2006 Year in Review

Most people wouldn't call our life 'boring', but 2006 was certainly a different kind of year as we stuck a little closer to home and had more quiet time.  It was a year of very little travel as Dan's business travels were largely confined to the east coast and Bobbie made just one trip to London and that was due to the untimely death of Bobbie Smith, grandmother to our godson Harry.  Vicki, Jeremy, Izzy, and Harry all made a visit to the States and we loaded up the RV and went to the Outer Banks and to the river.  No fights with City Council, no bikini contests, and no fetish convention.  Just a rehab of the monument in front of the house.  We must be getting boring.

If this year was not about travel, it was certainly about people.  A variety of parties in Richmond gave us an opportunity to see our friends - something we don't get to do nearly enough.  The "Conner girls" continue to grow up, but they still like to do arts-and-crafts with Bobbie and have Dan push them in the swing at the river until his arms get tired.  Little Chloe, daughter of Mike and Melissa Morris, is just the perfect little doll and is starting to warm up to Daniel.  The latest newborn to join the family was Ella Searcey.  Perhaps best of all, Dan turned 40 in high style with family and friends in attendance for a wild surprise party thrown by the wife.

Racing continued to play a big part of our life and we built the new 'zero' car to compete up front, but ended up with it being crashed not once, but twice in the National Championship race.  Still, that was enough for Dan to finish 8th which was better than Bobbie whose car broke just minutes before her first run for a national championship.  All year long guys like Harry, Bud Verstynen, Dave Lewis, Mike Morris, and Steve Marcus helped up with the cars and made it possible for us to go racing.  The heartbreak was the loss of our friend Dan Lawson who was killed in a race incident.  Bobbie definitely had her breakthrough year and finished the season strong with her first Top 5 finish and even qualifying for the outside pole in her last race.  For 2007 she will get a new car and hopes to continue her impressive run.

Lilianna and the monkeys were probably the focal point for us.  Lilianna has turned into the little dog with big personality.  She thinks she has to be involved in everything and that the world revolves around her.  While she is happy to travel anywhere (and usually does), the river is undoubtedly her favorite place.  She's demanding, but very affectionate.  We've also had some monkeys, most recently Conner (named after our neighbors) who has turned out to be a very easy baby.

Work was very busy as eVisory moved it's offices to a new building and Bobbie took up welding.  Yes, you read right:  Bobbie took a welding class at the community college and not only earned the highest grade in the class, but she learned enough to completely redo an iron fence on one of our properties.  Bobbie even appeared in the movie Wordplay (along with Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart).  Just because we didn't travel as much or go to as many parties doesn't mean we weren't busy in 2006!