Christmas Day, 1998
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone. Another year has come and
gone and we find ourselves only a year from the dawn of a new millennium.
We does the time go? Vera and I decided to stay at home this year.
We really never had time to prepare for the holiday season, it just seemed to
sneak up on us this year. In fact we were tardy with Christmas cards this
year. At least our we put our tree up. But then, it stayed up all
year. Last Christmas we both agreed to leave it up until I returned from
the AGILE LION exercise in Germany in late January. While I was in Germany
I received a belated Christmas gift from the Battalion Commander, an earlier
report date for Bosnia. So after I left for the exercise on January 3rd, I
really never returned to Vicenza until July 25th when I finally found my way
home. Since it was nearly August, we agreed to leave the tree up until
after the new year. At least we did not have to decorate it this
Christmas! Perhaps we might just leave it standing until we depart in
August......
We have been very busy since I returned from Bosnia. We made a trip to France and Belgium in September, Hungary and Romania in October, and Tuscany in November. Actually its pleasant to stay home for a change. It seems as though I am always cooking up new trips for us. The Baltic states and Ireland remain on our list. Hopefully we will be able to reach those destinations in the spring. Vera's aversion to flying continues to keep African destinations off the list (for now anyway). We have also been thinking about a trip to Spain and Portugal.
Vera kept herself busy by volunteering in the community while I was deployed. She became an instructor for the Army Family Team Building program. She teaches other volunteers about the Army and how families can find answers to their questions whenever the soldier deploys. She also spent a great deal of time at the Thrift shop, volunteering her time on two days each week.
We are looking forward to this year. It is probably our last year in Europe for the foreseeable future so we want to see as much as possible before we leave. Italy is a lot different than Germany, but I think we will miss it just the same.
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