Christmas 2007

 

Dear Family and Friends, 

 

With such a busy year, Bret has been a little behind updating all the websites- our family one, Terri’s acting one, and Terri’s faux finishing one. So hopefully by New Year’s, he’ll have some time to work on them, then you can be sure to check them out. Terri and her best friend, Angela, still have their faux finishing and decorative painting business “Faux du Jour”. They’ve been doing this now for 7 years. Up until this month, Bret still had his job with Tybrin, providing Flight Planning Services for the Air Force’s array of mission planning software suite as well as a Traditional Guardsman in the Texas Air National Guard doing the one weekend a month drills and deployments. Bret is now a full-time Intelligence Captain at Ellington Field here in Houston. His unit is gearing up for a switch from a fighter unit with F-16s to a Reconnaissance unit with the unmanned Predators.

 

Terri had a very busy year faux finishing. Faux du Jour got named ‘Best Painter in Fort Bend County’ according to the Reader’s Choice Awards of the Fort Bend Sun 2007. She also continues working part-time in the summer and spring breaks teaching Xplorations week-long camps at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, as well as subs in a few elementary schools every now and then. In acting news, Terri had a film picked for a film festival in Austin. She also took an intensive screenwriting course to jumpstart her first screenplay on her own. She even changed her Houston and Austin area agents and added a Louisiana agent this year. She will be shooting a film in Houston next month. Terri’s also keeping a close eye on the writers’ strike for many obvious reasons, including its high impact on the impending actors and directors strikes next summer.

 

Bret kept very busy at work with various conferences and another short tour in Iraq in the spring. Bret’s 100 year old grandmother, Bea, passed away in early April in Mt. Pleasant, so Terri was able to go and represent Bret since he was halfway across the world. She then accompanied her mom, Liz, to the DC area for her great aunt’s memorial where she got to meet a lot of 2nd cousins for the first time. It was Terri’s 1st time back to DC since a high school class trip, so she enjoyed visiting all the sites. We also got in a couple trips to New Jersey to visit Grammy, who has turned 90 this year, and our friends Barbara and Adam, who just had their 2nd baby. In May, Terri and her cousin Sue took a relaxing girl’s trip to the beach in Aruba.

 

Bret came home safely from Iraq on Memorial Day Weekend. He took a couple weeks off and headed to Hawaii with his mother, Mary. Terri spent most of June in LA at her good friend’s Caroline’s apartment, then making a one week side trip to Oahu to visit Bret and Mary in the middle of it. In July, we joined Scott, Lucy, Bob, and Liz for the annual family trip, this year being in Portland, OR. We passed through Portland in our 2003 road trip, but had never really visited. In August, Bret’s annual work convention that normally was in Vegas was in Orlando this year. We stayed at a Disney resort (compliments of your tax dollars), and we went to all four Disney parks. We also got to see the August shuttle launch from our hotel. That’s the closest Terri’s ever been, though Bret has seen it up close.

 

We were able to get to Dallas to visit friends and go to the State Fair in October. Bret spent Halloween week in Las Vegas. Apparently it’s one of those not to miss events, like Mardi Gras in New Orleans or New Year’s Eve in Times Square. This was part of his annual guy’s trip with Craig, Mike, Brad, and Sandy. The next week, Terri went on a cruise with Angela. The ship was Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas (currently the largest cruise ship) and it sailed out of Miami with stops in Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. Terri’s favorite activities included an hour long zip line tree course in St. Maarten and holding an alligator in the Everglades outside Miami. We both missed Thanksgiving in Mt. Pleasant this year, the first time since our honeymoon 8 years ago. Instead, we went to Egypt with our mothers to visit the pyramids, temples, and take a Nile River Cruise. We were even one of the first to see King Tut, who was just placed in his tomb for viewing a couple weeks before. In December, we took a long weekend to Colorado with Mary to visit some of her friends. It was Terri’s first time in that state. 44 states down and 6 to go. Only 4 states left for Bret. We have a healthy travel competition with our families. We’ll be going up to Mt. Pleasant to visit Bret’s family for a couple days over the holidays, as well as celebrating here in Houston..

 

Our hobbies still include movies, but we seem to watch them more from Netflix now than going out. We still love eating out, but Terri’s been inspired by Rachael Ray this year and has started cooking a lot of her recipes. We also seem to be playing Texas Hold ‘Em poker more and more. Terri still has season tickets to the Broadway Series and TUTS Series in Houston, along with most her family. This year included 12 Angry Men, Whistle Down the Wind, Dreamgirls, Avenue Q, and A Wonderful Life. Bret still golfs occasionally. Bret didn’t get in as many racquetball games this past year as he hoped, between his schedule and Craig’s wrist surgery and Mark’s graduate school. They hope to get back into the game next month. Terri is still enjoying yoga and pilates classes with Liz. Our daughter, Abby (the tortoise-shell calico cat) is also doing well. She will turn 11 in a couple months. Abby got to experience a ‘lion’ cut this year. There were a lot of mixed reviews of how she looked, but we enjoyed the break from furballs everywhere.

 

We hope this letter finds you in good health and happiness, and we hope you have a great holiday season and Happy New Year!

 

 

          Love,

         Terri and Bret Brogoitti (and Abby J)

 

 

 

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