Happy New Year!!

What a year! I started this blog almost exactly a year ago! We started out 2008 by spending some snowy days up in Mt. Etna and enjoying our first Carnivale experience in Acireale! Derrick left the day after Valentine's day for his 6 month deployment. Ellie celebrated her 1st birthday in March, with a lady bug birthday party. In April we went to the base Easter Egg hunt and had our own little Easter at home. The Reed's graciously invited us to Easter dinner so we weren't alone. In May, I took the girls through a hellish trip on a C5 to the States to visit family and friends for a month! We got to see so many friends, go to several zoos, and spend lots of time with my parents. It definitely helped make the deployment go faster!

June dragged out very slowly as deployment dates kept changing and my fellow wives with deployed husbands and I were all losing our sanity. Close friendships were formed through this time. We took the kids to the 4th of July celebration on base and got our home ready for Daddy to come home! Derrick returned back mid July and we even got to see his plane land on the runway! In August we had a princess party for Valerie's 3rd birthday. For our summer vacation, we took a 2.5 week trip, driving over to the mainland and all the way up to Germany and back. We visited Rome, Tuscany, Venice, and Naples in Italy. The best part was meeting my parents in Germany, in the Alps, for a week! We went to a castle in Austria, took a train up to the highest peak in the Germany Alps, and lots more! Garmich is a beautiful place.

This fall we celebrated the usual holidays, trick-or-treated, and spent time with friends. We found out that we are blessed with a 3rd pregnancy! Derrick has been on call every weekend since we returned from vacation in August so this has left us with absolutely no time or allowance for leaving the base area. We have been disappointed that we weren't able to do more here, and would have enjoyed it more had it been a shore duty. However, I am very greatful for the traveling experiences we have had. Being a Navy Wife is very hard but without it, we would not have the close friendships we now have, and the stamps on our passport! For that we are greatful. We are extremely glad to be moving back to the US in a couple short months so that our family is a regular part of our lives again!

For now, we spend the next couple months getting ready to move. We will be doing our packout in a couple weeks and shipping our van over as well. We close on our home on 1/30 and hope to fly out of here and move in by end of March, first week of April at the very latest. I have a vision of Easter morning in our new home!

Thank you for being a part of our 2008 and Happy New Year to you all!!