Thanksgiving 2004 Letter from Diane and Bob Andrew (click link to photos)

Dear Family and Friends;

From Diane: In the aftermath of a joy-filled, noisy Thanksgiving Day dinner with our kids and their kids, I find myself reflecting about this past year and our journey.

Last Thanksgiving my two sisters, their kids and Joann’s husband, Harold, came to DC to spend Thanksgiving with us and to be with us for Brian’s baptism. We had lots of fun but managed to give each other flu / pneumonia / bronchitis - you name it, we got it! Paula, Harold and I were the sickest and it took months for us to stop coughing and to get our voices back. Very hard on music teachers!

After a church retreat in the autumn of last year, Bob and I made the decision to leave the leadership of Sojourners Church. My last service as worship leader was the beginning of January. We decided to move back into a parish-based Episcopal Church, St. Alban’s.

Bob and I celebrated our 27th anniversary on April 2nd and welcomed into our family our second grandson, Christopher, on April 26th. He’s delightful! Colin is the proud papa and Christopher’s mom, Tracy, is doing a great job raising him in Baltimore with the loving help of her mother. We love spending time with both of our grandsons.

I spent time in Texas during July with my siblings, their kids and my parents. We took our parents to Las Vegas for their 59th wedding anniversary, particularly enjoyed Hoover Dam.

In late August I was offered a full-time teaching job at only one school (rather than 3) in Arlington County. I snatched it up and I’m really happy that I did. The kids are great, the parents are incredibly supportive and the teachers are great collaborators. It’s been a great year so far!

Jon and Sylvia Wilkes spent some time with us in August while Jon had a procedure done at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Sylvia really did a great job driving in Washington and Baltimore. The crazy traffic here made driving in Little Rock seem like a walk in the park.

Bob and I were delighted to spend Labor Day weekend in Montreal with our friends Richard and Som from Australia. Richard is former Brother Columba from Nashdom Abbey. While we explored we found out that it’s more fun to get lost than it is to easily find your way to places!

My cousin Mickey and his wife Jennifer stayed with us in early November and were with us when we acquired Chai, our new canine family member. His full name is Chai Kovsky Andrew. He is a Shih Tzu with cinnamon, black and white markings. He is so cute and we love him even when cleaning up the oops! Chester and Sutzi are slowly getting used to him.

I’ll stop here as I know Bob has great news that he wants to share. Please consider a trip to DC and come stay with us. We have a comfortable guest room and plenty of couches.

From Bob: for me this has been a year of consolidating my work life so that I’m no longer having to support such a wide variety of consulting responsibilities. This has been greatly helped by my application for U.S. citizenship finally being processed – there was a huge backlog after Sept. 11, 2001 and mine came through late September 2004, just in time to vote.

A direct outcome of that has been that my employer Computer Sciences Corp was able to process necessary clearances required for me to work in areas that will use my experience as a mapping specialist and chemical engineer to help support intelligent defense of critical infrastructure across the U.S.A.

I now have a permanent position as the number two person in the Technology/Architecture program office that CSC set up for the US Environmental Protection Agency for “ITS-EPA”: an Infrastructure Technology Support program for all EPA’s computers, servers, networks, telephones, cell phones etc.

This may involve periodic short trips each month to Research Triangle Park down in North Carolina which houses the EPA National Computer Center, as I work with CSC counterparts down there on the architecture of networks, servers, applications, digital telephony/video and secure wireless.

Recently I was the Technical Lead for an upgrade to the EPA Emergency Operations Center to enable it to do simultaneous video-conferences with Regional Offices and National Labs. Now I am now helping plan for their mapping support tools to bring in imagery and analysis information from EPA (or other first responder) on-scene staff to help in national level coordination by HQ with other federal agencies, like DHS.

I’ve just completed another term as President of Foxhall Community Citizens Association (see our www.foxhall.org website). Using smarter web-driven e-mail list technology, we are now going to spread the responsibilities of the FCCA President across the Board members so that workload doesn’t fall so much on one person. The major current issue for our neighborhood is seeking to get Historic District designation to help protect from inappropriate remodeling by developers looking to expand beyond traditional Tudor row-house design.

I am still supporting the www.ANC3D.org website for our Advisory Neighborhood Commission, as one way to ensure that issues coming before that elected group indeed get the widest public access and transparency of process. We have several large Estates about to be developed adjacent to FCCA: if done well we gain more quality homes, schools and sports fields; if poorly executed they could make traffic safety worse.

Our daughter Meagan continues to thrive in her role as a legal secretary at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen. Todd & Evans while also being mother to Brian - with the able assistance of family.

Our son Colin is now majoring in Construction Management at Montgomery Community College. He is getting to practice his craft by remodeling a friend’s entire basement level into a self-sufficient apartment, in return for two years free rent.

Please pray for God’s Peace in this world: Love, Diane & Bob Andrew