Your Annual Dose of Us!

I know some people are probably going through withdrawal (cough, ha), so I'll post this here for their well-being. Wait...does anyone actually read this??? If so, you poor things. Just in case I do have devoted fans though, or more like people just that bored, I will indulge them just this once.

If you received this newsletter with your Christmas card, I apologize. I didn't mail them out to everyone though!


Drumroll please....


Dear Family and Friends, and anyone in between—

I don’t know about you, but 2009 felt like it flew right by, barely giving us much time to enjoy it, let alone savor it. But what an adventure of a year it was!

In late January, we had no choice but to embrace “out with the old” as our ancient Saturn died leaving a very cold redhead and I no choice but to walk in eight degree weather one morning. It was indeed dead and beyond repair and without any hesitation, we found the perfect fit in another Honda Fit, now proudly owning not only our 2007 Honda Fit, but a silver 2009 Honda Fit as well.

Our first trip of the year didn’t happen until the last week in April as we flew off to Florida again. (Oh how we love their sunshine.) We flew into Orlando and drove to our timeshare in Daytona where we enjoyed a week of our ocean view. Also on this vacation we took three different trips to Orlando’s Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure where we ate breakfast with Spiderman and the Cat in the Hat, met Spongebob in person, hated the Simpsons ride, loved the Jaws ride, and hung out with the Grinch. Other highlights included discovering Portuguese man-of-war’s on the shore as well as finding our first whole sand dollar, spotting manatees swimming right under the dock in New Smyrna, seeing some huge sloth bones at the Museum of Art and Sciences, and eating dessert in a racecar at the Cruisin’ Café.

In May, Bailey graduated preschool and we prepared for life as a Kindergartner. We also had our dance recital where Bailey sailed magnificently on the Good Ship Lollipop. It was such a proud moment in our lives!

We celebrated Bailey’s fifth birthday in July at the Great Wolf Lodge and had an out of this world birthday party. Her party was space themed and she made such an awesome astronaut. Soon after Bailey’s birthday, we celebrated Mommy’s thirtieth birthday at Sesame Place near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was such a fabulous vacation as we discovered much of what Philadelphia offered like the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Bailey really wanted to see mummies), the Franklin Institute, a Phillies game, the Liberty Bell, a Ride the Ducks tour, IKEA (a first in our lives), the Academy of Natural Sciences, and the Please Touch Museum. Other area excursions were to the Crayola Factory in Easton, Pennsylvania, the Jersey Shore, visiting family in Mantua, New Jersey and the Discovery Museum in Cherry Hill. We were so busy on that trip; I think I probably left out quite a few things.

Bailey started Kindergarten in August and still amazes us constantly. She’s reading and doing subtraction and addition, as well as maintaining her active imagination. She also started tumbling and a ballet and tap combination class. She has a lot of energy and is putting it to great use as well as never ceasing to make us beam with pride.

Other key moments of the year included Sesame Street Live, Disney on Ice, converting the front room into a play room for Bailey, visiting Thomas the train again, a landscaping project, a week of ballet princess camp during the summer, fall soccer, and celebrating Daddy’s fortieth birthday at the Great Wolf Lodge. Life was full of so much adventure we can only wonder what 2010 will hold!

We wish you just as many adventures with a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!



Love,

Rob, Terra, and Bailey
(Aerial and Fudge too)