A New Year

Ringing in the New Year always sounded like there should be an elaborate party when, at the stroke of midnight, everyone would cheer "Happy New Year" and you'd see fireworks or the guy you were magically supposed to be with and this ringing in of another year would create that spark needed to get you two together. Well my life definitely doesn't play out like it does in the movies. First I flew back to Virginia New Year's Eve which didn't give me much time to scope out who was home, who was hosting a party, and who I could finagle an innovation from said party. And I was sick with a wretched cold. I wasn't in the mood to ring in anything as the thought made my ears hurt. A friend invited me along to watch the Alexandria fireworks and even though I agreed, I knew it was going to be an utter disaster as the other friend believed watching the fireworks from her work building by the White House would give us the best view. For those who don't know DC geography, all you really need to know is the White House is not near Alexandria. Oh well. Happy 2015!

Can you spot the fireworks?

On a far more optimistic note, I traveled to California to meet my new niece over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. I'm saving vacation days for an upcoming European adventure so I worked on the plane. Gratefully, the wifi network held strong even when I connected to the vpn. Oh the wonders of modern technology!

Usually when I visit family, I rotate houses to spend time with everyone, but since I was only going to be there a few days it was much easier to travel back and forth between houses. Best plan ever. I spent time playing games with kids, attending my two nephews' Eagle Court of Honor, and holding the sweetest little girl. The trip was short. My jet lag was not. But seeing family was worth it.

Can you spot the photobomber?

She's so cute!

Sisters

So glad I got to meet her

My mountains

January also had me traveling to Toronto and exploring a bit of DC in winter. All good things.

The Happiest Place on Earth

For the past year, I'd planned on spending my birthday at Disneyland. I love Christmas and Disney does Christmas well. One thing after another derailed those plans and I made alternate plans. During the derailing, my sister invited me to join her family the weekend before Thanksgiving, which would have been great as the last few times I've gone to Disneyland it has been with her family during the holiday season. However, flight prices during that time were astronomical. I had a small flying window as I was saving vacation days for a big trip next year and money to buy a place. Not being able to justify the cost, I declined my sister's invitation. Painful decision.

Well about two weeks before the said trip, my sister emailed me saying, "I’m just confirming that you are not coming with us to Disneyland.  I made some dining reservations, and I included you on those reservations.  I’m going to be fined if you don’t show up, so I need to either take you off the reservation, or I just need to know that you are actually coming……"

Fate had intervened. I had the thought to look at flights with my frequent flier miles and I found one that fit exactly in my flight window. After a call to my mom for a sanity check, I booked the flight. What my mom actually said to me when I asked her if I was crazy was "No more crazy than driving to Vegas for cheesecake. You should go." (Aside: my sister and I drove from Provo to Vegas once to buy my mom cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory for her birthday. This was when gas was $1.50 and Utah didn't have a Cheesecake Factory yet.)

Absolutely no regrets from this trip. We had the best time! Three of my favorite moments: watching my nephew play with his high school band along main street, being the last on Space Mountain at 12:30am and my niece pointing to the Olaf house with Elsa and Anna inside and saying, "I want to get in that line." I love Disneyland at Christmas with my family.

Thanks to her dad, she got to see Elsa and Anna.

Isn't it magical?

Happy Birthday America

I expected July to be hot, humid, muggy, miserable. Thanks to a hurricane off the coast, all the humidity was pulled out to sea and the day cooled off to a nice seventy-five degrees. With baseball in the morning and fireworks in the evening and friends filling the day, I could not have had a better Fourth of July.

The rest of the month was pretty good too. I had a conference in San Francisco so I went out early and spent time with my brother and sister in Sacramento. Running in the morning, playing in the pool in the afternoon, and laughing in the evening made for a perfect time. Glad I got to visit with them.

On the way home from the conference, I detoured in LA and spent time with my friend who lives near the beach. I'm such a beach body. One day I sought out a beach we'd visit when I was a kid. When I found it, memories came flooding back with sand castles, body surfing, and a hundred stairs up and down to get to the beach. I love California!

Of course, I also explored DC on Sundays, hiked in the Shenandoahs, and visited Wolf Trap. Really a great summer!

Kayaking on the Potomac

Endure to the End

You know those moments where you finally sit down to finish a project, push save, refresh and realize nothing saved. Welcome to September. This post has already been written so the second go-around will probably not be as detailed, which is good for you as the previous one tended to push the TMI limits.

Source of my strength through all of this craziness!

First, the job: I finally (Whew!) received a phone call from the recruiter telling me he could officially extend the offer. So began actually applying for the job so he could move through the process, negotiating salary (thanks to my HR friend who helped me with my skills), background check, and three weeks later (seriously?!) I had an email letting me know I was moving to Virginia!

Offer letter

Second, how my boss took it: her jaw dropped as she slunk into her chair. She tried to the "whatever they offered you, we'll match it". No they couldn't. I had a really, really good offer. I gave her two weeks and she asked for three. Considering I didn't like the idea of going without a paycheck and I wanted to leave on good terms regardless of all that happened, I agreed to three weeks.

Third, family time: I took some time to check on things at my parents' house and my two nieces agreed to the quick 3-hour round trip drive. We ended the day at a pool party which is how all summers should end: by the pool. Later my aunt and I attended the James Taylor with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert. Honestly, I didn't know most of his singles and neither did my aunt. Still a good time.

G-town with a Planes character

James Taylor concert

Fourth, football: I needed one more weekend in California and a friend had offered one of his tickets to the ASU v. Stanford game. In reality, this date didn't go that well. We had met once and hit it off, but for some reason this date really shut off any potential. Probably didn't help that I was moving across the country. Oh well. At least I got to see a football game. Another friend of mine offered me a ticket to the Texas v. BYU football game. That started about as bad as the Stanford date but ended on a much better note. I had never seen rain like this in Utah and only a few times here in Virginia. Wow!

Stanford stadium

BYU game right before the storm moved in

Storm coming 

The crowd cheering as the clouds moved in 

Winning the game

Fifth, running: I decided I wasn't working out and started training for a half-marathon in October. That's what I do. When I need to get healthy, I sign up for half-marathons. Not 5Ks. Half-marathons.

Sixth, being blinded: My eyesight started weakening from my LASIK surgery seven years ago. I wasn't surprised. I knew it could happen. I went from wearing coke-bottle glasses to seeing. Modern-day miracle in my opinion. But I had all this money saved up in my HSA account and I figured I should use it and touch up the LASIK. Long (very, very, very) story short. The day I went in for surgery, we discovered I had an eye infection. Many bottles of antibiotics and doctor's appointments, my eyes were primed for PRK surgery as I wasn't a candidate for LASIK after this long. FYI, PRK is harder to recover from, especially when you try and run 8 miles the next day and a different infection decides to attack your eyes rendering you blind (or at least an out of focus camera lens). Thus began a three month long journey.

Just the beginning