2008: A Look Back

It's that time of year again. Like last year, we saved postage by not including a letter in our Christmas cards detailing everything we did this year, but I can tell you're really curious, so here's a few highlights. I got the distinct impression that people didn't believe what we wrote last year, so this year we kept our camera handy.

In April, Tom made waves in the scientific community by discovering the presence of liquid water on the surface of Mars. Evidently you don't need to spend billions of dollars on orbiters and probes and robots. All you need is a kayak and a paddle (and a life jacket, of course).





This summer, we all went to Beijing to cheer on Laura in the pool. She was the youngest competitor there (except for the Chinese gymnastics team). Laura set a world record in the 100-meter doggy-paddle, handing Michael Phelps his only defeat of the summer.





We returned from Beijing in the midst of a financial crisis, and everyone agrees that the one good decision Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson made was to step aside and name Sally his successor. The White House was most impressed with her success steering the Mom's Club© of East Bay, RI through the difficult times. Her initiatives have found approval on both sides of the aisle, and this week the heads of AIG, Freddy Mac, Fanny Mae, and Lehman Brothers are on their way to Guantanamo Bay for questioning (although it was Laura's idea to make the heads of the Big Three auto makers play eenie-meenie-miney-moe to decide who would get bought out by the other two).





Finally, in November Jessica successfully defended her senate seat against a challenge by comedian and SNL alum Gilbert Gottfried. It was a close election with a contentious recount that involved lawsuits all the way up to the Supreme Court. Exit polls showed that the attack ads proclaiming the old saying that "politicians and diapers should be changed often and for the same reasons" did not sit well with voters and gave Jessica some late momentum. Ultimately Jessica prevailed and prevented the Democrats from obtaining a filibuster-proof majority, but she remains a popular swing vote with the Democratic leadership.





As you can see, 2008 has been an exciting year for us. But we're not ones to dwell on the past, and we're already looking forward to the great things we'll do in 2009.