The countdown has begun…

… or as a famous Swedish glam-rock band once sang it: ”It’s the final countdown!”. I am sitting here in the couch in our living room, my girl is sleeping on the other couch, and I am realizing that the year is coming to an end. There is only 16 days left in 2008 and only 7 more days until the well deserved Christmas holidays!

Speaking of numbers, it's only 11 days left until our 1 year anniversary on December the 26th. Imagine that, it has been a whole year since those crazy fun weeks in Orlando!

My wife and I are impatient by nature, so we could not resist giving each other our Anniversary-gifts, and keep in mind that year 1 is the “Paper Anniversary”, so tonight I got this amazing large poster that Shaena had crafted on the internet out of hundreds of small images which together formed one big picture of us all dolled up in our Sunday outfits! It was perfect, and I am very lucky to have such a thoughtful wife!

I, equally creative if I may say so myself, gave Shaena a newspaper front page in the “Ireland’s Independent” that I too had crafted on the internet, showing our wedding photo and an article about our life together so far. Spoiling the fun with premature gift-opening is a pleasure only reserved for us, so I will post a picture of the pictures on or around the actual anniversary. Humbug! – You might say, I say it is necessary to keep our readers coming back for more.

I have to say, in all seriousness, it is not until recent years I have felt that the end of the year is actually something exciting. When I was younger I think I felt more regret over the things that I didn’t do, than gratefulness over the things that I actually did do. Now, I don’t feel any regret at all. Everything I wanted to do this year, we have done.

Maybe I am getting older and wiser, most likely I am just getting older, but I really do feel that 2009 will be one of, if not THE, best year in my life. Why is that, you might ask. Only time will tell, but I have a gut feeling that something beautiful is going to come out of this…

Oh, and did I mention; the guest list for 2009 is already starting to build up, so if you are planning on a visit to Casa Harrison-Helin, time to get crackin’ n’ packin’! Next on the list, and our last guests of the year are Matt & Naomi, our fun-lovin' Oz-friends from Ireland.