2021 Annual Letter From Mike and Michele
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from the Bennetts. I’m going to take my first stab at an annual holiday letter - my parents write these every year, but I’ve never given it a try.
2021 was a big year for me and Mike. It certainly included highs and lows, with a major blow at the end. To get the biggest news off my chest (LOL) - I was diagnosed with stage 1 triple negative breast cancer on December 6th after a mastectomy on December 1st. I had thought I was having a prophylactic surgery, but unfortunately I had undetected breast cancer. I had the surgery early in this little tumor’s lifetime, so I still like to think of it as preventative. I get to do chemotherapy from January - June of 2022… but that’s for next year’s newsletter.
Back to 2021. We started the year by welcoming a new member to our family - Frankie the kitten. Now we are Audrey, Frankie, Mike and Me. Frankie’s hobbies include eating treats, sitting by windows, and running in circles. Audrey continues to love sleeping, sitting on shoulders, and eating only one type of food.
We also made some home improvements this year. We hired our neighbor Nial for a bedroom and bathroom remodel. Our bedroom now has beautiful hand carved wooden closets, and our bathroom has a new mirror cabinet and botanical mural with birds from our trip to Australia in 2020.
Both our careers took off this year. Mike’s big art projects were hugely successful. He did his third front lawn zoo - the A,B, Sea in the spring, and the biggest project yet, the Crypto-Zoo: Museum of Mystery in the fall. With the ‘Museum’ he completely reimagined an empty bank as a monster museum by filling it with out of this world cutouts, and had thousands of Portlanders come visit. I’m so proud of how many lives he has touched with his art. I was lucky enough to help 12 clients find homes this year, and I feel so lucky to get to do this job that I love!
Mike and I also had a full year of travel, despite essentially staying home all year. When we all thought the pandemic was over in June we traveled to Cape Cod, New York, and Pennsylvania to visit family, we attended two weddings on two different PNW mountains, two group camping trips, and we went on a two week California van trip to celebrate before my mastectomy.
I’m glad I took notes, because I almost forgot - we also did IVF. We have future family members on ice, waiting for the other side of my cancer treatments.
Despite the difficult end to the year, looking back Mike and I really made the most of a year that had major limits for everyone. We managed to continue our careers, travel, swim, paint, connect with friends, and honestly have lots of fun. We are hoping to continue to find joy despite the difficult challenges awaiting us in 2022.