2013

*Joyous Xmas ‘13*

We wish all of you the best and most festive of holiday seasons. You’ll notice the letter, again this year, is coming to you on paper through the mail. I know I told you all last year that you’d be able to choose your own Christmas letter this year from ChristmasCard.gov, our Christmas Card Exchange website.

As you know, the Adorable Christmas Card Act (ACCA), otherwise known as MartinCard, went into effect on October 1, 2013. At first, I’ll admit, we did have a few “glitches.” Later in the month it was working fine except for a “snafu” or two. By November, there were only a few minor “bugs,” a couple of moderately sized “anomalies” and a “debacle.” But, by the end of November, had enrolled over 15% of you in the new Christmas Card program! Unfortunately, we later learned that 3 people got Hanukah cards, 2 received belated birthday wishes and one relative was unfortunately sent an arrest warrant which resulted in his being detained for 72 hours by the US Marshals Service. (Sorry Cousin Dave!)

But remember, I also said you could keep getting your same letter if you wanted? Well, you are! Same old letter, same old paper. Now, this letter won’t cover contraception. It will still give you paper cuts. At the end of the season, you’ll probably see that it’s a “junk” letter that will just get thrown away if you actually need coverage. And, if you have a pre-existing Christmas letter, it, unfortunately, will not be funny. That’s on me. My bad. Yes We Can!

Probably the first order of business this year is to express our disappointment in the Mayans, whose calendar predicted that the world would end in December of 2012. Now, of course, we’re not disappointed that the world *didn’t* end. Don’t get us wrong. We’re thrilled that our family is still around to enjoy the substantially smaller amount of retirement money we have left after the gigantic multi-week End Of The World Party we hosted last November/December. That was really something! And who knew you could borrow all 100% of your 401K money so easily! Hoo boy. What fun. Anyhow, if any of you do come across any piles of cash, or winning lottery tickets, or jobs… just let me know.

The second exciting thing this year is that we moved again! Hey, awesome! Cause we love to move! That’s right, this past January, the Martins of Leesburg, VA 2017***6*** became the Martins of Leesburg, VA 2017***5***. Our last move was just over 1500 feet, and this one took us 9.2 miles further southeast to a neighborhood known as the Hamlets of Red Cedar. It was a matter of being, or not being, in a homier place with a little extra space, a yard for a trampoline and a beautiful kitchen. We have absolutely loved the neighborhood and the neighbors. There are boys galore for Jack to run with. He is going to the public school just behind our house, called Sycolin Creek Elementary, and loves his class, his teacher and everything about second grade. His new Cub Scout Pack meets back there also, and they’ve been a lot of fun to be involved with this year. We are so happy with the move and expect to be her forever, this time. It’s been like 10 months already, which feels kind of like forever, in terms of Martin houses.

Speaking of Jack, he has continued to play every sport. He was a Rockhound in baseball in the spring, did taekwondo, soccer and basketball at camps in the summer, became a North Carolina Tarheel in flag football in the fall, and will be a Rebel playing basketball this winter. He’s a blue-stripe belt at Tae Kwon Do, a green belt in Piano, he knows the name of every professional soccer player in the whole world, can identify any country on the globe and can outrun a hungry puma on the scent of a chicken leg. He is always positive and cheerful, serving as the happiest member of our family, and we expect that to continue, or we’ll punish him some more.

Aly had a tremendous finish to her high school career at VES, and got into one of the best colleges in the entire country with an extraordinary faculty, wonderful facilities and a location that couldn’t be beat. Yet, she decided against going to JMU and decided instead on the College of Charleston, in South Carolina. All kidding aside (just for this sentence) C of C has been a great place for Aly, and she’s been doing very well there (this just in, 3.5 GPA after first semester! Yay!). It’s a smallish school right in the heart of Charleston, that was founded in 1770, although some of the dorms have been refurbished since then. She’s joined the Kappa Delta sorority, so now she won’t talk to me when we go to bars. And she’s been really happy and doing really well and we’ve been trying really hard not to give her advice like the college told us not to. But we’re very, very proud of our new Cougar (that’s their mascot, although she is dating a 9 year old).

Jean is still with Accenture. She’s had some travel this year, and in fact was in India even as I type this letter (now back safe and sound!). There have been a few reorganization moves this year within the company that haven’t been altogether positive for anyone. But, at least no one has figured out how much money she’s been embezzling! Ha ha ha. Just kidding, anyone who would report this to management or the police. But she’s got a huge team of people from all over the world that she really works hard to take care of. She’s been doing data analysis and data engineering, creating cross-functional reporting that has rationalized the parameters by which the operational and delivery efficiency of client jobs are evaluated all over Accenture’s corporate data stack. Even though all those words don’t mean much to many people, it is really helping the company, and she is really good at it.

Jean’s working and our downsizing have given me the huge benefit of staying home from work this year. I have been taking care of the house, volunteering at Jack’s school, assisting the den leader at Cub Scouts, helping with a couple of parents groups and doing odd jobs. My video career, alas, was fleeting and I have not continued to film for Basho much this year. They decided that the videos I was making weren’t what they wanted to say, and I guess that they didn’t really know what they wanted to say on video.

Our summer this year was pretty busy. We kicked off the summer with a wedding – Jean’s niece Emily and Kyle in DC – and wrapped it up with a second one – Jean’s nephew Dave and Brenda in LA. Both were beautiful events, both had a lot of cool music. One was slightly louder music. But we wish both couples all the best on their lifetimes together.

Aly’s graduation was Memorial Day weekend also, and was a beautiful ceremony on the lawn at VES in Lynchburg. There were seersucker suits, big hats, video cameras and about 10 million dive bombing cicadas from Brood X. It didn’t matter, though, it was a great time.

We also squeezed in an awesome trip down to Disney with Grandma Linda, Grandpa Ron and cousin Sawyer. All the kids loved the house of mouse and we enjoyed all the rides. I thought things were much smaller than I remembered. The kids had a great time together, and the resort was really a great way to kick things off. We stopped on the way back in Charleston, SC for orientation at the College too, and had a couple days at the beach while Aly went to sessions about the dorms, safety, classes, studying, college life, sororities, skateboarding, activism, sleeping in, and how to wear that funny hat at the end. It was a great introduction and we all had some fun there.

The rest of the summer Jack went to camps mostly, and we did a few day/weekend trips here and there. We were excited to get back into the school year, and especially excited to go on our first Cub Scout Pack camping trip. I was the cook, and got to break in my new Camp Chef stove, which was awesome. We’re looking forward to more camping in 2014!

We are going to warn you, next year’s card is going to be chock full of travel stories, though. We all love to go new places, and Jean’s birthday present (really to all of us) is a trip every month for all of 2014. Travelling together and seeing new places is one of the most exciting things that we do. It’s the thing I most remember from growing up and what I want Aly and Jack to remember, so we’re committing ourselves to going places and seeing people, so look for us throughout the year. Jack will be keeping a travel blog that I might steal from for next year’s letter. But irregardless, we will look forward to seeing many of you along the way.

May all of you have a wonderful, excellent holiday season of 2013, and a super awesome 2014, filled with exciting new things, new places, new hope and new health insurance.

Love, **Aly, Jack, Jean, Rob, and Buddy**

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