another wonderful year is over much too fast. hopefully lots of nice memories will stay in our hearts... so many things have happened, so many places I have been to, so many people I’ve met and talked to.

first of all I want to thank you for your emails, postcards, letters and phone-calls I got from you this year! it’s always nice to hear from you!

at the end of december my parents set off to san francisco to spend christmas with ben who was working there for lufthansa. so markus and i celebrated christmas with natalie and matthias in wil.

this year I played tennis throughout summer- and wintertime with sabina, georges, my parents and martin. it’s great to feel the progress and really have lots of fun while training!

in february I went snowboarding in ladis for a cold and stormy winter-week. at least there was enough snow (it was snowing the whole week through...). after that I had two accidents with my snowboard: one in parsenn with ilaria and ursin, when I was hit by someone and had concussion (even though I wore a helmet). the second one was in lenzerheide, while spending a great weekend with madeleine and chris, boarding in the fresh powder in the lenzerheide - I dislocated my shoulder which forced me to have intense physiotherapy until summertime.

in the spring holidays we went biking in the ticino and enjoyed the wonderful trails and cool downhills. for one long weekend we flew to madrid (my birthday-present of markus) - relaxing in the park, shopping and enjoying the time together. in april sabina and richi left for hawaii for three months - and something really was missing at the flös-school! at the end of the month we worked for the mountain-bike-race in buchs. there were lots of top class bikers from all around the world competing which made the work worth it!

by the end of may ben and his girlfriend gaby arrived back from the usa which brought the family closer together again.

in june we three kids and our partners took part in the mum-stafette, a huge sports-race through the whole of the canton st.gallen. I really enjoyed the ride with my racing-bike in spite of the hot sun (33°C). the atmosphere between the competitors was absolutely amazing and the crowd along the road kept us going! the next sunny weekend we spent with danny and luzia - hiking up the wildspitz.

these summer holidays we decided to leave the tandem at home and take the mountainbikes in the car. we tried out a few bike-trails in the engadin / graubünden where the sun didn’t seem to be as hot as in the rest of the world ;-) we found a quiet campground and enjoyed the days out in the fresh air! in august andreas and ursula got married. as markus was the best man we had some organisation work but also lots and lots of nice talks with interesting people. and: thun turned out to be a kind of future-dream-place to settle down - if it just wasn’t so far away of all the rest of the family and friends... hmmm

in september we spent a weekend in the ticino to watch the world-championship of mountainbike. three fascinating days - seeing what one could achieve with the mountainbike! great performances and shows! the weekend after that, natalie and matthias organized lots of cool stuff like a visit at the sensorium, a joint cinema-event and a cart-race as our yearly milsom-weekend.

for the autumn holidays we had booked a week in the tauern-national-park, just next to kaprun in austria. in the hotel we got the honeymoon-suite and had the whole wellness- and sauna-area to ourselves. although there was snow like in deep winter we stuck to our biking- and hiking-plans and enjoyed the great adventurous nature out there.

and - well - the highlight of my year 2003 is certainly the birth of nat&matt’s son nanouk, who was born on the 6th of december. after a few breathing-problems he’s already grown to a sweet little sunshine who will light up all the next year for me!!! ;-)

the year 2004 will bring lots of changes to my life, as I will quit my work as a teacher, quit our flat and go travelling through the world with markus. we are planning to spend a couple of months in skandinavia to bike, hike and relax. then my dream would be to work in bhutan as a volunteer in a school or so. after that we want to travel through india, thailand and maybe vietnam. then we are looking forward to experience the other side of the world - down under australia and new zealand.

take care and enjoy your life!!!

Jennifer :-)

read the xmas-letter 2002 here