Xmas Letter 2011

For the love of all that’s Holy I’ll write the goddamn letter.

I’ve been battling a kidney stone for the last 10 days. At one point Bernadette suggested I name it, the same Bernadette who has been nagging me to write this letter. This nagging was familiar so I aptly named the stone Bernie. This dual-purpose letter is also serving as an announcement for the arrival of baby Bernie, born 12-13 at 5:43 pm. In lieu of gifts I am accepting pay pal towards furnishing a nursery.

So, what has the Leritz clan been up to this year? Hell if I can remember. I know I worked today, I assume the kids went to school, and Bernadette probably did something really useful around the house. OG Bernie and I had a nice getaway to Leavenworth this summer. We chose it because there isn’t a ton to do there unlike other vacations where you run yourself ragged with activities. Typical day was wake up at 10, eat a little something, go wine tasting, get tipsy, flirt with wine server lady, retire to hotel for nap, wake up at 5, more wine, dinner, back to bed. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. It was a much needed vacation shortly after we lost a baby (Jack). We buried him with my step dad, he’s resting quietly (which by default makes him my favorite child).

We made a family trip to Disneyland in February. It was almost as relaxing as our other trip. Almost. The kids had fun despite the fact that we had a tough balancing act between 2 year old activities and teenager level rides (don’t tell Bernie but Reilly and I snuck in an extra ride on the Tower of Terror and blamed our absence on long lines).

Reilly started high school this year. It’s a mixed bag of good and “when are you moving out?” The good is she’s being more responsible about getting her own stuff done. The rest is, well, she’s a f**king teenager. Also her homework is quickly exceeding my skills. I’m finding myself relegated to coming up with good search terms for the porn machine google. I had to text her and ask if she did anything useful this year. No response. I should just copy/paste last year’s paragraph about her and be done with it.

Nathan is in his last year of elementary. He’s still the same mess-making, odorific boy he was last year. I believe his shower count might have hit double digits this year! Ahhh progress. He spent some time in Montana with my dad this summer (what a glorious 10 days that was at our house). He started playing the violin in the school orchestra and recently had his first concert. I’m pretty sure I saw him doing the equivalent of mouthing the words (violin-ing the notes?) on more than one occasion. Nathan opted to play soccer this fall. I have nothing else to say about that. At least his homework is still on my level.

I was fortunate to attend a conference last spring in Chicago where I got to hang out with some of my favorite people in the world (shout outs: Ginamarie, Jazmine, Sam, Mallen). It had been far too long. A few unnamed jerks and (and one spouse) were unable to attend. It continues to be far too long.

Holy shit I almost forgot Nick! Nick is remarkable. He started school right after his 3rd birthday. He is now multiplying 2 digit numbers, reading at a 3rd grade level, he is learning piano and cooked his first meal. I am not sure why I even bother with the other kids. I wonder what they’d go for on craigslist? Don’t get me wrong, Nick’s not perfect. We had to have a second round of tubes put in his ears as he had fluid/drainage problems. Can’t wait for that bill to come in the mail.

Other minutiae include Bernie’s parents staying with us on and off this summer as they were up from Arizona. It was nice having them here (alright Margie….was that sarcasm or not?). Unfortunately their stay was extended (let me finish before you answer that question Margie!) when Walt was in a nasty wreck where he suffered some severe injuries. We had two car accidents of our own, though they were merely being rear-ended in the Yukon which holds up quite well and in fact inflicts some heavy damage. Oh I suppose I should mention that Walt is recovering well (although at the time of this writing he is back in Washington for the holidays which likely corresponds to increased pain and misery).

I wonder if I have written enough to satisfy the reader. I probably don’t care. And about half of what I’ve said is made up anyway (hint: it’s the nice stuff). So in closing I’d like to wish you a blippity blah blah whatever ramble ramble random real words hey this is starting to look like a sentence and if I keep writing it will make the letter longer and you will think it has more stuff in it when really this is just a run-on nonsense sentence and I wonder how long until you give up on reading it back to random blah something fart joke words with fiends I don’t think I will make another paragraph, or even sentence for that matter, which makes me wonder if I should include any punctuation at all, well I suppose commas and quotes are cool so yeah they get to stay in even though Im not using them in a consistent matter I wonder if you think I misspelled friends or if you even noticed at all (hint: I didnt….oh shit do parentheses count as punctuation) well I’m spent.

That’s enough, non?

Have a good whatever you celebrate
The Leritz Family