A surprise for Rebecca

I'm proud to say that this post is all about my daughter Rebecca. As part of an assignment she had to write a letter. They can choose to write to anyone and Rebecca chose to write the President of the United States! She wanted to share an idea she had seen here in Australia. The garbage trucks have a mechanical arm that comes out of the side of the truck and picks up the cans and dumps them in the top of the truck. All this is controlled from the driver's seat and Rebecca found this fascinating and much more efficient than the way it was done in Georgia where there's one driver and two riders on the back who either physically dump the cans themselves or hook the cans up to a mechanism that empties them in the back. Rebecca suggested that this would be a good idea to use in the U.S.

Dad got on the internet and found the address to the White House and we sent the letter off. Well, a couple of months after writing her letter (understand that we only get mail once a week over here) a large manila envelope with "The White House" in the return address section came addressed to Rebecca. Usually Phillip brings the mail home at lunchtime or the end of the day, but this time the girls made a special trip out to the base to collect the mail.

When Rebecca opened the envelope she found a letter thanking her for her interest in making the United States a better place and encouraging her to continue to study hard in school so she would do well in life.

And who was this letter signed by?

George W. Bush!

He also sent a picture of him boarding Marine One the official presidential helicopter. Needless to say this caused a great deal of excitement in our house. We've decided to frame the letter and the picture so she can always have them.