We hope you had a great Christmas and you will have a very Happy New Year!! December 12, 2010
Dear Friends and Family,
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Or at least feel like it with these blustery temperatures! It’s made it much easier for me to get into the Christmas spirit and anticipate celebrating Christ’s birth! But it’s time to reflect on the wonderful events of 2010!
I’m really looking forward to a quick trip home for Christmas this year and hope it’s a little less eventful than last year. That’s when I found myself stranded in two feet of snow for two days at a HoJo’s in Lexington, VA while driving to Roanoke. My unexpected stay included hanging out with a convict’s girlfriend all day and running into a half-naked, hand-cuffed Santa at Wal-mart. I’m pretty sure I can’t top that this year!
In some ways, this year hasn’t been as eventful as years past. No new nieces or nephews. No new house. No trips to random countries that I can’t spell. But in many other significant ways, it’s been one of the best!Work-wise, I finished my fifth year covering the White House for CNN. I didn’t travel as much but still went to exciting places like Kalamazoo, MI; Edison, NJ; and Columbus, OH. I did make my first trip to Las Vegas and also spent 12 days in Martha’s Vineyard during Obama’s vacation. My international trip was a recent few days in Portugal covering the NATO Summit. I didn’t get to see much of Lisbon but I did hang out in the presidential palace for a bit and had to ask Hillary Clinton to get out my way! The TV networks opted to not charter planes as often this year which meant that most of my travel was done commercially! Ugh!! At least I survived!!
But the real highlights of the year came in other parts of life! I’m still very active at my wonderful church, FBC Alexandria where I serve as a deacon, “teacher” of 3 year-olds, and oboist for the annual Living Christmas Tree. I also started out 2010 with some New Year’s resolutions which I’m usually not that great at keeping. I had simple goals of being a better blogger, turning off the TV more (being more active), and praying more/worrying less. The jury is still out for the overall success in these goals but I can see how things have changed since January.
First of all, I have learned to cook!! This is significant because I now go to the grocery store on a somewhat regular basis and never buy anything in the frozen dinner section!! I also joined the gym for the first time in my life! I found a fun Zumba class and started working out. Ironically, I also developed my first sports injury and can’t really go to the gym right now but I did achieve my goal of being more active.
I still haven’t perfected the praying more/worrying less but I have seen God answer prayers right and left. And I’ve received many blessings in the process. Most significantly, is that God brought a truly wonderful guy, Brian into my life in June (how’s that for burying the lead?) and we’ve had a great time spending time together ever since. He’s originally from Richmond and works as a research analyst for a defense contractor. He lives less than a mile from me and works even closer. He survived spending Thanksgiving week with my entire family which was no small feat! His family is wonderful too and I look forward to getting to know them even more in the future. That is, only if making the Christmas letter doesn’t scare him off!
Speaking of my family, everyone is great and I’ve thoroughly been blessed this year with every moment I’ve spent with them. My nieces and nephews are incredibly cute and I love being their Aunt Beck Beck. I think everyone, including my sister’s neighbors, made it up to DC to visit this summer. And that reminds me, my guest room is always open for you too! Your friendships are incredibly special to me and I thank God for each of you! I pray that this Christmas season, you’ll be surrounded by family and friends celebrating our Savior’s birth! And I pray 2011 will be filled with countless blessings from God!!
Love,Becky
A little bit afterwards, it was time for him to hop on Marine One to catch up with the FLOTUS and kids in Hawaii. It was might cold and frigid while we waited about 30 minutes for him to leave the Oval Office and board the chopper. At one point I wasn't quite sure if I could feel my fingers. I've been to hundreds of departures and arrivals on the South Lawn at this point and I still think they are all incredibly cool to watch. However, the first one of the winter is always a bit eye-opening because you forget over the summer how cold it can get standing a few yards away from a helicopter. Anyway, POTUS finally came out and did something he NEVER does. In fact, neither did the previous POTUS. Mr. Obama came over to shake all of our hands and wish us a Merry Christmas! I think he paused for a second after shaking my hand and almost commented on how cold it was. But alas, he moved on and jumped on Marine One and took off for his trip to Hawaii which is obviously a much, much warmer place!
*The Gingerbread White House is always impressive!! They say that it takes more than a month to make this thing and it's pretty awesome. I've only made a gingerbread house once in my life and I can assure you there was no electricity and there wasn't edible furniture in the rooms!!
*We get to sit on the furniture!! I'm sure I've mentioned this in the past but for work, we NEVER get to sit on the furniture. EVER. And we don't get to roam around. We're usually in a pen somewhere like herded cattle. But not this one night. I made sure that Brian and I took advantage of this privilege!!
*Meeting POTUS and FLOTUS!! This is always a highlight!! I've had great encounters a previous parties (including a birthday kiss by 43!!) but this year was a great one! Brian asked the current POTUS for some advice for the basketball team we are coaching (I'm sure you'll hear more about that in a future post!). POTUS wouldn't stop talking!! He gave some advice of what to emphasize with the 7 and 8 year olds. And FLOTUS chimed in too!! I'm not even sure if they stopped talking for the picture! I'll let you know when we get the picture!!
Then on Saturday night (after the Living Christmas Tree), we went to my network's Christmas party. It was at the Nationals Stadium again and included batting practice. Brian was excited to see that I don't swing like a girl and I actually made contact with the ball. We had a good time with the batting practice and then listening to several of my colleagues sing some karaoke!! And Brian was such a trooper to put up with mingling with my co-workers for two nights in a row!!
Then this week, I took some more vacation time because I was playing the oboe in my church's Living Christmas Tree all week. It's a fun production, especially the oboe player! :) The rest of the orchestra is mostly comprised of professional musicians so it's really fun to play along with them. Even if it means being a complete oboe nerd for several days. But in all honesty, it's not all about me! :) It's a great ministry of my church that hopefully gets people in the Christmas mood and ready to celebrate the birth of our Savior! If you've never seen it, you totally should!
7) Cayton and Raygan- I just love these kids too!! I get to see them more often, so I feel like Raygan knows me a little bit more than Nolan does (plus she has a six month advantage!!) But each moment with them is just as special. Cayton is the most incredibly sweet 7 year-old I know. She's still calling me Beck Beck Sillygirl which just warms my heart! And Raygan is so cute I could eat her. Don't worry Laura, I won't eat your child but her little sassy attitude at age 18 months is too cute. I realize I don't have to live with it 24/7 but she is just a funny kid to watch. At the beach, she would just climb in my lap for me to read her a book or jump into my arms (pretty much when she wanted something she couldn't have). K and I got to put her to sleep one night and I loved watching her fall asleep. I could have lived without getting kicked and hit in the mouth more than once but I've forgiven her. :)
6) The Casolas-Chip, Diane, and Grace have become family to me. My mom watched Grace when she was a baby until she was about 10 or so. I can't remember. But their family is just a lot of fun and I have loved watching Grace grow up into an awesome teenager!! Having them with us at Thanksgiving was marvelous. It's like having another great sister, brother-in-law, and niece! I even got to have a slumber party with Grace! They make me laugh and I found myself at more than one time in our several days together just sitting on the couch laughing at the most inane things. Good times!!
5) Annual Thanksgiving Family Miniature Golf Outing- Ever since we've been going to the beach for Thanksgiving (like the past almost 20 years??) we've played miniature golf on Thanksgiving Day. Some years it's cold. Others are fairly warm. I honestly don't remember the weather this year but it had the distinction of having two one-year-olds present. I'm not sure who thought it would actually work but let's just say we didn't make it through the first hole before the meltdowns occurred. That led to rotating basis of babysitters (some were better than others and I'm not naming names) while the rest of us played. In recent years, the guys have opted to go watch football instead of partaking in the fun. Brian chose to play with us although given the choice again, I'm sure he's going to pick football. It was a lot of fun even though it was by far the most chaotic game of miniature golf in the history of the world. And I'm thankful that the tradition continues! 
4) Walks on the beach- Even in November when it's just slightly chilly, there's something about looking out at the ocean and seeing the vastness of God's creation. It's even better with family members. Especially with my sisters and nieces and nephew. And even more so, the boyfriend!
3) Brian- I don't want to sound cheesy or sappy or anything like that. But I am thankful for him. He's such a great guy in so many ways. But he put up with the chaos and craziness of my family for days! The average decibel level for his family is a lot lower than mine but he went with it and survived. I only saw him looking like a deer in headlights a couple of times! He enjoyed (it seemed) seeing my nieces and nephew and he read his fair share of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. One cute thing I loved seeing was when the two of us took Cayton to the pier. On our way back, Cayton convinced him to give her a piggyback ride. Then I randomly ran into some friends from DC on the road and so he took her back to the condo and was holding her hand. It was so sweet. And I promised to not get sappy. But he is just a great guy!! The whole time with my family was great but as we were leaving to drive back, the babies were going into meltdown and I'm pretty sure this picture made him question whether he could ever come back! :)
2) Brian's family/trip to PA- After the chaos in SC, we headed to PA for some time with his family. I had met them all before (except for I finally got to meet his youngest brother) but it was great to spend some quality time with them. He also has a one year old nephew (only a month younger than Nolan) and it was Adrian's first birthday. It was great celebrating with them!! His family is different than mine... beyond the average decibel level. They are all incredibly, incredibly smart people (no offense Mom, but it's just true!) and theirs is a house of boys (where with the exception of my brother, our house was really girly!) So the topics and levels of discussion are just different than what I was used to! I told his mom that they did a great job of raising three really great boys!