2006 started off by a trip to Florida to visit my sister, Allison. We went to the country club to bring in the New Year.

In February, Christian had a conference in South Dakota. I got to tag along. We saw Mount Rushmore, Deadwood and Lead in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Unfortunately, the Cosmos was closed.

We visited Munich in March. We spent almost 2 weeks visiting friends and family. The weather was great-for two people on vacation. There was an extreme blizzard with nearly 4 feet of snow. Christian built a gigantic igloo in the front yard. It was great to see Christians parents and friends again.

When we got back home, we had a severe case of wanderlust. We started camping at Big Meadows on the Skyline Drive in March. Both weekends, the nighttime temperature got into the low 20's. WE were not prepared at all, so we froze. That didn't discourage our wanderlust, because we knew the weather was warming up.

In May, we decided to go to Hungry Mother State Park in Smyth County, VA. We took a long hike around the man made lake, but it was too cold to get in.

A few weeks later, Thomas, graduated from EVMS in Norfolk, VA. We stayed at nearby Seashore State Park/First Landing. It was awesome to camp there because the sand made a nice comfy bed. It was still a bit chilly to get in the ocean. We were quite surprised to come back to our tent site and find someone else camping there too, but the helpful ranger cleared up the situation. While in Norfolk, we also went aboard the USS Wisconsin.

The next weekend it was off to visit Allison again. We settled down a little after that.

A few months later, Christian went to Santa Fe and San Francisco for conferences. While in San Francisco, he visited his good friend Christian Lendvai and his family.

At the same time, Allison and I went to Francine's new house in Olney, MD. I stayed the next week, lounging around the pool. Some friends from Munich flew into Dulles. I guided them to Blacksburg.

Bonnie's children, Xavier and Adriana came to visit Blacksburg for a day on their way to Florida. We went to Nellie's Cave Park and Hand in Hand Playground in the Municipal Park. Adriana and Xavier had fun tie dying t-shirts. The kids played with the water hose and got totally drenched! The kids were pooped by the end of the day, Xavier slept all the way through the night! Early the next morning left with Aunt Allison.

July has to be the best month of the entire year! The temperature is hot, it's great for swimming or boating at the beach, pool or lake, or just laying around in the sun! July has Independence Day. Who doesn't love barbequing all by the lake and watching the fireworks reflect off the water at night?

Christian and I started the month off by going to Cowan's Gap State Park in Fulton County, Pennsylvania. Although the site was very small, right beside a road and the picnic table was rotting, it was still nice to get away. It was fun to put up our giant cabin tent. We had fun paddling around the lake in my new boat. We spent some time hanging out on the beach, swimming and getting a tan. We had to cut the mini vacation short and come back home.

We celebrated my birthday early along with Ken, Diane and Todd at India Garden. On my actual birthday, Christian showered me with so many gifts, I didn't know what to do with all of them. It was a great birthday.

In August, I decided to go back to school. I took 18 credits and had very little time for anything!

At the beginning of November, we met up with Christian's new best friend, Rob Van Winkel. Rob has other nicknames, like V Ice, Ice, Vanilla, or maybe you know him as Vanilla Ice.

Christian and I had fun on our Thanksgiving vacation. We went to NYC for several days. We stayed at Holiday Inn Express in Carlstadt, NJ. We had a great view of GIANTS STADIUM. Usually we took the bus to the city, but one day we drove and got a parking ticket.

We had some friends over for a vegetarian feast on Christmas Eve.