It Has Been An Awesome Year

• January: We arrived in Hanoi. Vietnam blew my mind. I’d go back tomorrow if I had the chance.
• February: We visited Angkor freaking Wat. I have wanted to go there for as long as I’ve known it exists. It was worth the wait.
• March: I got studio time to record a story for WGBH at our local NPR station. I was giddy, I tellya. And we marked our one year housiversary.
• April: We had an unseasonably summery weekend camping on Washington’s south coast with friends. We ate a lot of oysters. We also spent some time in the I5 corridor.
• May: I taught and then led about 60 people in an all ukulele rendition of I Will Survive on stage at Folklife. It RULED.
• June: We went to a lot of summer low tides at the beach. I love summer in West Seattle. And we rode a tandem in Portland.
• July: I played the uke and sang for my friend K. and his groom V. at their wedding on Vashon Island. And while celebrating our friends’ 10th anniversary, we made a side trip to Olympic National Park, one of my absolute favorite places on the planet.
• August: D and L made it possible for Julius to attend his very first baseball game. We said goodbye to the Austrians that helped us transform the NEV HQ into a hostel.
• September: I spoke on a panel about women’s travel at the Adventures in Travel Expo. And I was invited by Conde Nast Traveler to cover the World Saver’s Congress. But first, I had to get to New York City.
• October: I loved and hated Tampa.
• November: We had a lot of great local adventures including crashing a Seattle patriarch’s 80th birthday party. And oh, hey, the USA got a new president. Thank you, America!
• December: I helped raise over 5000 7000 dollars for Heifer International through Passports with Purpose. And we got snowed in for, like, a week.

And that’s just a few of the highlights. In all of this, I was really busy with work for a couple of great clients – I had to turn work away, I’ve been so booked. J picked up some odd job work here and there and tended to some pretty tedious “around the house” stuff that really needed to be done. The orange and yellow shag is gone from the basement, as is the nasty water trapping fiberglass from the weird little closet under the porch. The front steps are no longer covered in blue carpet (who’s idea was that?). And our garden is home to three (currently snow covered) raised beds that produced tomatoes, Swiss chard, snap peas, lettuce, and parsley in abundance. I did a little bit more travel writing, none of which went live this year, but look around the corner at next year, things are a-comin’.

I hope your year has been at least as great as mine and that 2009 is ten times better. Happy New Year and thanks so much for sticking around.