What a wonderful year it has been! While we use our blog primarily as a tool to capture our family history, we are glad that we can also use it to share with you, our friends and family, some of the blessings we have received (and challenges we have experienced) in 2009.

The hyperlinks will take you to previous blog posts that discuss the events in greater detail.

January: On January 30, we received the most amazing blessing ever--our little Olivia. She was born at 5:32 a.m. at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, NY. She weighed in at 6 lbs. 2 oz.

February: Both of Olivia's grandmas came to New York to meet her.

March: At the beginning of March, Daniel's law firm (Latham & Watkins in Costa Mesa, CA) gave him the option to defer his start date from Fall 2009 to Fall 2010. We decided to accept the firm's offer, which meant that we needed to figure out what to do with ourselves for a year. For spring break, we took Olivia on her first trip to Utah, where she received her baby blessing.

April: After working as a legal assistant at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis for two and a half years, I was laid off. Luckily, the compensation package accompanying this unfortunate event ended up being a financial blessing, since Daniel was graduating soon and I had planned to leave the firm two weeks later anyway. We also found out in April that Daniel had received a fellowship through NYU that would take us to Washington, D.C., for the fall and back to New York for the spring.

May: We said goodbye to New York City after Daniel graduated from law school. We moved back to Utah for the summer and lived in Orem. Daniel began a California Bar Exam review course at BYU.

June: I participated in my first triathlon--the Battle at Midway. The water was only 54 degrees! Even though Daniel was studying for the bar exam, we found time to do some fun summer things. At the end of the month, Olivia started eating solid foods.

July: Daniel threw me a surprise 25th birthday party, and we took Olivia camping for the first time over the Fourth of July weekend. At the end of the month, we drove to California where Daniel took the three-day bar exam. On July 31, Olivia's first two teeth popped through.

August: After the bar exam, we spent a couple weeks traveling. We went to Newport Beach, the Grand Canyon, Cedar City, Flaming Gorge, and to a Ricks Family Reunion. Then we packed up our stuff and moved again. Daniel and Adam, his brother, drove across the country to Washington, D.C., and Olivia and I flew out a few days later. Daniel began his fellowship working at the Joint Committee on Taxation.

September: My mom came to visit us in Washington, D.C. Olivia started crawling.

October: Daniel and I ran the St. George Marathon. We also took a beautiful (and long) road trip to Niagara Falls. At the end of the month, Olivia got her third and fourth teeth.

November: We went to Utah for Thanksgiving. While there, Olivia took her first steps and started clapping.

December: Olivia started walking!

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope that 2010 brings you each joy and happiness.

Love,

Daniel, Andrea, & Olivia

While Congress debates and votes in the Capitol, most of the work happens in the office buildings adjacent to the Capitol. The Congressmen have their offices in three office buildings south of the Capitol and the Senators have their offices in three office buildings north of the Capitol. Although our committee has offices on both the House and the Senate sides, my particular office is on the House side, in the Longworth House Office Building.

1620 Longworth, to be exact.

And this is my desk. I share a large office with three other people. And yes, when I'm at my desk I am sitting in a doorway that has been turned into a closet. They call this "the intern desk" since it is probably the worst place to sit in any of the committee's offices. But I don't mind. The chance to work in such an incredible institution has definitely been worth it.

Yesterday, we took an afternoon drive to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to see the famous Civil War battlefield.

Looking at the landscape, it is not difficult to see why the high ground was so vital to the battle. This is the spot where Confederate Major General Pickett led 12,000 men in "Pickett's Charge" against 7,000 Union soldiers on July 3, 1863, the final day of the three-day battle. When the Union army held the high ground and defeated the charge, General Robert E. Lee began the Confederate retreat out of Union territory.

One of the saddest parts of the day was visiting the cemetery.

Especially seeing the rows and rows of graves for unknown soldiers. The battle was the bloodiest of the Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln dedicated the Gettysburg National Cemetery several months after the battle. His short speech began with these now-famous words.

My favorite part of the Gettysburg Address comes at the end: "That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Visiting the Gettysburg Battlefield gave us a greater appreciation of those soldiers who have preserved our freedom, of great leaders like President Abraham Lincoln who have stepped forward at crucial times, and most importantly of the amazing country we live in.

Ever since she took her first few steps on Thanksgiving Day, Olivia has been standing up for long periods of time and taking three or four steps at a time. We took this video on Sunday. We like to call it "Walkin' Around the Christmas Tree."

This morning while I was cleaning up in our kitchen, I noticed Olivia passing behind me. At first I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, but then it hit me that she was walking behind me. She walked right out of the kitchen and into the living room like it was an everyday thing. She hasn't stopped walking since. During her bath tonight, Daniel kept telling Olivia that she couldn't walk in the bathtub, followed by some not very happy sounds from Olivia. She is no longer a little baby. I think we have the beginnings of a toddler in our home, even if she is only 16 1/2 pounds. :) And we are so excited!

The best part of our Thanksgiving trip to Utah was that Olivia got to spend a lot of time with her grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles.

Andrea and Olivia spent two full weeks in Utah, while I only got about five days there.

On the Saturday before I flew out to meet them, Andrea and Olivia went to Andrea's uncle Kirt's home to make fresh-pressed apple cider. After making 40 gallons of cider, Andrea's family left the local deer with a nice treat of apple pulp.

When I arrived on Tuesday, I was pretty excited to spend some time with Olivia, especially since she had started clapping, waving, and taking her first steps in the previous days that she had been in Utah. It was also nice to get some alone time with Andrea. On Tuesday night, my parents watched Olivia while Andrea and I celebrated my passing the California Bar Exam.

On Wednesday night, we attended the annual Blessed Dinner, where I saw several of my closest high school friends. Olivia enjoyed seeing the other kids and begged me to let her ride the tricycle.

On Thanksgiving morning, several members of the newly formed Ricks Running Club participated in the South Davis Thanksgiving Day 5K/10K. Mom and Andrea did the 5K, and dad, Adam, and I ran the 10K. While we all had a great time and enjoyed burning off the pumpkin pie calories before we even put them on, the most excitement came after the race when we found out that dad, mom, and Adam had each won their age divisions. Hurray for them!

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, our family again spent the day apart. Olivia stayed in Centerville with my parents while Andrea and I went to lunch with Andrea's family.

After lunch, Andrea and her family went to see the new movie A Christmas Carol. I drove down to Provo to join Adam, Kristina, Whitney, and Amanda at the BYU-Utah game. It was a fun game to watch, especially because the Cougars beat our rival Utes 26-23 in overtime.

I flew back to Washington, D.C., on Sunday night so that I could make it to work on Monday. Among the exciting things I did at work was attending the Senate confirmation hearing of Ben Bernanke, the Fed Chairman.

Before Andrea and Olivia flew back a few days later, they enjoyed spending some more time with all the girls.

Yesterday for Veteran's Day, we went to Fort McHenry in Baltimore with our friends Mark and Shaunel Brown.

Fort McHenry is probably most famous as the inspiration for the Star Spangled Banner. Francis Scott Key was held on a ship in the harbor throughout a British bombardment of the fort during the War of 1812, a battle that lasted into the night. When he arose in the morning he saw "by the dawn's early light . . . that our flag was still there."

As you may be able to see from the score behind us, the original music to our national anthem was in the key of C and had a few different notes and rhythms. I'm glad that at church we sing it in A-flat instead of in C: I prefer not singing high Gs, and I really prefer not hearing sopranos try to hit high Gs.

At the fort, we had an informative lecture from one of the park rangers. He talked about the history of the fort and also the history of Veteran's Day. Though Fort McHenry was attacked only once, during the War of 1812, it was later used as a prison during the Civil War and as a hospital during World War I.

Fort McHenry was a great Veteran's Day destination, despite the wind and the rain.

On Halloween, we decided to celebrate patriotism rather than ghouls and goblins.  We drove two hours to Monticello, the estate of Thomas Jefferson, in Charlottesville, Virginia.

On the way, we drove through Orange County.  Although it was a nice place, it wasn't our Orange County.  Pine trees just aren't palm trees.  Sometime we will have to stop and see James Madison's estate, Montpelier, but Saturday was all about Thomas Jefferson.

The surroundings at Monticello were gorgeous.  The word Monticello means "little mountain" in Italian.  Here is a picture of the big mountain next door.

Even as a boy, Jefferson and his best friend used to ride their horses up to the little mountain and dream of one day being buried beneath the same tree.  When Jefferson was 25, after purchasing the land, he began leveling the mountain to make way for his house and gardens.

The house, as it appears now, wasn't finished until Thomas Jefferson was 66 years old, when he retired to Monticello after his second term as President. The house is a lot prettier than it appears on the back of the nickel.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the house, but we enjoyed seeing the unique home he designed for himself.  Especially his unique study area and greenhouse.  Jefferson spent five years as the American minister to France, where he picked up many of the ideas for the home's architecture and furnishings.

One of Jefferson's favorite parts about Monticello, and one of the highlights of our trip, was the 1,000-foot-long vegetable garden where he experimented with thousands of different vegetable varieties in search of the perfect plant.

Even Olivia thought the garden pavilion would make a beautiful place to spend an afternoon.

One of the things that impressed me was Jefferson's vision of Monticello.  His goal was to draw the visitor's eye continually outward, from the house, to the gardens and orchards, and to the valley below.  By building his house on top of the mountain, by sinking the slave work quarters below ground on either side of the house, and by terracing the gardens, Jefferson was able to achieve his goal.

This is the path from the garden down to the orchard.

Olivia was a good sport and really enjoyed being outside for several hours, even though it was chilly.  We were a little jealous of her being all snuggled up in her stroller.

 

We stopped at several scenic overlooks.

We enjoyed a nice view of the famous Blue Ridge Mountains. They resemble the mountain ranges you probably created in elementary school with overlapping pieces of construction paper of various colors.

Olivia has grown up a lot in the last month. She's really turning from a baby into a little girl.

At the park, she is doing things that babies don't do, like swinging high on the swings.

She's climbing up on chairs, window ledges, and even the washing machine.

She's sleeping so soundly these days that sometimes she wakes up with funny marks on her face where she's been sleeping on her fingers.

She even holds still for her pre-church pedicures.

She may not comprehend Halloween yet,

but she sure enjoyed seeing other friends in their costumes at the church trunk-or-treat party last night.

That is, until she met a balloon for the first time and couldn't pay attention to anything else.