2009 Christmas Brag & Gag Letter
Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin
So the Christmas season has come yet again. I know this because CVS has already pre-staged their Easter decorations. So another year has gone by. It has been an exciting one for The Lygers.
In January we attended the Inauguration of President Obama. It was about 20°F and it took us 5 hours to walk 3 miles … but it was a good blog story. We’re glad we went, but we’re not sure it’s something we want to do again. It’s much easier just to watch it on TV.
We had both sets of parents visit us in DC. We marched them all over town until they were dead tired. Some of us (Ryan) did this to maximize the time to see attractions. Others (Katie) did it because she got lost.
Katie secured a full time teaching job at Washington- Lee High School in Arlington, VA. Since taking the job she spends most of her free time grading essays. Ryan makes sure to look conspicuously lazy while she does this.
Katie spent the summer in Santa Fe, NM at one of the Bread Loaf campuses. She has only one summer left before she is a Master of English. After classes ended Ryan flew to New Mexico for a week of traveling. They visited Ryan’s aunt, cousin and grandfather – all New Mexico residents. K & R also managed to squeeze in a day at the Ten Thousand Waves spa in Santa Fe and White Sands National Park.
While Katie was in Santa Fe Ryan visited Cairo for two weeks. While there he learned to walk like an Egyptian and relive all his Indiana Jones fantasies.
In August Congress decided to give free cash to Americans who had strategically purchased gas-guzzling vehicles in years past. Not to be left out of the cash bonanza, Ryan was a loyal American and traded in his Mustang GT “clunker” for a Japanese Toyota Rav4. Katie added in her Camry as a straight trade-in so we went from 2 cars down to 1. Our first trip with the new car was to Sunset Beach, NC for a vacation with Katie’s family.
During the year we also visited The Homestead Resort (mooching off some lawyer friend’s free perks), Charlottesville, Baltimore, and Thanksgiving in MA.
Three days before Christmas and DC is still digging out from 18” of snow. This caused a big brouhaha with Katie getting stuck in Atlanta because of closed airports in DC. Eventually we got her home but required 5 hours of driving by her mother and 8 hours by both her brother and Ryan. This pretty much ruined Ryan’s day of napping and playing Xbox games.
Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanza, and Happy Festivus for the rest of … you. Oh, and also a Happy New Year.
Katie & Ryan
