot different but Jenn and I are so excited for this next adventure, if not a little scared. The future is always unknown but from what we know right now I can’t wait for a year from now to write about the new adventures it brings. The recap may look and sound a lot different a year from now but I know it will be filled with even more love and joy. See you in 2024 Elle Maria Szerlip, I cannot wait to meet you. 

Joel

https://www.worldofjoel.com
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