The gang!
WOW! Holy mackerel! What a year, eh??? Especially for us Rasts!
And as the final days of 2014 come to an end, it is with the sincerest sense of charity that we hope that your 2014 was just as awesome as ours! …Although we doubt it.
But why dilly dally with speculation? Let’s just look at the facts. We’re gonna pull out and slap our awesome year on the table so you can measure it against yours, and then we will all know for sure that the Rast’s 2014 was the biggest, thickest, most awesomest family accomplishment year EVER! (…And by the charitably inclusive term “we” we are referring of course to all of those less fortunate well intended acquaintances of ours whom we are trying to inspire here.)
For beginners, there was our annual late January private family dinner with President Barack Obama! As well as his family, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Congressional leadership, Angelina Jolie, Bono, and those lovable first family canine funsters, Bo and Sunny. What a blast, and as always, we appreciate the opportunity, Mr. President, to lend you our ear and offer our advisements. We know you take them to heart. Thank you for the hospitality, and a big thank you to your pilots for making those rides on the Presidential helicopter so much FUN!!!
Moving on, it was February that brought the next Rast Family highlight…Our annual winter school vacation getaway! It was the BEST EVER!!! Which, to be honest, came as a welcomed surprise, as this time we thought circumstances would force us to scale back on our mid-winter Vay-Kay.
Not for financial reasons, mind you. (Both Elyse and I got HUGE salary bumps again this year!) But because of so many gosh-darn scheduling commitments in Europe! Seems that much to our chagrin, (and pride, of course!) both of our children were separately obliged to appear at special award dinners given in their honor in France and Great Britain respectively: Mark Jr., for his ground breaking work gene mapping the root causes of Franco body odor, and Elyse Jr., for her brilliant translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls into an award winning musical comedy featuring Dame Judith Dench, Hugh Grant, Sir Ian McKellen, Jeanette McCurdy, and Pitbull. (And oh-by-the-way, a big "thank you" shout out of appreciation goes to the senior administrators at both our kids schools. You guys are the best! Thanks for the attendance flexibility and thanks for remembering that those healthy year end donations we always make to our favorite prep schools are 100% voluntary!)
March came in like a lamb this year, but definitely went out like a lion...a lion who's been nailed with .444 grains of high powered ammo! Yep, you guessed it. Elyse bagged her second lion (in 3 years!!!) and was definitely the star the annual mid-March Rast Family African Safari and Relief Mission. Always a thrill ride, this years trip was one of our most memorable ever. Each of us managed to shoot an animal and meet an African person. In my case, it was two birds with one stone as an errant shot of mine ricocheted off the horn of an angry rhinoceros (apparently they get angry when they’re drugged.) and into the foot of our guide, Henry Mutombo. Henry and I had a remarkable conversation while waiting for the medics, and I'll never forget him, how well he spoke English, or how much he bled. I promised myself that from now on I'll always make an effort to get to know my guides before I accidentally shoot them. As usual, we closed out our journey on a charitable note, handing out copies of Suze Orman's "The Courage To Be Rich” directly through the windows of our Land Rover to residents of the many colorful villages we passed through on our way to the airport. We wish you could have seen the looks of astonishment on their faces! All the more impressive this year as, for some reason, many were wearing surgical masks.
April and May were a blur of activity! For my part I kicked off the month of April (literally) by capturing yet another full-contact Tae Kwon Do National title (my fourth in in six years!), this time competing in a full leg cast, a result of an unfortunate spill I suffered while helicopter snowboarding the previous week in Northern Spain. As has become her annual routine, Elyse spent the arrival of Spring dividing her energies between planting and nurturing her award winning two-acre pesticide free flower garden (She spent hours out there!), and piloting her brand new Tesla SUV around town shuttling the kids between their endless soccer/basketball/lacrosse/field hockey/track/tennis/bowling/archery/gymnastics/wrestling/bocce/geo-caching/bass fishing/cock fighting/fencing/Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu matches. She did all this while some how finding the time to endlessly grow her burgeoning pilates/frozen yogurt franchise, “FroGa". As has been our tradition since we started dating, we once again jointly spent Patriots Day running the Boston Marathon (backwards in three legged hop-sack) and raised more than $1.6 million dollars for our favorite charity, Kittens Without Borders. Sadly we’ve still never placed higher than 14th. We’re determined to fix that, we promise.
May moved along briskly. Our kitties, Pitter and Patter, were profiled and featured on the cover of Kittens Without Borders Magazine. Both kids were fast tracked into acceptance at Harvard Medical School, which came as a real surprise to all of us as they were 11 and 13 years old respectively and neither had bothered to apply. By the end of the month each had completed their first semester and found internships. As Memorial Day approached we realized that once again we’d neglected to make any holiday plans. On a whim, Elyse bought a car, bought a helmet, fired the maid, threw together a team, found a sponsor (FroGa), and before we knew it, we’d captured a respectable fourth place at Indy. Not bad, eh?
Summer arrived and it was time to throttle back. Elyse found a paramour, I went on a two-week New England spree-kill, and for the kids it was off to camp. And by camp, I mean space camp. And by space camp I mean they actually spent June on The International Space Lab, where apparently their command of Russian, Mandarin, and the intricacies of astrophysics all came into a lot of good use.
July and August found everyone firmly locked into mellow mode, a blessed state much appreciated by all of us. Despite initial misgivings we found that selling off our overseas summer homes was really for the family best. So many taxes, so many foreigners, ...who needs the headaches??? Instead we stayed domestic and treated ourselves to a little Rast family “me” time in Chilmark, Bridgehampton, Malibu, and Sonoma. Delicious!
Tanned and refreshed we embraced the crisp clean winds of autumn and eagerly launched ourselves into a another busy harvest season of attitude, effort, and accomplishment. One of us got some “work” done. ;)
In late September, Mark Jr. completed his surgical residency at John Hopkins and celebrated his fourteenth birthday by performing his first heart transplant. (…First “successful” that is. For Junior, it turns out, #3 was the charm. ...And to the Kawalskis and the Scheckmen families, again we offer our condolences.)
In October, for the first time ever, all four of us simultaneously landed books on the New York Times Bestseller List. And that was just week 1! Elyse gave her dissertation for her 7th PHD in week 2, and by mid-month Elyse Jr. was wrapping up her studies when suddenly she threw us all a curve by announcing that after completing her residency obligations at the Mayo Clinic, she would be launching yet another remarkable career path, this time by enrolling in Rabbinical school! Oy vey, these kids!!!
November was all work and no play, so when it finally arrived, we truly enjoyed taking a break for our annual Thanksgiving extravaganza. Hopefully you were one of our 1800+ guests! Once again we rented the historical Plimoth Plantation in its entirety, and really put it through its paces. We are thrilled that it has become such a huge holiday tradition and boon to the local economy. A hearty “Thanks” to the 227 historical re-enactment performers we employ one day every year as our servers, cooks, valets and security team. And to all the ones who portrayed Indians wrapped in chickenpox contaminated blankets, enjoy those additional $5 gift cards, Kemosabes!
Then of course, there arrived December! Such a festive time, with so many silly religious affiliations and so many different ways we found to binge! To many ways to list, actually, so instead of us wasting your time ticking off all the things we achieved materially, we thought it would be better here if the Rast clan took a few moments of reflection to look back on the year gone by, and share individually, in our own words, what deep in our hearts, we felt were our own most inspirational achievements.
First up:
Mark Jr.--“I know most folks are expecting me to talk about the fact that I discovered a new planet while at camp this summer, but honestly that was nothing compared to the thrill I got from delivering a set of conjoined triplets in a stalled elevator while attending a Bar Mitzvah at the Waldorf in NYC. And I still made it in time to help carry the chair!”
Elyse Jr.--“Well, being nominated for a Pulitzer certainly was nice, but I think the topper was being the solo guest on a one-hour edition of Charlie Rose. He’s a great interviewer, very compelling, and I really felt like he was prepared. He got me, you know? Also, I thought he would smell bad, but he didn’t.”
Mommy--“I guess, probably, it was going out for pizza with Pope Francis. That’s probably not something that will be repeated. And considering how much beer and pizza he consumed, that’s probably a good thing. But beyond that, as always, it was spending so much wonderful time with my precious family, and of course all the wonderful new passionate friendships that blossomed this year. In particular, the one with my new gardner, Hector. He really taught me the value of proper irrigation. ;) See you and your hose in the Spring, Señor Hector!”
Daddy--“Oh, I don’t know. Part of me wants to brag about a lot of things (Tripling our net worth, avoiding the whole Uber mess, etc.), but that seems redundant. I’m sure most of you have Googled us plenty of times already in the past year., and anyway, you all know that bragging is not something we like to do in this family. So instead I’m just going to tell you how much you all mean to all of us, and how much we hope that in 2015, things turn out better for you.
Thanks for all your support, folks, and have a Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Mark, Elyse, Mark Jr.. Elyse Jr., Pitter and Patter.
© 2014 James Mark Rast
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