2003. Hot Damn. Miriam and I were talking, and we hope this is the year we don't have to move. And hopefully the year she finds a job she likes. And maybe the year I learn how to type properly.

I have also decided that I am going to make an attempt to correspond with my friends better. I'll start by updating turnerville more often. Then I'll start writing letters to people every once in a while.

So, what all happened to us in 2002? Lets see:

In February, I had my vision corrected with Lasik.

In March we went to Hawaii for our anniversary. The day before we were supposed to leave, I was "layed off" from work and I had 30 days to find a new position in the company. I was the offered a position in the same department, but on the other side of the country. Miriam and I spent quite a bit of time in Hawaii looking for jobs either in Virginia or Las Vegas. Nothing really became apparent in that time, so we decided to move to Virginia.

The last weekend of March we attended the wedding of old friends, Lisa McFarlane and George Mawle. Miriam and Lisa have been friends since first grade and Lisa was an attendant in our wedding last year. They were married on the Queen Mary with a small ceremony and then a fun reception of dancing to crazy songs. Funny to think that just a year and a half ago at our wedding, Lisa was trying to set up (her good friend) George with her little sister. Guess things have a way of working themselves out for the best.

We moved to Virginia at the beginning of April, and that was actually quite a bit of fun. We took a week to drive across the country, stopping first in Bakersfield to visit Amy and Stan. (Stan was still nursing his broken leg from his "guys" ski trip weekend. Serves him right for leaving his beautiful wife at home alone to galavant with obnoxious boys for three days.) Then off for two wonderful days in Las Vegas to visit everyone. Then we spent a night in Western Texas, and then another two days in San Antonio, Texas to visit Dennis, Christy, Danielle & Kaitlyn. We were also lucky enough to spend a great afternoon with our old friend Heidi Tuttle and her two beautiful and well behaved little girls, Elise and Tia. Then back on the road to Lexington, Kentucky to visit some old friends of Miriam's. When we reached Memphis we stayed with the always hospitable Boma's, and then we pushed through to Herndon, Viriginia.

After about two weeks in the temporary housing, we adopted Bianca (Miss B for short) from the Fairfax County animal shelter. She was really sick for the first few weeks with a variety of illensses including a mild form of lyme disease and heatworms, but once she was feeling better, and we all got to know each other, we realized just what a great dog we had. She was well behaved and potty trained. She'd bark at us all night while we tried to watch TV, but once we bought a spray bottle that stopped pretty quickly. Now she spends her days napping in any little bit of sun she can find.

The end of April we found a house we love, just three miles from my office. It was older (built in 1973), but sat on a rather large lot (1/3 of an acre) at the end of a cul de sac. Miriam found a job at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center the start of May and we moved into the house Memorial Day weekend.

In June we enjoyed a visit from Miriam's mom, Candace, and Nanny. Miriam worked most of the time, but we had a nice visit.

In July we painted the office (bright blue), living room (creamy tomato red), hallway and spare room (both white). Also in July. we went to the Kennedy Center and saw "Passions" for Miriam's birthday. I got us a room at the Hilton on Embassy Row, rented a limo for the night and had a pleasant dinner, to boot.

In August we enjoyed a visit from Nanny and Aunt Sandy and Uncle Jay (Miriam's cousins from New York). Had a quasi-nice time dodging the chauvanistic comments from Uncle Jay and his bad jokes. We did spend a lovely afternoon cruising the Potmoac River on a lunch cruise called the Odessey. All in all we did have a fun time, but that Uncle Jay.....let's just say he comes from a different generation.

In September, we started putting in lamenent floor in one of the bedrooms. By Thanksgiving we had layed nearly 1000 square feet of the stuff two bedrooms, the office, the hallway and the living room.

For Thanksgiving, Miriam's Mom and Nanny came out to visit (This was Candace's second visit of the year and Nanny's third). James came down from Boston, and a couple of friends from work joined us, too.

December was a flurry of shopping, wrapping and baking. Miriam and I made tons of fudge, peppermint bark and cookies for her co-workers, my co-workers and our neighbors.

We went back to Las Vegas for Christmas, where we had dinner with my mom and step-father Christmas Eve and then dinner with the entire Giles clan at Howard II and Karen's, on Christmas day. This year's Christmas had an extra special treat: we were all introduced to Howard III's fiance, Erin. (Miriam and I had actually met Erin sometime in 2001 when Howard was in Berkely and we were in San Jose.)

I know I left out qiute a bit, and maybe I'll try to fill in the blanks (or maybe Miriam will fill some of them in).

Anyway, thank you to everybody for all of your support and friendship through the year.