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.

This event actually happened almost a month ago (on Thursday, June 12th, to be exact), but with nothing but time on my hands, I don’t seem to get anything done any more.

I’ve been wanting to do this since I first read about it when we moved here 3 years ago, and it finally happened. A couple of girls I used to work with took the day off, I was already off (see the post about losing my job!!!), and we took the convertible to Rockin R in New Braunfels where we rented 4 tubes. One for each of us and one for our coolers. With the beer.

We flew out of San Antonio on Wednesday evening and arrived in Las Vegas around 9:30 PM Vegas time -and, when leaving the airport building to find the shuttle to the hotel, my first impression was that it was pretty cool (temperature-wise)- I had expected a nice and balmy night. Not happening!!!! The shuttle took us to the Imperial Palace, and even so we were pretty tired by then – after all, it was around midnight our time, and we normally go to bed by 8ish… – we had made a pact that no matter how tired we were, we were going to the Casino for one drink and some slot machine action – minimum!!!! And we did. And then we fell into bed.

This year, for the first time since 1999, when we flew to Charleston, Eric and I are going on a vacation together. (Phillip is staying home – somebody has to let the dogs out!) It’s just a long weekend kind of thing, but anything counts. Originally, I had planned a rainforest vacation, but this will work too, and the rainforest will wait (I hope).

We’ll be in Vegas from late Wednesday, May 21, to Sunday, and then have the Memorial Day Monday to recover. I booked the flight and hotel last weekend, now we’re just waiting for take-off. Of course I’ll have to do some shopping before-hand – I definitely need a new bathing suit, and certainly some other clothes as well. Neither of us are big gamblers, we want to watch a couple shows and just see what it’s all about.