Merry Christmas from the Begley family!

In an effort to save a bit of paper, fuel, and postage, and selfishly to capitalize on the posterity of a blog post to combat our disappearing memories (where ARE my keys?), we have opted to post our holiday update/letter here. Plus, as you’ll see below, it allows for a bit of extra features that a low-tech letter simply cannot handle (…yet). Enjoy!

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Winter.
2008 began with snow, snow, snow! We had a cold January but the snow made it delightful and (almost) enjoyable. The North End was beautiful covered with a foot of puffy, fluffy snow…that is until it turned to cold, hard, dirty, ice. We had many opportunities to dig our car out of a huge snow drift only to have it buried again the next day. Oh yes, and you haven’t really experienced parallel parking until you do so in the middle of winter in the North End (rock your car into an icy hole of a “parking spot” with negative inches of buffer between the cars in front and back much?) In February, to escape the cold and get our fix of what we remember Mexican food really tasting like, we traveled to Cancún, Mexico for 10 days where we met up with our friends Mike, Monica, Erik, and Thomas (more here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). It was amazingly beautiful and we had a great time building sand castles on the beach, exploring Isla Mujeres, and being with our friends. We all loved the vacation and Caleb in particular announced that he loves and wants to live at the beach. (Us too Caleb!)

Spring.
Spring started off with a trip to the emergency room for Caleb. We spent Easter in Connecticut with Nonna and Boppa and enjoyed a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Straughn during, unfortunately, the rainiest week of the season. Travel highlights were a train trip to Washington D.C. for Aunt Katherine’s graduation from George Washington University, and a car trip to Pennsylvania to attend a birthday party for Caleb’s second cousins, Giovanni and Vincenzo. Also this spring, Megan joined the Park Street Church Green Initiative, an effort to make the church more environmentally sustainable. Her “assignment” was to build a website for the initiative and she, along with her partner for the site’s development, Abigail, completed the site later in the year. Caleb also finally broke down our resolve and became the proud owner of a skateboard, confirming to all onlookers that he is indeed a California boy at heart.

Summer.
Busy, busy, busy… Peter, Caleb, and Nadine took their first camping trip together while Megan traveled for work. Despite the rain and mosquitoes, the “boys” (and Miss Nadine) had a wonderful time — in fact Caleb noted it as the best thing he did this summer. Near the end of June, Megan started a new job at the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC). She is working in Development designing their communications collateral and assisting with the Capital Campaign, the Maine Woods Initiative. She is really enjoying her new position, and as you will read about below, we’re all enjoying the benefits that come from working for AMC. This summer also took Peter back to California for his annual MBA reunion trip during which he and his classmates spent a long weekend camping in Sonoma and having fun in San Francisco, Walnut Creek, and a few spots in-between. In August, Caleb turned 3 and we spent a week in California to photograph a wedding in Santa Monica, empty out our Santa Maria-based storage unit, and visit friends in Santa Barbara. Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa Straughn for helping us get all that done! Over Labor Day Weekend, we traveled to AMC’s Highland Center in the White Mountains where on his own feet, Caleb summitted his first mountain, Mount Willard. Oh yes, and how can we forget all the feasts that took place in the North End throughout July and August (basically a two-month long party complete with marching bands, saints, more marching bands, street vendors, and more marching bands)!

Fall.
Fall found us taking several trips to New Hampshire to hike, enjoy the changing seasons, and escape the noise and chaos of Boston. Megan took a 2-day course to be certified in Wilderness First Aid and CPR at Pinkham Notch, while Peter and Caleb played, hiked and did a bit of exploring. In September, along with Peter’s sister Rebecca (who basically did everything), we planned a successful surprise 60th birthday party in Philadelphia for Nonna and Boppa which included friends and family from throughout the country. Also this fall, we moved out of our wee apartment in the North End to our new place in West Medford (roughly 10 miles northwest of Boston). We absolutely love having more space, a yard, parking, in-unit laundry, and all the wonderful things that are hard to come by in the North End. During the week, we take a 12-minute train ride to/from Boston — Megan and Peter to their jobs, and Caleb to preschool in the North End for his “work,” as he likes to call it. We were also able to squeeze in a trip this fall to see Grandma and Grandpa Straughn, GG (Megan’s grandmother Straughn), and friends in Minnesota. November 10th was Megan and Peter’s 6th wedding anniversary and we spent 2 nights in New York City ALONE (thank you Nonna and Boppa for taking care of Caleb and Nadine, and thank you Nora for letting us stay in your awesome apartment!). It was a much-needed and wonderful getaway. We spent Thanksgiving with Nonna and Boppa at AMC’s Highland Center in the White Mountains (New Hampshire again!) and enjoyed fresh snowfall and a lot of late fall/early winter hiking.

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Finally, we’ve made it to December and we are starting to see the first snowflakes of winter (enough, in fact, to make a snow hut…). We kicked off the season with a live Christmas tree (aka: uncut; the cut trees were very upsetting to Caleb – us too, now that we think about it) and a gingerbread house decorating party with some of Caleb’s classmates from school. The kids had so much fun! We look forward to the adventures that 2009 holds (Florida and Costa Rica, here we come!) and wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

~ Peter, Megan, Caleb and Nadine