NYE through the ages and best of 2012

I worked so, so hard on this post, so hard that it is embarrassing, because it's not even that great. My old laptop from college died years ago, and took all of my photos with it. I learned from my mistake and now all of our pictures are backed up on an external hard drive. We keep it in our fire safe. I have been quite successful with unlocking the safe and getting it out after the first time Eric taught me how, but I failed yesterday. I begged Eric to come open it but he found it more fun to laugh and take pictures of me. 

Our travel plans always include throwing everything we brought on the floor
when we get home and then ignoring it.

But that was just a start. Since all the pictures have been lost, I had to go on a treasure hunt to find any pictures prior to 2008. I love looking at old pictures though, so it was worth it. Here's a little photo montage of all my New Year's Eves since I graduated from college, whether or not you want to look at it.

The epic party of 2005 - 2006 (my first year as a grown up in Baltimore, before I met Eric!)

No actual pictures exist from NYE 2006 - 2007 because things got a little wild, but I do have this picture from NYE 2007.2, when we re-celebrated in February.

We don't know the bald guy. Also note we were all wearing New Year's hats at a bar in February.

2007 -2008: last NYE before tying the knot

2008 - 2009

2009 - 2010

2010 - 2011: party at our place!

2011 - 2012 I'm wearing the same outfit as 2009. I really need
to go shopping.

Last NYE I celebrated with bronchitis, so I really have no where to go but up. 

At first I rolled my eyes when every blog had some sort of "best of 2012" post, but then they turned out to be really fun to read. I decided to do my own, because jumping on bandwagons always works out.

I'm not going to do a month by month recap because for the same reason that I don't post every day: probably 75% of it would read something like "went to work. didn't get fired. did some running. watched tv. saw some friends". Thrilling.

But when I reflect on 2012, a few exciting events do pop into my mind. By far the best and most important was August 3rd, when my sister had my nephew Harrison and I became an aunt. 



It's probably best that I don't say any more because I still get choked up thinking of the first time I met him and all my sappy thoughts are in the linked post above. 

Holding his little tiny hand the day he came home from the hospital - this kills me.

Actually I think I just came up with a new year's resolution for 2013 - get my emotions under control otherwise this blog is going to be unreadable when Harrison finally gets a little caramel colored cousin. No, that won't be happening within 9 months from now, but it's in our future at some point without a doubt.

Moving on. In 2012, I faced some fears. I have intense fears of dogs, needles, public speaking, and biking. Obviously the biking one was easily ignored, unlike the others. The public speaking one seems easily avoidable too, but mine is so bad that I get bright red just speaking in faculty meetings or grad classes, aka in front of less than 20 people that I've been working with for years now. 

I'm never going to own a dog or become a heroin addict, so biking and public speaking were the only options.

As soon as 2012 began I started training for a half ironman triathlon (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run). I ended up loving my long bike rides and enjoying that leg the most during the race. 

I even took first place in the novice group!

I also ended up doing a presentation at a national teaching conference (with two colleagues). I still hate speaking in front of any adults, but word on the street is that our presentation didn't suck. I took the blurriest picture of all time to commemorate it.

We agreed to wear our school shirts and jeans, I'm not
just an idiot who doesn't understand social customs.

I attempted, and somehow survived, a GORUCK challenge - quite possibly the most frightening thing of all. It's essentially an overnight challenge where you do crazy stuff all while wearing a backpack full of bricks. If you are curious check out my recap or for the quick version, my picture post. 

I ran the JFK 50! I was ambivalent on this race even after mailing in my registration (they are old school) but in the end, I'm really glad I did. I ran the Stone Mill 50 but really 55 or so Miler in November 2011. While I was super proud of covering that distance, to be honest, I was majorly ashamed of my time and hated telling people how I did (14 hours and 27 minutes). I really wanted to see how I would do in an actual 50 (well, 50.2) mile race. I now have a time with a single digit in the hour spot, so I'm happy.

Taking a finish line picture in daylight was a major win.

I accomplished my life goal of visiting California (yep, I dream big)  - twice!

First time in the Pacific Ocean in San Diego

Obviously, this is the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco

Last but not least, another life changing event, I slowly but surely gave up my vegetarian ways and really cinched the deal by eating a burger.

When I originally decided to do this post it was only going to be Harrison, JFK, and the half ironman, so maybe 2012 was a tad more exciting than I realized. And there's still one more day!

My one and only 2012 new year's resolution was to spread whooty awareness. I'm proud to say that when we were looking at old pictures last week my mom told me that I had a whooty even as a baby, and at the time this post was published, 277 people have found my blog by searching whooty. Mission accomplished, but I plan to continue my work in 2013. 

I have to ask: what was your highlight of 2012?