Christmas 2006

Greetings! It has been a rather tumultuous year for both of our families. Early in the year, while BJ’s father was still recovering from a mild stroke he had the previous December, BJ’s mother and uncle both passed away, only one day apart. We miss them, but it is a great comfort to know that they are together and are no longer suffering. Tony’s mother moved to a nearby retirement village during the summer after her home in Jonesboro was burglarized. We are delighted to have her right around the corner from us now. Then we had a scare in September when our niece, Lauren had an allergic reaction to a medication, but she sprang back quickly.

As usual, we managed to do a bit of traveling this year. We celebrated the Martin Luther King holiday in Ireland , exploring Galway and the small towns along the coast. In late January, our German “daughter” Carina brought her sister Sandra for a three week visit. We left the Germans to entertain themselves in early February while we went with a group to Salt Lake City to ski.

We got our fifteen minutes of fame in March when we were featured in the New York Times! The article about us began on the front page, although our friend Les is quick to point out that it was “below the fold”, so I guess we haven’t really made it to stardom yet.

We had another German house guest, Thomas, who came to Atlanta for a few weeks to look for work as a chef. We let him practice by hosting a dinner party at our house the night before we went to the Masters to watch a Practice Round in Augusta .

In April, Tony flew with several friends to Naples , Florida to attend the funeral of another friend’s father. Then Tony took his “harem” of BJ and five other women to visit our friend Kathy at her hotel on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands in May. Kathy chunked her corporate career in favor of living the island life. This inspired Tony to pursue his dream of moving to Ireland , so we went to Ireland to look at property. So far we haven’t bought anything.

The Worldspan Golf Tournament was in St. Simons in early June this year. We crashed a friend’s family reunion barbeque on Sea Island while we were there. Our new German “son”, Thomas, came back in June to do an internship at Seeger’s restaurant. Although he stayed with us, but we barely saw him. He invited us for dinner at Seeger’s but BJ got a stomach bug and had to miss it. Tony said it was delightful! The stomach bug also made BJ miss a trip to Scotland with friends, but she insisted that Tony go and take care of his harem. BJ’s 30^th High School Reunion was the highlight in July. Everyone looks exactly the same as they did in high school (well, maybe not EXACTLY.)

August and September were “St. George Days”. Our friends invited us down to their beach house on St. George Island, Florida three times to enjoy kayaking among the dolphins. Again, Tony was inspired to look for oceanfront property in Ireland so that we could reciprocate the invitation. Flights to Ireland were full, so we took a drive around Scotland for a few days. Great Britain is too expensive, so we were not tempted to invest in real estate. The Delta Golf Tournament was in Phoenix in September. BJ got together with her best buddy Anna from High School while she was there.

We wanted to get to Germany for Oktoberfest, but so did a lot of paying passengers, so we had to postpone our trip until it was over. Eventually we got to visit our daughter and her German family near Frankfurt . Shortly after we got back, Tony went to Daytona Speedway to see his brother in a motorcycle race. BJ’s niece Lauren was elected to the Homecoming Court ! BJ was so excited; it was almost as if they had elected HER! Recently, we had our Thanksgiving turkey and dressing on a ship when we took a cruise with some of Tony’s family to Jamaica and Grand Cayman .

It is hard to believe that December is already here. It has snuck up on us again as it seems to every year. We have one more trip to St. George Island to celebrate a friend’s 40^th birthday and that should wrap up our year. We hope you and your family have a happy and blessed holiday season!