Christmas

'Gnome Nathan'--not sure why he's not an elf; probably has something to do with limited Army budget

Snow around the FOB

Our very prim and proper Christmas dinner picture

Gail, Thomas & I on the balcony of St. Mark's Basilica

Just because I haven't taken my tree down or finished shipping Christmas presents doesn't mean it's not over for this year. Which means I should blog about it. I had the best Christmas present ever--a visit from Thomas and Gail. We travelled all over the area--Venice twice, Florence, Padua, Verona, Innsbruck, and my very lovely city of Vicenza. They also tried their hands at skiing in the Dolomites, and proclaimed Europeans much better skiers than Americans. You can look at pictures here--there will be captions soon. http://picasaweb.google.com/martha.hepler/ThomasGailSVisit?authkey=YOYQqGQ5SqI

Nathan also had a pretty good Christmas, though of course the day itself couldn't be much different than any other in the war. Both FOB Tillman and Vicenza have had a couple of snows recently. Nathan's extremely busy these days, as he continues to work to improve and increase the size of the FOB.
I finished my job at the WIC office on Dec 14th and handed it over to a very competent lady. Elaine, my boss, remains a close friend and I try to see her a couple of times a week. Thomas and Gail arrived on December 22nd and were awesome--Gail constantly doing dishes, Thomas moving and putting together furniture. It was a joy travelling with them.
Now that they're gone, I still have 3 overly affectionate cats to keep me company. I'm working on getting back in shape--perhaps just to get laid up again when I get two of the screws removed from my ankle. I'm still leading the band at our church service, and looking forward to going to Greece with Nathan in May!