January started great with my parents visiting and me on vacation. They were here for Christmas (’08 along with Melanie & Co – but they had to leave before 2009) and stayed through New Years. I had fun showing them how a real winter looks like – a real San Antonio winter, that is:

In February (the 18th to be exact), my second grandson, Liam, was born. I’m still pretty sure I’m way too young to be a grandmother, but apparently, what I think here (or there, or anywhere) doesn’t matter all that much. And they are beautiful:

March 2009 was a fun month – Eric’s Mom and Dad and an uncle (MIL’s brother) and wife who live in Indiana and Minnesota, respectively, came to wait out their winter with us. It was great fun and great company, and they can winter with us any time they want to. Sadly, while they were here, we had to say ‘good-bye’ to Fred, our beautiful, strawberry-blond, long haired, haunted cat.

Between Christmas and New Years 2008, Phillip signed up for the ‘College First’ program with the Army National Guard. That means he had to do his monthly drills starting in January, and after he graduated High School this June, he had to leave for Basic Training and AIT. We dropped him of at the hotel to leave for Basic on July 27th, and he went to Ft. Jackson, South Carolina.

Eric had been planning on flying out for the Graduation all along, I was going to stay home with the animals. My best excuse probably is that any graduation in Germany just doesn’t have the same extending significance it has here. One usually goes to one’s own graduation – if at all, and that’s it. So after Keesha died and there was only one dog to worry about, and we already had the hotel and car booked, it just struck me that what if…. What if I worked it out at work so I could work the weekend and would not have to use up vacation days I didn’t really have. And surely, there’s a way to take care of Leia without totally traumatizing her.

This year is just flying by. So far, there’s always been something to do, something coming up to prepare for, something, something, something. But I’m really not complaining.

Over Christmas/New Years, my parents were here from Germany, and also, but just for Christmas, Melanie, Corodon, and Dave. During March, the in-laws and one of Eric’s uncles and his wife spent not quite 4 weeks with us, escaping their winter weather in Indiana and the northern end of Michigan, respectively. I cannot blame them, and they are welcome to try again next year.

Meanwhile, a co-worker of mine was out on medical leave for several weeks longer than expected, and I worked my butt off – long hours, a couple times even on weekends, and overall, pretty stressful. She’s back now, and things are starting to get back to a new normal.

Eric und Phillip fahren beide Motorrad. Eric faehrt schon, mit Unterbrechungen, seit seiner Teenagerzeit. Phillip hat seinen Motorradfueherschein seit seinem 16. Geburtstag, nachdem er eine Motorradkurz abgelegt hatte. Ich moechte darauf hinweisen, dass ich lauthals protestiert habe, aber auf mich hoert normal niemand. Phillip sagt ich hoere mich an wie Charely Brown’s Lehrerin….

Die Jungs sind miteinander schon auf ein paar tolle Ausfluege gegangen – ein langes Wochenende zum Big Bend for Eric’s 40sten Geburtstag und letzen Sommer ein paar Tage lang nach New Orleans. Ich bin immer daheim geblieben.

Versteht mich nicht falsch, alleine zuhause sein macht mir nix aus – im Gegenteil, aber diese Reisen hoeren sich echt interessant and. Und nachdem Phillip den Kurs gemacht hat, dachte ich, dass wenn dieses maennliche Kind das besteht, dann kann ich das noch besser. Ich habe einige Monate ueberlegt, aber letzes Fruehjahr, im Ausverkauf, habe ich die tollsten Schnuerstiefel ergattert – echt ideal als Motorradstiefel!

I met him for the first time right after I arrived in the States back in ’92, and he welcomed me with open arms. And he was always helping us out – Melanie was only 8 when she arrived in the States with Eric – Phil and I were still in Germany, and he connected with her and had her over every evening for ice-cream. I imagine that made things a little easier for her.

Then Phil and I arrived, and so we could get a place of our own, he bought a trailer for us to live in, and he charged us $150 a month in rent (that was dirt cheap even back in 1992) – and many times he told us to not pay him but use it to buy a microwave or whatever else we needed – and back then, we needed EVERYTHING!!!