Bye Bye 2008

It's New Year's Eve. I have a bad cold so am not in a festive mood. The stuffiness in my brain makes it hard to be reflective but I figure I should summarize a bit of the past year. We began the year in Berlin, Germany with good friends who pastor one of the International Churches there. What a great city Berlin is...recovering from the hard years, vibrant and busy.
Unfortunately our trip to Kenya and Uganda, scheduled for February was canceled due to the civil war in Kenya. Thanks be to God that things have settled down there and they seem to be on back on the road towards political stability. March took us to the Canary Island of Lanzarote...the photo from my title page is taken there. The sun and the sea and the sand were just amazing and we enjoyed this holiday immensely.
In May, we got to celebrate my parent's 50th wedding anniversary with a cruise on the Adriatic. I won't include photos here as an earlier blog is devoted to that amazing celebration. It was great fun and we are so thankful for the fun memories and experiences of that trip.
Summer brought us our last outings on the Sea Dog, our old boat that we were ready to sell, and fortunately we did! We are now on the look out for a new and improved model.
The autumn took us to the US for family visits. We returned to Sweden to pursue a full schedule at church.
Our year ended with our Christmas celebrations of a beautiful Christmas eve dinner with close friends and the Christmas Day open house which set a record for more than 100 attendees.
All in all, 2008 has been a good year even though some sorrow and heart ache have also been a part of it. I feel ready to start a new year and look forward to the adventures that await us. We know for sure that an Irish adventure awaits Doug and a hot air balloon ride is on the horizon for us so we look forward to the other surprises that will surely unfold.
Have a wonderful New Year. Swedish tradition is to blow off loads and loads of fireworks! It is legal to blow off fireworks exactly one night a year and it's amazing what they allow you to self-light here. So we'll join the masses on our street corner and enjoy the blaze. It's cold and clear so should be a great time for us all.
Oh yeah...I almost forgot! One of the best things about 2008 was starting my blog! Thanks for checking in! See you in 2009!