Christmas letter 2010

“I always keep the Lord near me, and I will not be afraid with Him at my right side. Because of this, my heart will be glad, my words will be joyful, and I will live in hope.” Acts 2:25-26.

We hope this letter finds you and your loved ones well, joyful, and with the thrill of hope in the birth our Lord.

As Blake and I reviewed our year, we realize how blessed we are and how many wonderful opportunities we’ve had to enjoy time with each other and have some fun adventures. It turns out that over the course of this year – if you count layovers – we’ve visited 16 states (15 for Blake), DC, and Canada. We hit NJ, DE, MD, PA, GA, CA, UT, TX, NC, MA, CT, RI, ME, VT, NH, DC, IL (Tiffanie only), and Quebec. And we will go to WY in January. Wow!

I’m not sure if you heard, but we got some snow last winter. It was affectionately known as Snowmaggedon, Snowpocalypse, Snowverkill, or our favorite: SnowperBowl 2010. Something like a total of 56 inches of snow fell over the course of the winter. If you’re wondering how that compares to other years, in 2007-08, the total was 5 inches. The average is about 13 inches. After the first 12 inches in December, we got a snow shovel. That was helpful. Who knew we’d need it so much more after that?!

In February, we ventured out of our snowy cocoon and went to Atlantic City, NJ for one of Blake’s work trips (this is when we hit MD, DE, PA, and NJ). It was fun take a drive, see all the flashy hotels, and eat some good food.

In March, I was emailing with Stephanie Heerdt who told me of plans for dinner with our college friends that weekend in Chicago. So I conspired with Sarah Broweleit, secretly invited myself to that dinner, and hopped on a plane to Chicago for the weekend (IL for me). It was a very fun surprise. I got out of the car at Linnea’s house to lots of screams of disbelief by her, Steph, and Stephanie Voiland: “aaaaaaaahhhhhh! What?! You’re here!!!” It was lots of fun.

May brought a busy time of thesis reviews and changes at work for Blake, but we were able to celebrate and relax with two fun happenings. Blake walked at graduation at George Mason University with a Master of Science in Educational Psychology and was given an award for being the program’s top student. In late May, we traveled to California for a week of vacation (CA with layovers in GA and UT) and visiting with Blake’s parents and brother (who met us there). We braved the beach, went to a baseball game, and took a short drive through Beverly Hills. We also took a side trip to San Diego and toured the USS Midway.

Early in the year, Blake applied to several doctoral programs. This involved collecting transcripts, letters of recommendation, and admissions essays. He was accepted by George Mason University to the PhD in Education program and began classes this fall. He is taking a full load of courses also working as a research assistant with an academic dean.

This fall was another great cheerleading season! My freshman team joined up with the JV team to compete together and they did such a great job! They worked very hard and their best performance was on the mat – right where it needed to be! We were only able to compete once this season, but we came in 4^th out of 15 JV teams. The Varsity cheer team won the district title for the 5^th year in a row – half of them were on my freshman team at one point, so I’d like to take a little credit! J Also, in December, I got to be a real cheerleader at the Staff vs. Students basketball game. I joined some West Springfield teachers cheering for the staff basketball team – we won!

Sadly, this year Fairfax County Public Schools cut funding for winter cheerleading (for basketball games). So, we cheered in the fall for football games and at our competitions, and the season ended in November instead of February. Even though it’s nice to have a shorter season over all, it turns out that we coaches and cheerleaders all really miss attending basketball games and all things cheer related!

In August, Blake and I joined my folks and my cousin, DanLee, on a short trip to Texas to attend my brother, Bryan’s, wedding to his longtime girlfriend, Sherry. (This trip included TX and a layover in NC.) It was a fun trip to a pretty little church in the Texas countryside where we met some of their fun friends and family. I got to be the unofficial wedding photographer and I enjoyed the chance to learn how to use my dSLR camera. I’m still learning!

When my folks announced that they were taking a 10-day Caribbean cruise starting on Thanksgiving day, Blake and I decided to plan a trip of our own for that weekend. We searched online for trip ideas and found cheap tickets to Boston. The trip snowballed from there. We loved the idea of going to Canada, in spite of the 6+ hour drive, so we decided to make it a big road trip. We hit the corner of ME, NH, VT (including a tour of the Ben & Jerry's factory - with a sample of "Peppermint Schtick" ice cream - yum!) and on to Montréal. After returning to Boston, we spent another day driving and hit RI and CT. Six states and one province in four days! Whew! What a fun trip!

For Christmas, we plan to stay home and enjoy some much needed rest. We have plans to visit Blake’s parents in Wyoming in January – you know, when the weather is nice there! J We’re excited to see his family and to meet his new “sister,” Alan and Jo’s new puppy, Jaxsyn!

We wish you a restful, peaceful holiday season.

Much love and prayers,

Blake, Tiffanie, and Kitty

“And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them,’ Fear not: for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord’… And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.'” Luke 2:8-14.

That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

we've never been to boston in the fall.... until now.

when pat and leon planned a thanksgiving cruise to panama, blake and i decided that we would take our own trip over the thanksgiving weekend. we searched online and found inexpensive tickets to Boston. after that, our trip plans snowballed into a tour of New England including a trip into Canada.

we hit all six New England states on our trip and enjoyed a night in snowy Montreal.

we arrived in boston on thursday, thanksgiving day. we enjoyed a fancy thanksgiving dinner at a hyatt downtown. friday, we drove through maine (just the corner where we hit an outlet mall and had lunch) and new hampshire, and vermont (including a tour of the ben & jerry's factory - with a sample of "Peppermint Schtick" - yum!) and on to montreal.

it snowed over night, only a little dusting. very pretty. we toured through montreal on saturday, left town in the early evening, and got back to boston late. sunday, we rested and spent a little time downtown boston. monday, we drove to providence, RI and storrs, CT to see the University of Connecticut and back to boston. we left on tuesday morning - six states and one province in four days! whew! what a fun trip!

below are some pictures from our trip.

[p.s., here are the rest of our pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/tiffanielynnjohnson/201011Boston#]


these are the signs from the six states we visited. the bottom left shot is of the "Welcome to Massachusetts" sign. the times we reentered MA were at night (after long days of driving), this is all i could get from the car in the dark. :)

 we saw several college campuses including these four:

 
blake and tiffanie in montreal:

blake and tiffanie in boston harbor:

blake and tiffanie at the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory in Waterbury, VT:

old montreal in the snow:

a view from our hotel room in montreal:

the canada-US border:

beautiful mountains in Vermont:

 blake at the Bill Rodgers running store in downtown boston:

 

mason graduation

this past saturday, blake graduated with his Master of Science in Educational Psychology from Mason. in june, blake will be starting classes for his PhD in education at Mason.

on saturday, in the morning, there was the main commencement ceremony for the whole school - every department, all degrees - where the extent of the 7,700 graduates' participation was "stand up, sit down" good job, you graduated. (no, not all of them attended this ceremony!)

in the afternoon, the graduate school of education held their ceremony for the education department master's and doctoral graduates. the other schools (management, engineering, etc.) had their individual ceremonies at various times and locations over the course of the weekend. this is when the students actually had their names called individually and walked across the stage. all 550 of them. whew. long day!

at the morning commencement ceremony. that's a lot of green.

handsome grad!


at the education department graduation. of the graduates in blake's program - educational psychology: learning, cognition, and motivation - blake received the Outstanding Academic award. he got a plaque.

after the long day at mason, my folks took us out to PF Changs. here we are in our comfy clothes next to the big horse. i dressed in my Go Mason gear.

curb appeal

the area beyond our porch has two bushes and some empty space with a bunch of weeds. it's been this way the whole five years i (tiffanie) have lived here. every spring, azaleas bloom in the area and they're beautiful. so i decided to get some to plant in our only "garden." right next to our "garage" where we keep blake's bike.

while we were out saturday night, we saw a plant stand in the parking lot where we went out to dinner, and so we got some pretty pink blooms. blake picked the color :) also, we snuck over to my folks' garage and stole some gardening tools. don't tell.

this afternoon, we weeded. thank goodness we stole gardening gloves from pat, they were really helpful. those green sprouts were rooted pretty deeply and their roots criss-crossed underground. we did our best to pull up what we could.

then we rode the bike around. ok, not really. but, on a side note about the bike, two things. during all our weeks of snow, we used it to mark blake's parking spot - hey, neighbors we spent 3 hours digging out this spot, don't you dare take it while we're gone - and one time, someone ran it over. the front tire is very bent, if you haven't noticed. second thing, we took pictures of it today to put it on freecycle. please, someone come take it. please. it's been on our porch since we got married over 3 years ago.

what a safe neighborhood we live in, right? an unchained bike was safe for over 3 years and no one stole it. ok, that was three things about the bike.

ok, back to the flowers.

so many roots!

then we planted our four pretty bushes. and sorta made a mess on the porch. but who has a big outdoor broom in a one bedroom condo? not us. so, please excuse our dust.

handsome!

ok, so they need a little time to grow into their new digs.

kitty was a good gardening supervisor.

kitty has a rough life: part 4

kitty likes to lay on our stuff.


"i found this book uninspiring."

"did you bring me any gum?"

"i think we need to rethink this pattern."

"what do you mean i owe you taxes?"

"this bag smells like school."

life... edited

some people say that family blogs and facebook profiles aren't authentic because they're "life... edited." and i can see how that's true. people certainly brag about their cars, homes, jobs, and wonderful families even though they're up to their eyes in debt, spend their evenings fighting, and feel sad and alone. they only show the "good" stuff and don't show how life really is.

however. i don't think everyone who writes about good things going on or expresses gratitude for what they have is being fake. and maybe that's part of it: maybe i'm not seeing the fake people or i'm not one of them because i've spent a lot of time and energy in my life keeping away from those people and their drama. but even still, the questions i have are these:

• where's the line between being "fake" and sharing too much?
• in hopes of being authentic and "real," how does one guard against complaining or focusing on the negative?
• if we don't want to share too much personal stuff, how do we maintain a real image when we're going through tough times?

i guess the thing that bugs me the most about people being so hung up on facebook and blogs being "life... edited" is that i don't really see it. or maybe, it's that i don't really care. it bugs me because it doesn't bug me. if that makes sense. what are people supposed to post? pictures of themselves first thing in the morning with bed-head instead of a pretty easter picture all dressed up? status messages about cramps and bad breath and sweaty feet? comments on statuses saying: i don't care about your dog/kid/problems?

i joke... but i do realize that being "authentic" doesn't mean being a jerk. maybe it's about not commenting: "i'll pray for you," when you have no intention of doing so. or maybe it's not sending virtual bouquets to people you'd never talk to in real life. or not praising Jesus in your statuses and denying him in your actions.

i don't know. maybe what you post and what you comment and how you fill you profile says more about you than you realize. maybe being fake online just means you're fake in real life too.

and maybe the people who are so aware of "edited" lives are the ones who edit their own lives or fear what people think about their own authenticity.

but really, i don't expect to know the real truth about someone who isn't my close friend. i don't think it's appropriate to share your business with the world. i like facebook. i like people's blogs. i like knowing what's going on. it's light. it's small talk. it's acquaintance-level chit-chat. i don't need to know the gritty details and i don't think i should.

what an ego boost

i have a small group of Taylor friends who live in chicago and i email with them all the time. week before last, Stephanie said that they are all having a dinner party together saturday night. i'm always so sad when they get together and i can't be there (which is always). so i looked at flights and found a cheap flight for saturday morning through tuesday and i booked it!! because i've been talking with Sarah about coming for months and in order to have a place to stay, i let Sarah in on it, but the other ones didn't know i was coming!!!! it was so fun!

Sarah and i hung out saturday until it was time to go to Linnea's. when we got there, we got out of the car and saw some commotion through the window and Linnea and Stephanie came barreling out of the front door: "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! you're here! you're here! you're here!!!!! whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttt!?!?!" it was SO fun! i felt so loved!
then (the other) stephanie was arriving, so i hid in the kitchen. she came in and greeted everyone, then i came around the corner and said hi. she did about exactly the same thing: "aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!" it was so fun! they were shocked. totally shocked. i lovveeeeeddd it!

jackpot! bingo! hit me!

back in january, when my next hope of time off work was Memorial day, i jumped at the chance to take a few days off (this week) to go to Atlantic City with blake for his job - who knew i'd have a week of work for snow in the middle of february. but it was still fun to get away to a glittery hotel paid for by someone else with the promise of some yummy food and shopping (for me).

Fly the coop

Well it's snowing, or should I say still snowing. Today's blizzard warning marks the latest in a string of record setting snowfalls over the area this winter. Since Friday afternoon, some places in this area will have received four feet of fresh snow. Total accumulations for this winter are the highest recorded since the 19th century. The theme of the season has been snow, snow, snow, snow.

This area is not particularly used to snow, or at least consistent snow. For the past three winters, it has been reasonable and mild, even humid and balmy at times. The weeks before and after our wedding in January 2007 saw temperatures in the 70s, and even the times it's been cold, it hasn't come with a lot of precipitation.

There are two consequences of this: 1) one is that you get a lot of people who don't know how to behave in the snow, such as the girl who decided to drive briskly down a long, icy hill in the family Thunderbird, windows down, crying, and saying, "I don't know how to drive this thing!" 2) you have to find more to do with yourself. The second consequence sometimes leads to the first, and vice versa. What do you do with yourself when your office is closed and you can't go out on the roads and you've watched enough dramas, sitcoms, soap operas, and ball games to fill a month's worth of content? What do you do when a lap around the living room (just for the sake of taking a lap) turns into 2 or 10 or 50? What do you do after you've cleaned, after you've read a book, after you've clipped your fingernails, after you've pet the pooch? There's no great purpose to the day.

Maybe some people have elaborate solutions in their households to combat boredom. Maybe it would help to have a big garage, have a project in the basement that needs working on, have a cat that's ready to burst with kittens, have a kitchen with golden utensils and a supply closet the size of the Queen Elizabeth and a stone oven large enough to cook a horse. Of course, if I had a kitchen with gold utensils and a supply closet and a stove for a horse and all that, who would I cook for? What would I make, and how much?

Here are some activities we have undertaken to pass the time this week:

• Cleaned our house (all the usual parts plus going through drawers and old stacks of paper)
• Looked at Facebook (many, many times)
• Watched reruns of our favorite shows
• Read a little, and looked at books/magazines we might like to read
• Watched the Superbowl, and the pregame, and the post game, and even a little of the endless commentary the next day
• Checked in our on our work email
• Shoveled each car out of a snowbank (we spent 3-4 hours total shoveling)
• Drank hot chocolate, hot tea, or hot coffee, depending on the time of day
• Braved the snow last night to go see a basketball game at George Mason (which went into overtime -- great game!)
• Played video games
• Learned new cheers (a household staple)
• Walked through the snow and took pictures
• Bundled and unbundled many times for a chance to go outside
• Did many loads of laundry because of all the going outside
• Checked the mailbox a dozen times, still to have no mail
• Played musical instruments
• Got out the other day to find an open fabric store. Also got new windshield wipers for my car
• Reminisced about good old times, such as when we used to play hide and seek out in the dark when I was growing up, or when we built snow caves in our back yard. Also remembered wrestling my cousin Cameron in knee deep snow in our front yard, and playing king of the mountain on a pile of snow
• Looked out our window (like 1000 times)

This has been a very restful, quiet week (other than the loud basketball game last night). I think we're a little cooped up though. I want to do something. It'd be nice to go out for a run or go swimming in our pool. Guess we'll just have to let the snow take its course and get ready for a very green and wet spring.

sewing project

here's an unflattering picture of me at the wax museum (with george h.w. bush) in south dakota. the sweatshirt i was wearing was just that: a sweatshirt. the back says "Spartan Cheer," but nothing on the front. it's boring and constricting in the neck. so...



so.... on my only day off between new years and memorial day - MLK day - i decided to do a project. i put a zipper in the above pictured sweatshirt to make it a jacket! i searched online for instructions and it turns out... it was a fairly easy project and look at the sweatshirt jacket now!



my cheer coach friend asked if i'd do the same for her sweatshirt! wow, i should go into business! (ok, not really.) but it was fun!

what other projects should i do?

christmas catch-up

here are tiffanie and blake playing dominoes in the year 2050.

no, just kidding, folks! it's pat and leon playing dominoes with us. the kluds are domino-playing fools.

i won, by the way.

here we are on christmas 2009. who loves blake's new glasses? i do.

after all the festivities, kitty was all tuckered out. (around 10am).

i thought i might add some stuff about what we've done since christmas........ um, yeah, not much. i really miss being on vacation. working all day really cramps my style!