January
The winter of 2007-2008 was another warm, dry one in Munich, with very little snowfall after a promising start in December. We celebrated Anja's birthday with a fine dinner at a small Munich French restaurant, Atelier Gourmet. The number of years marked by this birthday will be provided upon receipt of a self-addressed, stamped envelope (German stamps only please!) accompanied by a suitable donation.
Since my birthday was what is known in German as "round" (not referring to the birthday boy), I threw, uncharacteristically, a small party in our local Bavarian restaurant, the Franziskaner Garten. Just about a mile from our apartment in nearly suburban Munich, we have had many a fine meal here (and a few less memorable ones alas, mostly when the owner was on vacation). I invited thirteen friends, a mixture of friends from work and friends from the music world, for an evening of food and potables. My friends honored me with many thoughtful gifts, in many cases showing remarkable imagination and industry. In short, a good time was had by all!
February
For our yearly skiing vacation we tried something new, the Austrian village of Alpbach. This Tirolean village was voted the most scenic in Austria a few years ago, and since the slopes of Mittenwald were becoming too monotonous for us, we thought a change would be nice. The weather was beautiful; there wasn't much snow left in the village, but there was plenty, thanks to the snow cannons, on the slopes. This photo is from the year 2006, when we had lots of snow.Our vacation apartment was one of the nicest we've ever had, with a cozy fireplace (and free wood). We enjoyed the week, but Alpbach had a couple of disadvantages: it was so small that there was a very limited selection of shops and restaurants (we're inveterate consumers), and the ski slopes were very crowded and rather difficult for John (Anja laughing at this!) So this year (in January) we're going to try Reit im Winkl in the southeast corner of Bavaria, which shares a ski area known as the Steinplatte with Austria.
March
The Securius family gathered as usual for the Easter holiday in Offenbach. The weather was cold and wet. Here's the family gathered around the dining room table, Franklin trying to look especially clever:
April
My good friend Ron Reis (of high school and college days) visited Munich for a convention, and Anja and I shared an evening with him in our neighborhood restaurant (see above).
May
On May 9th we boarded the plane for our semi-annual trip to the old Webber homesteads in the Pacific Northwest. Since the traditional Webber estate on Camano Island had not yet reopened, we trekked with Melanie, our nephew Beau and his lovely wife Kim, and our ever-charming nieces Rachel and Holly the long way to Cannon Beach, Oregon. 
We were rewarded with fantastic weather; indeed, the Friday of our arrival it was almost too hot, with temperatures around 90° on the beach. On the following days it cooled off to more typical levels, which made for pleasant beach sitting.
The weather was good enough to allow dining outdoors:
Most of our stay at home we were graciously hosted by my brother Brent and his wife Kathi; our nephew Jackson and our niece Emma demontstrated their domination over us on the Wii console. We visited other dear friends on the trip, notably Blaine and Rosanne Newland (and their boys), Tom and Silke Harper (and their new puppies), and Chris Wheatley (and his geoducks). We also visited my step-mother Sandra in Bremerton; not far from Bremerton we were rewarded with some amazing views of bald eagles.
June
In June we had a concert with the Munich Pianists' Club, Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis in Munich's Kaulbach Villa. We also saw a local production of the play Gaslight, directed by our good friend Christine Ackermann at the community theater in Feldkirchen-Westerham.
July
On the 19th we attended an open air production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Munich; unfortunately, as will happen with open air performances, it rained, and the performance never reached the end that night despite many heroic attempts. Before the evening performance we sat together with friends in a beer garden under mild temperatures; it was really inordinately bad luck that the weather took such an unexpected turn for the worse.
On July 24th Anja's mom celebrated her 85th birthday; the Securius family gathered once again in Offenbach:
August
On the 2nd we celebrated our 15th anniversary with a weekend getaway to the Schliersee near Munich; the weather (as in most of August) was so-so, but we had a good time. They even sent a special fleet to greet us:
Otherwise the weather was so lousy in August that we didn't do a thing - at least that's how it seems now. I'm sure there were a few weekend visits to the beer garden, but I'm not getting any younger and memories are fading...
Actually that's not true - my cousin Katie Welsh visited, and spent four delightful days with us. At least they were delightful for us, and I hope they were for her as well. We showed her some of the sights of Munich and the countryside, and proved that Seattle is not the only place where it rains frequently.
September
The summer is over, the countdown to the Oktoberfest is on. We were rewarded with some fine fall weather which we took advantage of for weekend excursions to Salzburg and Kitzbühel.
We attended the Oktoberfest with our friend Susanne Hohenberger, who took this photo of us with her cell phone:
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September ended with the the annual half-marathon in Haar near Munich, where I improved on my time from 2007 by over four minutes.
And we moved on into
October
where we were rewarded with more wonderful weekend weather, enabling an excursion to the Brauneck where we hiked to a mountain hut where they make their own cheese. October seemed shorter than normal and was replaced by
November
where not much of note happened, except a weekend excursion to Bichlbach in Austria near the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain. On the way back we visited one of Mad King Ludwig's lesser palaces, Schloss Linderhof:
...bringing us up to
December
And the Christmas season was upon us, and there was a frantic visiting of rustic Christmas markets throughout the land, and there was haggling with the tradesmen, and lo, gifts were purchased, and burnt offerings were made, and refreshing beverages were consumed. And that's all there was to 2008!
Merry Christmas to all, and a happy, healthy 2009!
Comments
Thanks for sharing your year with us!
Appreciate the news from across the ocean, and perhaps one of these days we'll be able to stop by for a visit and become a footnote in some future Webber recap.
There's a slight chance that we'll be visiting the university at Karlsrhue sometime around mid-June this year -- don't know how close that is to your house, but it's a whole lot closer than Richland, WA is!
Take care.
Scott Butner