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23 December 2007
Christmas & New Year wishes
Dear family & friends,
Hello everyone! We hope this blog finds you happy, healthy and enjoying this wonderful time of year. Here is a recap of our 2007. We appreciate the cards and letters that you have been sending and hope to get more updates soon.
2007 was full of (surprise, surprise) lots of work, but was punctuated by some exciting trips, a few visits from friends/family, and a couple home and personal improvements! Notable trips include Prague for a weekend, Morocco at Easter, a float down the Rhine & visit to Heidelberg, Germany for a trip down memory lane (where Stefan spent 2 years growing up), the French Alps for a rock climbing outdoor adventure, Seattle to see Renee's family & for Juan & Krystal's wedding (where Stefan was a handsome groomsman), Barcelona to see Stefan's friends Juan, Dan & Prashant, an overdue visit to see Stefan's family in Florida, a quick weekend in Brighton to see Stefan's cousin Rebecca & her husband Phil, and finally a day-trip to the Freiburg Germany Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas Market)!
Our visitors this year were few but very much enjoyed and appreciated: Marie Walter in March, Stefan's dad David in June and Renee's longtime friend Bridgette also in June - which was a great excuse for Renee & Bridgette to head off to Paris for a few days. When not having visitors, we have managed to fill our other free time with brunches, bike rides, a Patio Party and lots of trips to the movies (where luckily they play them in English!).
At work, Stefan started the year with less than 10 engineers on his team, but has finished the year with 18! He went to Brussels in March for a leadership class and has lead an eng.edu (education for engineers) workshop 2 times this year. He continues to love his job and has many exciting projects to keep him busy. Renee has been busy growing her team from 0 to 2 events specialists, and moved into the new Zürich building which is almost finally ready for the official launch next year.
Other remarkable achievements include:
- we both turned 31 years old
- we won the Google Halloween party couples costume contest for the 2nd time in a row (GO Austin Powers & Ms. Kensington!!)
- we made Thanksgiving dinner with our Zurich friends and roasted our first turkey :)
- Stefan published his first book (Stefan's favorite photos), and then our second (our wedding album)
- we took a Bachata dance class together
Now that our apartment lease has expired and our rent will be increasing starting April (due to the financial market downturn and increasing interest rates) we are starting to think more seriously about finding a new place to live. We'd really like to get a dog or cat and our current landlord officially gave us the answer, "We like you...but not that much." So we're even more motivated. Our standards are pretty high, however, since we love our current neighborhood so the search isn't easy (Zürich has an 0.5% housing vacancy rate and was voted again the #1 most livable city this year). But, in spite of not feeling committed to our apartment, Stefan got a new PowerMac and we did finally purchase a bookshelf and a filing cabinet so at least we're not living out of boxes anymore. (Pretty good for 2 years, hunh?!)
Yes, indeed, we celebrated our 2-years of living in Zürich Anniversary in October this year! Where has the time gone? Well, it's pretty obvious, but still it's hard to believe it's been that long already. Of course, all of you are probably wondering how much longer we'll be here and since we are enjoying ourselves so much here and have a lot of exciting things to come in 2008 we can't answer that question just yet. But now would be a great time to visit us! Here's a few things that are coming up for us:
- Stefan will be taking a Swiss German class
- Scott & Diane will visit us in the spring
- Renee will continue her salsa dance classes
- We will do our taxes again!
We hope to hear from you soon. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year everyone!
Holiday wishes, hugs & kisses,
Renee & Stefan
posted by Renee at 23:27
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