OSGOOD/DALRYMPLE WEBLOG: 2008

Special post-New Year's greetings from the Osgood/Dalrymple home! We are a little slow getting this out this year as the Queen of Organization has been a little gimpy. D had her left knee replaced on 12/16, but is doing beautifully. According to physical therapy, she is way ahead of schedule and and has been advised to slow down a little (no more vacuuming with one crutch).

Olivia was just offered a Resident Assistant position at U Mass-Amherst for the second term. We think it is super and that she will be great at it. She was a customer service intern at Logan Airport last summer, getting lots of chances to practice her Spanish, and entertained us with stories and incidents and loved it. She hopes to work there again next summer.

Tristan is into his second month as a lifeguard at the Hanscom Air Force Base pool. He is enjoying the job and especially the paycheck. The bureaucracy of paperwork for his appointment and just getting on the base for processing (nobody ever said the government was organized) was a lowlight of the year for sure but we are happy for him.

Rockland is in the process of being commissioned as a Stephen Minister through our church. So far it involves lots of reading and classes each week. He is finding it very rewarding and is feeling like it is a good fit. Rock was the evangelist in Bach's St. John Passion during Easter week and talk about a humbling experience—he sang from the lectern in Trinity Church to the thousands in the church! …really special performance to be part of.

Deanna took up quilting (somewhat briefly) this year and has a beautiful project in process. She is doing English paper piecing--let’s hope life is long enough to see the end of that! As usual, her biggest project is keeping us all in line.

Some highlights: our bumper tomato crop this year. We started over with new soil and a new location and tomato/onion sandwiches never tasted so good! Cucumber crop was pretty good but not picture worthy. Our camping trip to Strawberry Park—always fun but especially this time. We joined the Phinney/Billingsley clan for a reunion of sorts (or they joined us but there were many more of them!) and had am amazing time. Crispin and Win came in 3rd place in egg toss (their photo is featured). Not on our blog is our trip to NY when we went to Westpoint for Alec Moyer's graduation and also got standing room tickets for Jersey Boys! Just fantastic!... and we built a force field around Tristan in Times Square when the girls wouldn’t stay away from him.

Deanna made it possible for Tristan and Rock to go to Las Vegas and Mesquite in June where they played 9 rounds of golf in six days on seven different courses to celebrate their 16th and 50th birthdays. Movies we enjoyed this year (though not recommeded for all ages): Death at a Funeral, Run Fat Boy Run, Hot Fuzz, The Case for Christ, Lars and the Real Girl*****, Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl, Much Ado about Nothing (the BBC modern version), Big Love (HBO series which we get on Netflix since we don’t have HBO). Big Love is about a plural family in Utah—Deanna commented that it would be a teenage girl’s worst nightmare to have three mothers! Rock thinks it would be a guy’s worst nightmare to have three wives. Our age seems to have caught up with us and we are in the wrong demographic so there is almost nothing we enjoy on TV anymore—that is---really, really enjoy and can’t wait to see the next episode kind of thing (except House, in Rocky’s opinion). If it weren’t for TIVO and sports we wouldn't watch a lot. Podcasts: The Splendid Table, Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, Garrison Keillor, and This American Life. On the TV end of things, some of the shows we do like to watch are Deadliest Catch, Hopkins, The Closer, The First 48.

We wish you a brighter, less turbulent New Year!

R & D & O & T