2007

This is a weird one. When I pulled up the letter in Word, I had apparently used a different font for each of our updates, and Jean's font was coming through as Dingbats or special characters or something. I tried to retranslate to another font, but Word 2016 was having none of it. I gave up and just copied and pasted here, and voila, the text showed up. So not as corrupted as I had thought.

I think that Wikia will flatten the fonts into one, but in the original letter, each person's font would be different. Enjoy

Christmas 2007

Dear Family,

The cards arrived in the mail today. All ready to send. And I haven’t gotten word one down on paper. The pressure of writing the holiday letter to you all has finally gotten to me, I’m afraid. But I’ll get it done. Because for me, it’s not enough to be a husband, step-father, father, brother, son, Godfather, friend, nephew, in-law, coworker, distant acquaintance and/or pet-owner all year long. I’m so desperately in need of further acclaim that I have rallied myself to produce what will surely be one of the top 3 funniest family update letters that you will get in a card from us this year.

Now, on to the family business.  The players:

Rob – a.k.a. the Dad. At 41, gray of beard, bulging of the belly, slack of jaw and drooling after a day of fighting traffic and the government bureaucracy alike.

Jean  a.k.a. Mom. 29 again, scrappy, beautiful, put together and ready to take on the world.

Aly – a.k.a. Lemon. At 12, in her final year as a Tween, deadly accurate with a straightening iron, way into clothes, music, fast cars and slow boys.

Jack  – a.k.a. Scooter, Booboo, Jack Jack, Crib-head. At two and a quarter, the most dangerous person in the house (at least till Aly turns 16) to give your car keys to.

Here’s an actual message from Jack: Xzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzx zxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxz.o;xd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd fxd f./’6fv

    V   hhefc j g          nnn55uyh7yy5yytyr77juu’iyyr43dd m ma  c                        890ttsalfg  hhg bnb4dcyu cd

This translates (roughly) to Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to my lovely family and friends. It’s been a joyous year of fun and discovery for me. Yadda yadda yadda. Is that good, Dad? Ok, now PUT THE CARS MOVIE BACK ON!!!

We’ve had a nice quiet year at home for the most part. As befits life with a burgeoning teenager and two year old, just managing the sleepovers, play dates, family gatherings and trips to the store for diapers, Crangrape juice, Hollister shirts and Cheez-Its have kept us quite busy. Most holidays and birthdays were at home with local family and friends and some adventurous out-of-towners. We lost Biskits the cat this summer. She just wandered off. For 21 days she roamed in the wilderness and then came back! She was down about 8% of her body weight, so I guess she came back for the food. We were glad she came back, since it would have been a pain to keep trolling the pound looking for another yellow cat that looked like the one on all of our mailing labels.

We did have a few little excursions, though. Spring Break took us to London for a few days. Mom and Ron flew out from Phoenix to watch Jack while Aly, Jean and Rob toured around a bit of the old empire. First trip to Europe for Aly, who would have preferred Paris, but she still loved the place and our hotel was right in the center of the main London shopping district!!! $4,000 handbags anyone? Aly also went to Mexico in June with Bob and Rob to visit Chetumal where a new vision clinic will soon open. It was the first trip to Mexico for her too. We also managed to fit in a visit to Chichen Itza and a couple days in Cancun. Aly travelled so well, through 9 hours of driving with Bob and Rob, swimming in a cenote (cave) and climbing pyramids on her first trip down south, and we all had a buen tiempo en Mexico. We had a week at a little beach house down in North Carolina (Aly had been here before) during the summer with Mom and Ron and one of Aly’s friends. Aside from the 11 hours it took to drive down, the house and area were fabulous and relaxing. And this fall, we finally got Jack Jack his first frequent flier miles, travelling out to Phoenix to visit Grandma’s house and new cousin Sawyer in November. With about 9 hours of flying under his belt (and 13 more under Mommy’s belt), Jack seems to be showing all the signs of a laid back traveler. I’m not sure who he gets that from but since Daddy can’t make it through Dulles security anymore without turning into a basket case, I’m going to guess that’s a Fanti trait.

Aly is in middle school; 7th grade, the middle year of middle school. Right now is the middle of the middle year of middle school. Yet somehow she’s doing better than fair to middlin’. She has an ever shifting crowd of friends who all enjoy shopping, texting each other, going to Stone Bridge high school football games, music, going to the mall, seeing movies, texting each other, dressing in each others’ clothes, getting her nails done, texting, sleeping over, and shopping. In that order. She’s doing very well in her schoolwork too, taking French and many honors courses in which she is doing great. Ever the night owl, it’s getting even harder to wake her for the early bus, but she’s not yet achieved the entirely inert state her stepfather perfected in high-school. She’s as ever very sweet, at least most of the time, and very smart and growing up way too fast. She is babysitting for a couple kids across the street now too, and she takes very good care of her brother and even held baby Sawyer in Arizona for a while.

Jean has been working more with Accenture. What started "very part time" early in the year has become 32 hours a week of late, but she gets to work out of the house most days, which makes it nice for her to be home with Jack and our wonderful nanny Megan, and with Aly after school. She works with a team that is helping launch and    manage a new organization within Accenture that does outsourcing. And shes been sucking up to the European partners, so theres a chance shell be able to travel internationally some for the job. Thats an exciting prospect    for her (and hopefully Aly,Jack or Daddy will be able to come along on a trip or two). When she's not down in the basement working she can be found biking around the neighborhood with Jack in tow or volunteering at Aly's      school where she works in the office and haunts Aly's locker in between classes.

Jack is growing and changing literally every day. Ok, we all are; it’s just more obvious with him. He’s talking, walking, typing (obviously), and running and climbing a little. He repeats almost everything, with a special emphasis on things you don’t want him to repeat. He sings, smiles, laughs and plays a lot. He is smart and happy and we’re really lucky and proud. He gives good hugs, great wet kisses, and loves loves loves his big sister. Favorites at the moment include Thomas the Tank Engine, the movie *Cars*, Winnie the Pooh (well, Tigger), and trucks of pretty much any sort. His latest thing is piling things on top of each other. About half his toys are stacked atop one another, homeless-shopping-cart-style, and he enjoys pushing them all around the family room together until they get “stuck!” He seems to be preparing for a promising career as a garbage man, modern sculptor or JENGA tournament champion, we’re not sure which.

Rob is still working at the Department of Justice, helping to ensure that the world is safe for email and WordPerfect documents everywhere. The commute is still lousy, the environment sometimes frustrating, but many of the people I work with are great, the work can be important and goshdarnit, if anybody needs help it’s DOJ. For the record, I don’t waterboard, but I did once threaten to submit an FS-142 form to this guy’s supervisor once until he complied with my demand. Jack Bauer, eat your heart out.

Well, I hate to leave it at that, but it’s the end of page 2 and I’m on a strict deadline to finish this by the end of Jack’s nap or else, so I’ll wrap up. We hope that you and your family had a terrific year this year, have an even better year next year and are safe and happy this holiday season.

We love you,

The Leesburg Martins:   **Rob**     **Jean**         **Aly**       and               Jack

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