It’s 5am and I can’t sleep. Jet-lag has been wreaking havoc with both of us. We’ve made plans to go for dinner twice and have ended up back in bed at the strangest hours. Despite our odd nocturnal tendancies of late, we’re both pleased to be back home and together again.

John and I only had a few days together after the wedding before parting ways to spend Christmas with our families. We didn’t want our first argument to be about where we celebrated Christmas as neither one of us has been home for the holidays in over six years. So, we decided to go it alone and have remained happy with our decision. We met up in Chicago on the 30th of December and arrived in Taiwan just in time to grab a big bottle of bubbly we had been saving for the occasion, the camera and our jackets. We booted it up to the rooftop to enjoy the Taipei 101 firework display and celebrated the new year as happy newlyweds together again.

My reflections on 2008 are short and simple. First and foremost, it’s been a wonderful year, but I’m glad the wedding is over. We finally have our lives back. Everything we’ve done over the past year has been in anticipation of this event. It was everything we hoped it would be; a dream come true. Secondly, it was wonderful to end 2008 with our family and friends. Thanks to all of you who made our time back home so special and to those of you who showed your support on-line. I am again reminded that there is nothing more important in the world than family and we are humbled by the absolute love and affection we have received at every point on this amazing journey of ours. It was hard to go…

And lastly, a very Happy New Year to all of you. May you achieve all your dreams and fulfill all your promises. I leave you with this quote from Ella Wheeler Wilcox:

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of a year.