Since this blog serves as a scrapbook of sorts I thought it would be fun to include our Christmas letter from this year. It actually recaps our year quite well. I hope you can pick up on the sarcastic undertones. RC and I wrote it together, but he should get most of the credit. I love his sense of humor. Both the letter and Christmas card were his ideas and it was fun for us to collaborate on both even though we were miles apart!
Dear family & friends,
I hope that this holiday letter finds you well. Since we no longer reside in the Charleston area we thought it would be appropriate to provide a quick synopsis of the past year. Overall 2012 was quite uneventful for the Leigh family. In April Ross went to school to learn how to jump out of perfectly good airplanes. He jumped not once, but five times. I guess it's a good thing he's not scared of heights. In May, we traveled approximately 4,453 miles or 7,167 kilometers to the Land of Schnitzel and Fascism. It was only a 9 hour flight. Ross did not jump out of this airplane only because he spent most of the flight sprawled out over two seats while Emma sat on the floor of the aircraft. We saw castles, paintings, libraries, mountains and a bunch of old buildings. We learned that Germany has one of the strongest economy in the EU and Germans as a whole are pretty OCD about everything. It’s been interesting exploring this country, but honestly you can genuinely sum up most of Germany in two words ‘SECOND BEST’.
Emma got a job as a teller at Community Bank after an extremely long job hunt of four days. Her resume and people skills were weak; however, since most of the other Army wives were going back to the states in preparation for their husband's deployment the manager at the bank reluctantly gave Emma the job. In June, the Army decided that life in Germany wasn't exciting enough and sent Ross to Afghanistan. Ross spent the first half of his deployment on an extremely large COP with a booming population of 25 soldiers. Emma spent the summer months drinking her sadness away. She could not bare the thought that Ross would be home in the spring and she would not have the house to herself anymore.
When Emma was not morning the return of her husband she was out traveling with a few close friends she had known for a very long time. Most of her traveling companions she had known at least 5 days. Ross became a Platoon Leader in September. His Platoon consists of 20 of the finest soldiers in all of Afghanistan. He will remain the platoon leader throughout the remainder of the deployment and for at least six months once he redeploys. (Unless he gets fired of course.) Ross has learned a lot since becoming a Platoon Leader. He learned that you should never place someone's mattress in the snow and to never, under any circumstance, refer to your boss as "your sidekick."
In late October, Mrs. Dianna decided that Emma's drinking problem had become serious and she needed an intervention. Seven days later, Emma and Dianna were in Poland for Emma's rehab, which consisted of driving from Germany to Poland just to purchase pottery. During Ross’ deployment Emma also perfected two German phrases every American Army wife needs to know; "How much?" and "Do you speak English?” .
Despite her severe emotional bonding to H&M, pommes, and radlers (a delicious concoction of beer and lemonade), Emma decided to move back to Charleston, South Carolina for the rest of the deployment. She is now taking reservations for hour increments of quality time with Germany’s favorite red head.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Love,
Ross and Emma
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