With the lack of posts here thanks to my laziness, I've resorted to cutting and pasting my holiday e-mail to be forever enshrined on this blog that no one reads.
Greetings to my most faithful and loyal e-mail readers! As another year quickly comes to an end it's time for "that Dreese family" to brag about how rad they are under the clever guise of a friendly newsletter. No doubt you've been waiting with bated breath to hear of our tales of worldly travel, unimaginable fortunes, and maybe even some snake charming. So, uh, with the possibility of you being really disappointed, let us jump in.
July marked our first full year in our house. Aside from some excitement with a wasp infestation, a basement flood, furnace issues, and the never ending forrest of leaves, it has been overall very quiet and pleasant. Recently we've started our first big house project, a full remodel of one of our spare bedrooms (I'll try and keep that album updated as progress is being made). While it's a bit slow-moving at the moment, I'm hoping with some time off after xmas we'll be able to make some more progress. If nothing else it's been a fun (and expensive) learning experience. The next big steps are fixing/finishing the electrical wiring, running network cable, re-insulating the ceiling, re-framing the closet, and then probably drywall and all that stuff. I should be able to bust all that out in a few hours, eh?
Arguably our biggest news of the year been paying off Amber's student loans in full at the end of September! It took us just shy of two years, which was our goal. As you can imagine we're thrilled and all sorts of full of ourselves ;) To award ourselves we now have satellite TV so we didn't miss much of the football season. If you want to be nosey and read about the nitty-gritty details you may do so here. Since we're in polite company I decided to keep the tacky details out of my high-brow e-mail newsletter for monocle enthusiasts.
We had a nice week-long vacation in Emerald Isle, NC with Amber's family in June. We had a small condo right on the beach which was (as expected) really great :) My second trip of the year was to San Deigo for a work conference, it was my first commercial flight anywhere and it was overall a good time :)
Aside from that, it's been your typical everyday living going on. Work has been going pretty well for Amber and myself. We're still working at the same place so we continue to carpool to work and eat lunches together on most days. She's been settling just fine to her position as a supports coordinator and I've continued my reign as the (sometimes evil) database administrator. Amber continued with her assistant coaching of the women's volleyball team this year, and after some deep thought she decided 5 seasons of coaching was enough. In October she received the "Outstanding Athletic Alumni Award" for her role as a coach and a player during college. Speaking of volleyball, we still continue to play in weekly leagues and had a fairly successful season that wrapped up last week.
That's about it! I hope everyone has a safe and successful holiday season and just maybe we can keep in better touch! You know, if you want to. It's cool :) Thankfully technology makes this much easier these days, there are many ways to keep up on what's happening:
Twitter: @dreesemonkey
