seems like i've just gotten around to finishing last year's christmas letter... and here i am again painfully trying to remember what all has happened in the past 12 months. oh well, let's get started.... don't worry, i'll try to keep it short this year and pep it up with more pictures instead - after all, there's more bandwidth and it's cheaper this year:)
btw, if you have an mpeg player... enjoy our multimedia x-mas greeting over there --->
(click here to download)
it's been another extremely busy year for the both of us. in early february
we spent a wonderful week in the valais on skiing vacation. the weather
was marvelous and switzerland was dumped on with snow (you must have heard
about all the avalanches). anyway, perfect conditions for skiing... anja
bought new carving skis and has rediscovered how much fun skiing can be.
I've started snowboarding and love it.
Early spring i started attending the ETH in Zurich and anja was busy getting prepared for the hand over of the dance school from her former teacher. during my studies i continued to work part-time for the UBS AG financial institution in the firewall team. this also gave me the opportunity to visit a Caching Workshop in San Diego in early may. This of course a highlight, since it was my first major business trip. *san diego does rock* :)
The end of may brought me back to the U.S. and was honored to be part of my close friend carrie's wedding to darren cotch (left).While in the US i used the opportunity to add-on an exceptional week of flying in the Bahamas with one of my friends from Switzerland.
we rented a small single engine plane from tampa and enjoyed the beautiful
carribean landscapes, hopping from one island to the next (above).
summer rolled along in a hurry and both of us were anxiously awaiting our first visitors from the US. Justin and Renee arrived after a trip from hell including plane delays, lost baggage, layovers, etc. despite their strenuous trip, the four of us had a wonderful time touring Switzerland in a little more than a week.
We spent a couple days in the Alps, visited twelfth century castles, enjoyed the southern part of Switzerland at anja's parents vacation retreat, and finished up with a canyoning trip in one of the many gorges in the eastern part of the country.
.
anja and i decided that we needed a couple days away from home and booked
a last-minute arrangement to djerba, tunisia. well, that'll be the first
and last time that we spend our vacation with an organized tour. We tried
to stay away from the crowd and enjoy the beach without having an "animation
team" motivate us from day-to-day on our vacation!
back home anja finally got her long awaited kitty. it's name is cookie and he's keeping us busy and up most of the night :) we both enjoy having a cat around giving us a little time to realize how peaceful life can be. cook' is now 9 months old.
volleyball league started in september and i am happy to be doing a little bit of exercise at least once a week
anja officially became the director of the dance school in bremgarten teaching 12 lessons weekly to approximately 200 dance students. read more about her dance school at http://www.modern-jazz.ch.
early october i had the opportunity to serve two weeks in the swiss military... i guess that event's only worth that sentence... 'nough said.
hmmm... and i guess all that's left are the last couple of weeks. I've
been doing quite a bit of skiing and snowboarding with the winter arriving
early in Switzerland. anja has been more than busy with her dance school.
We hope all is well with you. wishing you all the best for the coming year.
cheers,
markus & anja