Merry Christmas!

Welcome to our fourth annual online Christmas letter! (For the curious, or those who didn't quite notice the URL in our previous year's cards, here's 2007, 2006, and 2005.) 2008 was truly a blur of a year which started with a New Year's trip to Legoland with the Connellys and is ending with a trip to - yep, you guessed it: Legoland! (This time, with Grammy and Grampy.) Though if you're going to begin and end a year with a few days around kids' toys, I think we'll all agree that Legoland is a far superior option to Bratz-burgh.

California remains an easy place to love, as we've made several trips to Napa (it's just an hour away!), Lake Tahoe (where we skied with my parents in February), San Francisco, Muir Woods, the newly-reopened California Academy of Sciences, and many others. Please take a minute to check out the pictures from the year - we've had a great time reliving the year in pictures, and hope you'll enjoy watching the kids grow up a bit through the year as well.

We were fortunate to make two trips back east - one in April for Rick to visit the law school and Robin to attend her sorority's reunion, and another in July to celebrate Rick's Dad's 60th and to visit Robin's parents. The kids are veteran fliers now - thanks in large part to JetBlue's wonderful in-seat televisions. How did our parents fly with us when we were young? The mind boggles at the things that generation had to overcome.

Ricky, now in third grade, continues to read anything that's not glued shut, often reading 500+ page books in a week. Scouting remains a wonderful part of Ricky's life (he's now a Bear Cub), he still enjoys chess, and he recently participated in his first try-outs for baseball (he'll be in AA ball next spring). When asked what he would be when he grows up, Ricky recently responded, "A football player." (He's never played football.) When it was pointed out that people have been known to get hurt playing football, Ricky allowed "that's the one thing I haven't figured out yet." Stay tuned.

Robby is a first grader, and as we've pointed out in years past, has an uncanny ability to figure things out from the slightest of clues. He delights in solving riddles, and has a terrific sense of humor. He joined Ricky in Scouts this year (he's a Tiger Cub), and he's starting to really enjoy reading. One of his two front teeth has grown in this year, and he believes he'll be in the military when he grows up. Robby had a ball in t-ball earlier this year, and will graduate to coach-pitch next spring.

Becca, Becca, Becca. Becca endeared herself to the extended family this summer with her frequent pronouncements "I want it! I don't want it!" in the same breath, followed by shock when we weren't able to discern the precise meaning of her command. She has developed a wonderfully sweet disposition when not leaving us guessing as to her desires, and regularly has her brothers (and me) wrapped around her finger. Becca started pre-school this fall, and loves it. All the boys know her name, which I'm refusing to contemplate. Fortunately she can beat them all up, a trend I trust will continue as she stands a full head taller than them.

In April, our family grew: we'd been in touch with the Northern California Golden Retriever Rescue organization, and had decided that we would like to rescue a dog if they found one who would be a good fit in a house with young kids. Sadly, with foreclosures on the rise, NCGR has had a surge in the number of abandoned dogs who need homes - and we feel tremendously fortunate to have been able to welcome Cody to our home. He's about 2 years old, and loves his brothers and sister (and Robin and me, but mostly the kids). Living across the street from a big park is a bonus, and he's adapted well to our routine. (Though anyone who has tips on how to get him to stop chewing baseboard molding, of all things, is welcme to e-mail us your suggestions.)

Surprising noone, politics was a rather strong focus (some would say "obsession", but that sounds just a bit strong) for us in 2008. The children will no doubt vividly remember listening to Wolf Blitzer call Iowa for Barack Obama on the 3rd as we drove home from San Diego (the one and only time I've not let the kids watch a movie on a long car ride, so that I could listen to CNN as the returns came in). A website I built (superdelegates.org) to profile the superdelegates got profiled on CNN in February, leading Dad (whose name is also Rick Klau, and who does not share my politics) to yet again rue the decision to not force me to use my middle initial. I got to attend the White House Correspondent's Dinner in April as part of Google's Elections Team, and spent the entire week at the Democratic Convention in August, managing Google's presence in Denver. Robin was able to join me for the final night, when Google co-hosted a party with Vanity Fair. (Nerds + celebrities, a peanut butter-chocolate moment if ever there was one.) Thanks to a University of Richmond connection, I lined up a tour of the White House for Robin and the boys in August - and Robby managed to go the entire tour without asking where Barack's office was! (How embarrassing that would have been!) And of course we popped many corks on election night, as the man who once stood in our family room was elected President. (You knew I'd work that in, right? Get used to it, we have 8 more years of it.) And yes, Robin, I and the boys have every intention of joining 3 million of our closest friends in DC on January 20th to inaguruate President Obama. (How I love typing that!)

Robin is President of the PTA at Live Oak this year, which means that she's the only one in this family to hold elected office. Her sorority sister reunion in Richmond in April was a great get-together, and now women that hadn't seen each other in years are communicating almost daily on Facebook. Hard to imagine how the family would function without Robin keeping us all in balance - between the school schedules, baseball, basketball, Scouts, doctor visits, PTA meetings, her schedule puts mine to shame!

I'm in my second year as a board member on Augsburg Fortress, and I continue to work at Google (now that President Bush is leaving office, we are no longer referred to as "The Google"), where I've had quite a year. As mentioned above, I was fortunate to work on Google's Elections Team, in addition to working on a number of big projects that kept me more than a bit busy. I'm taking on a new role starting next month - can't quite say what it is, so be sure to keep an eye on my blog where I'll announce the news.

Enough about us: we would love to hear from you! Robin and I are finding Facebook a great way to re-connect with friends from high school, college and law school, so feel free to look us up there. Plain ol' e-mail will work too - rick@ and robin@ rklau.com will always be a reliable way to get a note to us. And if you find your way to the Bay Area, please drop in and say hi!

Here's hoping that 2009 brings prosperity, peace and happiness. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Rick, Robin, Ricky, Robby & Becca (and Cody!)