2024 was a year full of
adventures &
learning experiences.
Lucca in 2024
• Finished the 9th grade in June with straight A’s and a 1260 on his PSAT exam (quite good for his first try without preparation).
• Continued his classical piano lessons and is now playing Chopin.
• Went on his first Mission trip to Costa Rica with his youth group from church.
• Traveled to the Peruvian Amazon as part of a medical campaign with orthopedic surgeons and got to scrub in!
• Entered the 10th grade in August and is taking 2 Advanced Placement classes and 2 Dual Enrollment classes, focusing on science.
• Went on his first College Tour with his high school in September.
• Got his driver’s licence!!
• Got accepted at a collegiate high school at Florida International University where he can both complete his last 2 years of high school and start attending the first 2 years of college at the same time.
If you would like to see some videos of Lucca playing the piano and scrubbing in the operating room click on the videos below.
Akemi in 2024
• Finished the 7th grade with straight A’s and got inducted into the Junior Honor Society.
• Continued playing volleyball for the school team.
• Took a strings class at her school and started playing the violin (her background in piano and guitar helped a lot).
• Traveled to the Peruvian Amazon as part of a medical campaign with orthopedic surgeons and got to scrub in!
• Entered the 8h grade and is taking a couple of high school classes for math and science.
• Tried out for club volleyball and made it to the State’s traveling team.
• Performed at her school’s Christmas show playing the violin.
Click below to see some videos of Akemi playing the violin, scrubbing in the operating room and playing as outside hitter making a kill for her volleyball team.
Yuki & Franco
We have been hard at work both working full time and doing some additional freelance job for our church. Yuki put aside her small business design studio (Akemi Creative) to focus full time as the Creative Director of a medical mission organization (Scalpel At The Cross). It has been an amazing experience so far (I wrote an article about it here on page 5).
Franco was ordained as a Deacon for Christ Journey Church in March which comes with a lot of service to the community. He has also been working from home the past few months as his office is in the process of moving to Coral Gables, much closer to home! It’s been a very very busy year for both of us between our jobs, work at home and kid’s sports, music and church activities. We thank God for his provision & blessings to our family this year.
As parents we got to experience so much growth in our kids this year, physically, spiritually, emotionally and intellectually. It is our joy to witness the transition into the young adults they are becoming; caring, compassionate and with a desire to give glory to God with their gifts and talents. We see this in their daily commitment to do well in school, in their weekly commitments serving at church with their peers and the kids ministry and in the support and kindness they show to friends and family. This was especially evident in the jobs they were given while on the medical mission trip. Whether working with the surgeons as scribes, organizing patient data, assisting in bandaging wounds, serving breakfast for the medical team and praying for the patients and their families, they took on their assigned job seriously and did it to the best of their abilities. We are excited to see what 2025 has in store for us as a family!
• To view a recap video of our trip click here.
P.S. from Yuki - I wanted to share a more detailed recap of our year since I know I have been a little absent on group chats and social media to be more present with those who are in front of me, but you can always reach me individually. Much love ;)