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A Year in Review                    

by Sean

          December 2007

             In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

So here we are, another Christmas upon us—time to count blessings again.  Okay, so if we really wanted to count all of them, it would take quite a while.  But not all blessings are created equal, so if we prioritize a little bit, Jen and I could quickly agree that we have three really important ones and that their names all start with “M.”  That’s pretty much known, so even though Mary, Margaret and Meaghan will be featured players throughout the 2007 edition of the Christmas letter, we’ll try to illuminate a few other important blessings for which 2007 can take credit.

          For starters, 2007 is the first year since 2002 that we’ve lived the entire calendar year in the United States .  And Jen and Mary are the only two who remember it.  I was gone for well over half of it, it was dark where Margaret was, and Meaghan wasn’t even close to being a twinkle yet.  Anyway, it kind of snuck up on us, but we managed to live in the same house for twelve months in a row in a place where everyone speaks the same language we do.  After nearly four years overseas, I’m not sure whether to be concerned that we almost took it for granted so soon after getting back or happy to have acclimated again so quickly.  Fear not, it’s not costing me any sleep—I’ve got daughters to do that.

          The first big blessing in 2007, though, was simply that we got to begin it among our people—the Lancaster tribe to be specific.  Uncle Tony and Aunt Gracie put us up over New Year so we could hang out with the Gillespie clan over a winter holiday for the first time in way too long.  The report on the highlight of the trip would depend on whom you ask.  For me, it was as it always is—visiting Jack, Margaret and Margaret Mary and a ring of Hippie’s finest.  For Jen it was probably her night out with girls who didn’t call her mommy.  For the girls, generally speaking, it was meeting all their “new” aunts, uncles and cousins.  For Mary it was hanging out with her cousin Logan; for Margaret it was motoring around Longwood Gardens with Auntie Ann and cousin Katelyn painting her nails.

For Meaghan?  Hard to say.  Her brain and speech skills are growing at such a rapid pace that you could get one report one day and another the next, each equally coherent and bearing no resemblance to each other.  The fun thing to observe these days is that all answers start with, “Because . . .”  This includes not only questions that start with why, but also what, where, when and who, as well as questions you didn’t even know you’d asked yet.  She’s also our Mad Scientist these days.  Her most entertaining projects, in no particular order, include several attempts putting on Jen’s make-up, putting important papers in the shredder and finding out what happens to a whole box of Q-tips when you submerge them in Margaret’s bath.  She also got help from Margaret testing bubble bath as a shampoo substitute.

Meaghan turned two less than a month after the Lancaster visit, and accordingly took her first shot at blowing out candles.  I don’t know if she really got into the spirit of the whole candles thing—sort of leaned back in her chair and blew very casually, like you might to dry nail polish.  We’ll see if she blows with a little more gusto this year.  Meantime, she’s gotten quite proficient, as the year has gone on, holding up two fingers and saying “I’m two!”  Every now and then, she’ll throw a curveball and add, “It looks like peace!”  Now, with her third birthday just around the corner, she’s practicing adding her ring finger to the formation and reporting, “Three looks like this.”

A little over a month later, I turned, um, thirty-seven.  The most noteworthy part of the whole event for me, was my bride baking me a cannoli cake to perch the bonfire on.  She’d been doing this for a little over a year, baking birthday cakes tailored to the tastes of the birthday girl or boy.  Before the year was out, it would lead to even bigger and better things.  More on that later.  (Foreshadowing?  What could it be about?  Gillespie really is some kind of literary genius!)

The next big event was Margaret’s birthday at the end of March.  At four, she definitely had the candles thing wired.  Margaret is the new Buzz Bomb.  Kevin may defend hereditary claims to the title on behalf of Iain or Elena, but I assert that on the merits it’s Margaret.  She has decided at any rate that she’s done with the Curly Girl nickname.  I think that’s mostly because she’d rather have straight hair like her big sister.  But more important, I think she likes a nickname that suggests a free spirit, an active imagination and a filter that she can turn on and off at will.  There are lots of examples of great Margaret quotes on the web page, so I won’t belabor the point here.  Suffice it for now to say that she’s the Queen of Priceless Quotes, and she keeps her parents in stitches.

Things were kind of quiet for the rest of the school year, but soon after it ended, the next big blessing came our way.  In June we made the trip to the Caldwell compound in Tennessee for the first time in two years.  

Shortly after getting home from Tennessee , our next blessing—Baby Behrs!  Five of them, if you count kitties, arrived from Korea .  After seven years teaching in at the DOD middle school in Seoul , Gene was forced to accept a new assignment to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany .  Some people have all the rotten luck.  Anyway, he and Sherry and Chris (and the two kitties Polo and Pazza—Italian for “chicken” and “crazy”) crashed here on and off over the summer while their stuff traveled from the home of soju to the home of beer.  There were lots of highlights to the visit, and I think every one of them involved food and beer.  I’d forgotten how dangerous it was to have another sailor in the house for an extended period of time.  Mid-August, Gene and Sherry flew to Germany , and Chris departed for college near Pittsburgh .  I think I finally dried out sometime in October.

The highlight of my year came late in June.  After more than twenty years of marveling over their music, I finally got to go see my three favorite Canadians in concert.  Jen, Gene, Sherry, Chris and I went to see Rush.  Just like other folks I’d grown up hearing about, and sometimes lucky enough to see live—Paul Simon, Neal Diamond—they brought no opening act with them, and they played until everyone else got tired.  Chris literally fell asleep during their second hour-plus set, and he’s a music major.  They took a break in the middle, in their own words, “Because we are aged.”  Anyway, this was one of the things I needed to do before I died, and now I’ve checked it off.  Not to worry, there are still plenty of other things left on the list so I’m in no hurry.  But this one was really high on the list, and it was one of the few items that didn’t involve one of my girls or a golf club.  

(Side note, Mamaw Helen took the girls to the beach to get sand between their toes and eat ice cream.  While they were there, Helen struck up a conversation with a couple who were there doing something similar.  At some point in the conversation, one of them said something about the Korean War being over.  Little Mary quickly interjected, “Actually, it’s not over yet.  We only signed an armistice, not a peace treaty.”  That’s my girl!)

Little Mary’s and Jen’s birthdays arrived in July (like they do every year), and with the Behr clan around we had lots of folks at the table.  Good times indeed!  Proud Mary did the cake for Jen’s birthday to treat her to the same pampering the rest of us are getting used to.  Little Mary got her first bike this year.  Yes, most kids get dialed into that at a younger age, but Mary was a little busy trotting the globe to be bothering with kid stuff.  (Plus her parents might have been a little paranoid about putting her on a bike anywhere near a car with a Korean behind the wheel.  And yes, the Korea tour did get me acquainted with my inner Archie Bunker, so there’s about a 50-50 chance that was meant to be as bad as it sounded.)  Anyway, she’s just about got the hang of the bike.  Before long, she’ll be able to go riding with me when I run.  Then she can turn the tables and tell me that I’m holding up the whole Navy.

Anyway, not long after getting the Behrends off to their new stations it was time to get into our own school years here.  Big news all around this year.  Meaghan started pre-school, going two days a week.  Margaret is going every day this year, so it’s almost like she’s getting a year of kindergarten before kindergarten.  And Mary?  Well, how does a father put this?  We went shopping for clothes about a week before fourth grade started.  I’d been sick for a few days and was just starting to get my strength back.  Jen asked if I wanted to come with, and I figured it’d do me good to get out of the house and moving around a bit.  I wasn’t all the way back to full strength yet, so I told Jen I might need to take a walk now and then to get a little quiet, which was fine.  Then we got to the store . . .  and the first place we stopped was in front of the training bras.  I took my first walk right then and there.  No, I wasn’t ready.  I’m still not.

Things have really flown by since then, largely because of our latest blessing.  Jen decided she was ready to inch back into the work force, so she took a part-time job at a local bakery.  (Aaaaah, yes!  We’d almost forgotten the foreshadowing thing!  Gillespie really is a literary genius!)  The blessing has been the return of Jen’s sanity.  She gets to talk exclusively to grown-ups for hours at a time three days a week now!  And for those of you who’d seen her in action doing birthday cakes before, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  She’s working for a lady with very high standards and has gotten good enough at what she’s doing that she’s the only other person there allowed to decorate cakes.  It’s a blast for her, and since she’s working at a job that doesn’t require a clearance, we actually spend a lot more time talking about her part-time job than my full-time job.  (Okay, hers may be more interesting too.  It doesn’t revolve around PowerPoint.)

Shortly after I dried out in October, Mamaw Helen swooped in to take the girls trick-or-treating.  This was Meaghan’s first time out, and she had a blast.  I’ll let the pictures tell the story here.

Thanksgiving was a blast.  And a riot.  My brother and sister came down from Boston with their families and stayed the weekend.  We had a huge crowd for Thanksgiving.  Mamaw Helen, her boyfriend Evan and his two (grown) kids Elizabeth and Randy, Proud Mary and Grandpop Jerry, and Jen’s sister Marg and her husband Brian were in attendance.  We employed three tables, including, for the first time that I can remember in my own house, a kids’ table.  I got my first firsthand glimpse at life through my Pop’s eyes looking at a full house at Thanksgiving, especially with all the little cousins under one roof, and the view was all right.

Just a week ago, I got back home after a week of temporary duty in Pearl Harbor .  I’d been there once before, but had to fly east from Korea to get there the last time, and my body never adjusted.  Coming west was quite different—gorgeous!  Didn’t hurt that it was 40 at home and 75 in Hawaii .  I was fortunate enough to meet a survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack, and to take an amazing tour on the Pacific Fleet commander’s barge all the way around Ford Island , wrapping up at the Arizona memorial.  It was a very sobering reminder of just how many people’s shoulders we’re all standing on, living to the standard we enjoy today.  The only thing that didn’t feel quite right about the trip was that Jennifer was back here in Chesapeake .  So we talked a bit about it after I got back, and we have our New Year plans for 2008-2009 made already.  Gourmands, consider this your warning order— Honolulu or bust this time next year!

          The grace of our lord Jesus Christ be with you all.  Amen.

A note from the webmaster:

 We're a little late posting our Holiday update.  Our apologies, and a few Christmas photos to take away the sting.  Wishing you all a joyous, blessed New Year!