Looking back on 2008

This is just a VERY condensed version of how we spent our time this past year. Some months we had so much going on that it was difficult to choose just one photo to sum it up, but I did my best.

January it was very cold and we must have spend most of our days holed up in the house trying to stay warm because there were very few things on our hard drive that we took pictures of that month. One day we did manage to take all 3 of our cameras to a big park in Mannheim to try some 'shooting off automatic' photos.

During February Bill and Colin went to Italy on two different weekends! What Jetsetters eh? It was only possible because of several long weekends and our favorite LOW fare airline RyanAir. I was busy visiting mom and dad and everyone else in Arkansas during that time.

The reason I was in the States was mostly to see Jeffrey during his week of Spring break. Mom and I went up to Omaha and saw him compete in his JROTC drill meet, then took him down to Arkansas with us for his holiday. I had hoped to see some of my high school buds but some nasty weather ruined that plan.

I got home in Germany just in time to see Colin perform in Godspell! It was very cool seeing him up on stage singing and dancing and doing such a great job at it. He has really become a theatre guy...he was in every play his school did this year, earning him a letter in drama.

Things finally warmed up in May and we all came out to watch Colin and his friends take over the paintball range. They played all morning and had a great time pelting each other with pink and yellow splats. Even a few of the parents got out there...not Bill or I though, we had to keep our cameras clean!

As soon as Jeffrey's school year ended in June he got on an airplane and came to see us for a bit. We spent most of that time in Berlin, making the most of every minute we had there seeing museums, monuments, churches and the zoo. None of us were ready for it to be time to go home.

We celebrated the 4th of July on the base where they had a huge event that lasted all day. Colin took part in the American Legion flag ceremony wearing his scout uniform. He also correctly answered a trivia question and won a free trip to EuroDisney! Poor Bill had to endure a 10 minute sentence in the MP 'jail' they had set up there due to a warrant that Colin put out for his 'arrest'. haha! The fireworks were awesome as usual, but we did miss being able to shoot off some of our own.

August is our month of parties! We have 3 birthdays and Bill and I have our wedding anniversary. We have been married TWENTY YEARS!! Bill had to go to a school in Washington DC for 3 months and wasn't home on the 27th, but he had it covered! I was surprised to have a GIGANTIC flower arrangement delivered here at our house. It was so pretty and he was so sweet to figure out how to get them here from over there.

September it was just me and Colin in Germany still. One weekend we spent at a big benefit for cancer survivors and cancer research that they had on base. One of Colin's Doctors is battling cancer and the whole office donated their laps (of walking around the track) to him. They had people on the track for 24 hours! I got some photos of some of the participants and walked some and so did Colin, then I made a photo display for everyone to sign and give to Colin's Dr.

October has Colin's favorite holiday in it. Even though he is too big to trick Or treat he still likes to dress up and get out and scare people. He spends a lot of time figuring out what he wants to be and how he wants to make it happen. This year he wanted to be a scarecrow and have it be as realistic as possible so he could sit and look like a decoration then pop up and surprise kids who don't know he is real. It was right up to the wire getting his costume finished up...but everyone agreed he had to best one at the Youth Center where he went for the party.

November wasn't the best of months for me. A few days before Thanksgiving I stepped off the porch wrong and sprained my ankle badly ending up on crutches for a few weeks and am still not walking around perfect yet! On Thanksgiving day Bill told me I was to stay on the couch with my ankle elevated and he would handle it all. He did GREAT! Turkey dinner with all the fixin's AND all the cleanup all by himself!! How many husbands do you know who could pull that one off??

And that brings us to December. We all look forward to that, not only because of the obvious Christmas and the goodies and all but because Jeffrey gets to come visit during the holidays. Since he hasn't been able to do much Europe travel since he moved to Nebraska we wanted to go someplace other than just our house during Christmas vacation. RyanAir helped us along once again....we spent the week at Camp Darby in Pisa Italy! We had all been there before so we took daytrips elsewhere in Tuscany and on Christmas night we had dinner right around the corner from the famous leaning tower. Now thats a Christmas to remember!

(if you want to see the pictures bigger just click on the image)