2006 Year End Letter

This online version is for our friends and family that we don't have addresses for, or we were just plain negligent in getting cards out to. Please forgive us!
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Where has this year gone? It is hard for us to think back to imagine where we were a year ago, but we are happy where we have ended up. As usual we’ve had a year with lots of changes, ups and downs but mostly new beginnings for our family. Sit back and enjoy reading the Root antics for the past year.

At the end of 2005 we had just moved back to Virginia from Georgia. The pain of leaving our beautiful house and wonderful neighbors behind is still pretty fresh – we miss them dearly and look forward to introducing them to Alexander very soon. We began 2006 living in Herndon with Jen’s sister and we can’t say enough about how much we appreciate the generosity of Melody and Al sharing their home with us. In August we moved into a townhouse in Springfield, and we think everyone was breathing a sigh of relief that we have a new beginning in a place of our own again.

And we were barely settled into the townhouse when we had another new beginning with the introduction of our son, Stephen Alexander on September 11. What a joy he is! We are still figuring out how he works, but he’s pretty neat so far. His new beginnings include smiling, learning to laugh and discovering his hands. Just in case you don’t know, he was a complete surprise for us – we were certain that we were done with having children and were settled with being a “one child” family. A higher power obviously had different ideas. . .

Veronica is still a source of constant amazement (and challenge) to us. On the one hand we never saw much of the “terrible two’s,” but the three’s have been pretty trippy. Her milestones this year include potty training and growing from a toddler into a beautiful, independent - if not a bit sassy - little girl. This year her new beginnings include taking a ballet and tap dance class, learning Spanish and Sign Language. She’s our Princess and she makes sure to keep us in line.

Late last year we bought a terrific little hybrid car – a Toyota Prius. It was great when the gas prices shot up this past year and in the DC area, driving a hybrid allowed Jennifer to use carpool lanes alone which saved her 20 – 30 minutes each way on her commute to and from work. But as great as this car was we discovered its’ greatest weakness: You can’t fit mom, dad, two kids and Grandma in the car. Nate’s mom was here for three weeks when Alexander was born and we couldn’t all fit in the car to go out together so we did what all typical suburban parents do. We traded the Prius in on a mini-van. Jennifer still protests about it – she can’t get around the image of her driving a mommy car and was still saying she would never, ever drive one until we drove it off of the car lot.

Nathan’s job at BearingPoint is going very well. He received a great promotion this year and is helping staff his department up. His travel is even cut back quite a bit since he’s back in the DC area. Most of the travel is now local, which Jennifer and the kids really appreciate. But he still manages to sneak a bit of travel in to keep his frequent flier cards busy.

Jennifer’s job is going well too. This December marks her first year with the Mailing & Fulfillment Service Association. Her travel is greatly reduced from prior jobs, but she still gets to travel some. Her first meeting with this group took her to Hawaii in February where Nathan joined her while Veronica spent time with the grandparents in Oklahoma. It was neat to revisit where we exchanged our wedding vows and know that we’re still as happy now as we were then.

We’re looking forward to 2007, but can’t say that we have any idea where we will end up. We have to admit we feel like we’ve been full circle in the past four years and perhaps Virginia is where we belong and will stay. But then again, we still own a beautiful house in Georgia that we are very reluctant to sell . . .

We hope that this letter finds all of our friends and family happy and well this holiday season.

Happy Kids

Trying to be good for Santa.

Who me?

Couldn't resist posting this super-cute picture of Alex. He has officially discovered his thumb too. Daddy was responsible for the hairdo.

It took us a week to decorate for the holidays. We finally finished yesterday and are trying to figure out how to keep all the gifts hidden from a certain little imp . . .

Speaking of Veronica, she went shopping with me to buy a small gift for Nathan and she promised to keep it secret. We weren't home 5 minutes when she proudly ratted me out telling him everything I had purchased. Ahhh. Christmastime.