Christmas Letter 2008

It’s that time of year again. Time to decorate the house, buy & wrap presents, send holiday cards, and reflect back on the last 12 months. I resolved that I would skip this year’s Christmas letter due to time constraints and too much on my “To Do” list. But the need to look back and document our year is overwhelming. It seems time is moving so fast these days that the events of our lives whiz by too quickly to really appreciate. My Christmas letter forces me to relive our year — at a much slower pace.

The first six months of the year were just about completely consumed by Karlo’s book project. We had no idea of the magnitude of that project when the idea of “writing a book” struck. I’m still not sure how we survived it. It was a long, slow, and very challenging process, but we endured. Karlo’s new book hit the streets in October and his is now a famous author!

We were privileged with a visit by Karlo’s mother for the entire month of April. It was so nice to spend time with her and hear all kinds of amusing stories about Karlo’s childhood. The language barrier wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be and it gave me a chance to get to know my mother-in-law. The extremely unfortunate part was that we lost her shortly after that visit. We are so very grateful for the time that we did get to spend together.

Just before Spring I decided to start a 3-month training program to get us into great shape. Karlo, being the good sport, agreed to endure this program with me and together we spent 90 days torturing ourselves. The end result was an enormous sense of accomplishment and some new muscles to boot.

One big milestone of the year was me turning 40. This may have been the motivation behind that killer workout routine. The big day came and went and I have to say, not much feels different.

As usual, we took a few trips throughout the year. We spent one week in Washington where we hiked at Mt. Rainer, went boating in the Puget Sound, took a wildlife safari, and shopped and strolled in Downtown Seattle. One solid week in the Pacific Northwest and no rain. That was amazing.

Part of my birthday present was to do something that I always wanted to do . . . attend ballroom dance camp. I still can’t believe that Karlo agreed to this. We foxtrotted, tangoed, waltzed and rumbaed our way through five straight days and nights of dancing. It was my dream come true. We still aren’t very good dancers, but we had fun and made new friends.


In October we drove down to Virginia to visit the previous owners of our house, who just happened to turn into wonderful friends. Before visiting their new palatial residence we spent a few days hiking and biking (the motor version) the Blue Ridge Parkway and Shenandoah National Park. It stole my heart and now I want to move to Virginia.

And as usual, I’m writing this letter on an airplane (the only time I got to relax all month) coming back from a business trip to Orlando. Karlo and I were lucky to get the same assignment and travel together. It sure does make business travel more enjoyable.

I can’t believe how quickly the year went by. We are very fortunate to have enjoyed the past twelve months and find ourselves in good health, some money still left in our 401K, and still very much in love. We wish all of our friends and family the very best in the upcoming New Year.

Merry Christmas!
- Paula & Karlo