Farewell, 2008

New Year's Eve! Tonight 2008 comes to an end. It was a very eventful year for us! I'm excited to see what 2009 will bring.

We'll be ringing in the New Year in Times Square, assuming all goes well. Jeff and Jaime are in town, and they're seeing a matinee showing of Avenue Q this afternoon. Our plan is to meet them at the theater after the show at 4:30p.m. then head into Times Square to begin the camp-out. It's going to be intense. Of course the place fills up quickly, and once you've been put in a spot you can't leave. Well, you can leave, but you can't get back to your spot. Move it and lose it, so to speak. Also, you can't bring any bags or backpacks, so no loading yourself up with extra blankets or food or things to do to occupy the time. So we've got some granola bars and small bottles of water to stuff in our pockets to take with us.

Also, it's freezing out and currently snowing pretty hard. I think the snow is supposed to subside by late this evening, but then the wind is supposed to pick up and as midnight nears the "feels like" temperature will be in the single digits. We're planning to wear layers and layers and more layers of clothes, so hopefully we'll be toasty warm despite the conditions. Despite all these challenges, I'm really pretty excited about this!

In light of the New Year, I've been doing the requisite reflecting back on this past year. What a year 2008 was for us! I'm very thankful that much of it has been documented here on this blog. It will be quite a year to look back on. For example:

• It was our first full calendar year of wedded bliss. And it certainly was blissful. Eric is a great husband.
• Eric finished law school, studied for and passed the bar, and began work as a corporate lawyer. That's quite a transition.
• I finished up work at my firm in D.C., including training my replacement. I learned a lot and really gained invaluable experience.
• We celebrated our first anniversary in the Cayman Islands.
  
• We moved to New York. That's a big one.
  
• I studied for and took the GRE and Psychology GRE. I applied to doctoral school.
• We both turned 26 years old. And Achilles turned five!
• We hosted LOTS of visitors, in both DC and New York. Hopefully 2009 will bring even more guests!

As I'm sure you all know by now, I love pictures. We take a lot of pictures. Believe it or not, the pictures I share on this blog are only a sampling of all the pictures we take. So, I thought I'd throw together some pictures to help me look back on 2008. So, here it is, our year in pictures:

I hope you all are able to look back on 2008 with peace and contentment, and that you are filled with hope for 2009. I wish you all the best in the New Year. Enjoy your celebrations tonight, and I'll see you in 2009!

Signing off for 2008,
Mrs. W.