Happy New Year Ein Gutes Neues Jahr

WHAT??? It is 2009 already?

The Gogan’s Chronicle of the year 2008

This year just flew by. I don’t know how everyone else feels but I certainly cannot believe that another year just passed. This was a very eventful year for us with many good experiences. The not so good experiences we just count as blessing that help us to learn and grow. How can we start to pack a year full of events in one page, maybe two? Well, I guess I will give it a try and start at the beginning.
1st of January 2008 was nice. I felt a little better than the other weeks before and Grandma G and Grandpa G were still in Germany to celebrate with us. We were so excited to show them how we celebrate New Year’s Eve with all our fireworks. Living in Wuerzburg on a hill was great and we thought we could show them the show of shows. Well, this evening was the foggiest night ever. I had never seen so much fog in my entire life and we had a hard time seeing our own fire crackers. It was disappointing; we could hear the fireworks but not see one of them. However, we had a good time and just moved on. The next few weeks were packed with fun and good times with the grandparents. I was still recovering from my sickness and preparing for my surgery. I was great full to have mom there to help Teri and the children. My little Sami thought she was his Mama because she was the one taking care of him day and nightJ My surgery went well and now I just needed to be patient for the next 6 months to recover completely. The grandparents left again in February and we started to prepare for the big move. Everyone who is familiar with the Army knows that moving is a major stressor and one has to be prepared for changes. Well, we had a lot of changes. I think we have never seen, nor will we ever see so many different orders than we did during the spring of 2008. Teri had previously submitted paper work for the Green to Gold Active Duty program and waited for their decision. Our unit was moving back to Texas and they prepared already to receive us (12 people in one family). They starting counseling SSG Gogan that he better shows up or else.. We sent our van in beginning of May towards Texas because we needed to do something. We received our orders to go to BELGIUM in June (ha,ha). We laughed; I have to say I thought it was hilarious! We sent our household goods in June to Texas and lived in an empty house until 31st of July. That was torture because of the echo..echo…echo Having 9 children run around and play and laugh and scream made it almost impossible for the adults to have any sort of conversation. During all this time we had a great helper in our house; Michaela. She was our helping hand and came every morning. That gave me time to run errands and to do all the tedious stuff without the children. NICE! I think we became best friends with the housing and transportation personnelJ To continue the story about our orders; well we got orders for Texas and were suppose to show up one week after we received the orders (ha,ha) SO the orders needed to be changed. Finally we got the right orders to the right place for the right time. I think 4 days later or so we got the conformation that Teri got selected for the Green to Gold Active Duty program. Now we needed new orders. ( I am sure all the Military member laugh already, right Christina!?) So, now we had the right orders and only needed to figure out how to get our van and house hold goods to Maine instead of Texas.
During this time of confusion we had a lot of fun with the children and our friends and family. My brother and family came over to visit us several times. My mom and dad came several times and Eissi my friend came, which was sad because we had to say good bye after being together for 21 years.
The Wuerzburg community closed everything and we had to go to all the closing ceremonies. That was sad. We had a gigantic sleep over with about 20 teenagers which we held outside the apartment intentsJ (we are smart) They had a great time and we had a sleepless night. Mario went to Italy again for one week and Joey went to France for a week. Page and I went to all the festivals we could go and Lucy had her last days in her German Kindergarten. We walked to church every Sunday for 3 months, which I liked totally because I love to walk or run (which we had to do sometimes to make it on time) The church is about 2 miles away from where we lived. It was a good experience for the children, they learned that we can still go to church even if we have no vehicle; wow, amazing!
In July I flew to the States to find a house for us. I have to say I enjoyed the quiet time I had. Time to read, time to go running, time to eat and talk without anyone calling my name or asking for something. We went on a house hunt; Grandma G, Grandpa, Sheri and I. We found a house that was big enough to accommodate all of us. We started all the paper work and it worked out just fine. In August we signed the closing papers and one day later we moved in. Ah, this reminds me of our flight to the States. We had a wonderful trip to the States. We got picked up by a Commercial bus and we drove to Frankfurt to the airport. In the airport things went well and we managed not to loose anyone. Once in the plane we felt reliefed. The flight was smooth and not too long. At the end of the flight I have to say our little Fini got sick. She always gets car sick and therefore I was not surprised that she started vomiting. I had my hands full to clean her up when Samuel just joined her. They both were sitting next to Teri so I ended up cleaning the two children, Teri and the seatsJ
We stayed for 10 days in a hotel and had a lot of fun. It was like vacation. We went swimming as often as we could. We went to the mall and we just spent time together. It was really nice. I like spending time with my children, they are so much fun. We moved to our house and started …. I don’t know what did we start? Nothing basically, because we had no furniture. We just stayed there and waited for our stuff to arrive so we can continue with our live.
School started and the children got to know some people. Thomas and Mario started their football season and Thomas became one of the captains. The house started to look like a home and we made ourselves familiar with the area and the people there. Teri was in College and loved it. I was busy at home and missed Michaela to help me with all the work.
Rigo flew to the States alone (kind of). We had to send him earlier because it would have been too much to take him with us, besides he was too big to fly with us anyways. So he was already at grandma’s house waiting for us. We picked him up and he loved being with us again. He was excited to see some squirrels and he seriously thought he could catch them. In October he ran away again just, over the street to the fields to chase some squirrels. He got hit by a car and suffered some serious injuries. We brought him to the vet clinic where we had to put him under because he was badly damaged. Even if they would have done surgery (which would have cost a total of 7000 dollars) he probably would not have made it. His lungs were ripped and that is just a really bad thing. Now we have no animal in our house and we still miss our big black dummy.
Time passes by and before we knew it we had Thanksgiving and then Christmas. I don’t know why, but it seems like it does not matter how much I prepare for Christmas, I am never prepared. It is frustrating and I decided to start preparing for Christmas in January! So if you have not gotten a card or email from us, please forgive me. I will make it this year, I promise.
As for now we are all busy as usual. Teri is getting ready for his next semester. He is taking 7 classes. Thomas is finishing high school. Mario is having funJ and preparing to be a senior. Page is doing a lot of sports and discovered her love for Zumba. Jesse is just as happy as he can be. Jeramy has lots of plans and frustrates everyone because he is so good in math. Joey is our gentleman and very popular. Lucy and Leah play and together with Gabriel destroy the work of my hands (the clean house) in 2 minutes. Sami is the sweet baby still and I am keeping busy home schooling 7 children and cooking and cleaning and all the other stuff. I go with Page to Zumba so she can laugh when she watches me try to do the hip moves they do:)
Live is good, we are grateful for all the blessings we received last year. The Lord is always mindful of us. We have received so many great blessings from Him through you. Through each and every one of you who stayed in touch and wrote us or send us cards or pictures. We have been blessed through those of you who surprised us with presents on Christmas and made us feel so loved and cared for.
Thank you for all you do. Please do not stop just because we might be thoughtless sometimes. The Lord will bless you for all you do.
Love,
The Gogan’s