2008 has been a fast year. Already 3/4 of the way through. Our family remains in good health and we continue to live a happy and blessed life! Anyhow, here's what's been going on. From most recent news...

In August, we went away to Bar Harbor, Maine and Acadia National Park with Evelyn and our Great Lola Esther! We had lots of fun hiking the trails, going on a whale watching tour, and taking in the wonderful sights. No luck with seeing much wildlife this time around but the scenery is beautiful.

During the summer, Steve learned to sail with hopes to someday take the family to the British Virgin Islands on a sailing vacation. After a couple of outings we took a family sailing trip out on Barnegat Bay down the Jersey Shore.

The summer started out with our bi-annual Bahamas trip to the Atlantis Resort. We had a blast there joined by Aunt Corny. We also met some new friends from Texas - Steve and Robyn and their sons, Corey and Christian.

Of course, we also did a spring trip to Orlando, FL for a WDW and Seaworld visit.

Thus far, it has been a very eventful and fun year!

Orlando - WDW & SeaWorld

We started off the summer with a vacation in Orlando FL with our friends - John, Marilo, Angelica and Olivia. Of course, a wonderful time was had by all. We started out at the Magic Kingdom and spent a whole 12 hours there just the first day. We all met Mickey, Minnie and the gang as well as got on many of the rides.

At SeaWorld, we got to see the new Dolphin and Shamu shows along with a nice dinner at the Hawaiian Luau which was better than expected! We all enjoyed ourselves - the kids even got to go on stage to dance with the performers.

We also spent a day at the other WDW parks - Epcot, Animal Kingdom and MGM. As always Epcot is our favorite but the best ride of all was Everest!

Road Trip NJ to SF

My cousin Mark ( http://www.markcapilitan.com/ ) and I drove 3350 miles across the U.S.A. We had a blast covering 13 states - NJ, PA, WV, OH, IN, IL, MO, KS, CO, UT, NV, AZ, and CA. Most notable stops were the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Colorado Springs, Arches National Park and Las Vegas. Mark had an extra day in San Francisco to get some nice pictures there. Here's some pictures of my own but if you visit Mark's site and look in his travel section you'll see excellent pictures of the trip.

Back to Cozumel - May 2007

In May 2007, Sabine and I went back to Cozumel, Mexico with an expanded group. Glenn Joe and JoAnn joined the original six from 2006 as shown in these group photos.

Below are a pair of sunset pictures I took from our villa - Cini Kin Na.

More recently in 2007

2007 began with the unfortunate event of Hayley breaking her leg ice skating. She's all better and healed now. Just in time for a trip to Disney world during the last week of June. We will be joined on that vacation by our dear friends John and Marilo along with their daughters Angelica and Olivia.

As you can see, the disablity didn't stop Hayley and Zachary from enjoying an afternoon playing in the snow!

2007 has also brought us some much welcome visitors. Mark, Sarah and her brother, Ev visited us in early March.

This visit was followed by Vincent and Joke visiting us from Holland by way of their Las Vegas, NV trip.

For Easter week, we then had Oma and Opa visit us from Memphis while on Easter Sunday Lola and Great-Lola joined us.

Hello World!

Hi, this is our first ever blog. We are, clockwise from top left - Sabine, Steve, Zachary and Hayley. I, Steve, have set up this blog to let our friends and family know what we've been up to and what's in the works for us. The main photo above was taken in July 2006 on the Disney Magic cruise to the Western Carribean. It was a nice treat to have Evelyn and Esther, my mother and grandmother, with us on that vacation.

Another highlight in 2006 was our vacation to the Atlantis in the Bahamas. We had a blast staying in the timeshare we have there across the marina from Atlantis. There we celebrated Sabine's 40th birthday and Hayley's 6th birthday!

Our year continued with a Koch Family Reunion in Memphis in November to not just share Thanksgiving but to also celebrate Susi's 50th Birthday!

Last but not least, last year Sabine and I went on our first vacation sans kids. We joined our friends Kurt, Paula, Randy and Ellen at Casa Caribena in Cozumel for a week of fun and cliff diving!