2012 Retrospect

I have done these the past two years and I do actually enjoy it, pain in the butt as it may be! Check out 2010 and 2011 if you're interested.

2012
January

Ryan returns to 29 Palms after the new year and I become a single puppy mommy to Rylie. I almost break down after the first night. But it is funny now...
I get into a routine with Rylie and finally sleep again. Man that was a rocky start!
I actually discuss a hot button topic, a rarity for me.
It is a small world and a smaller Marine Corps. Priorities.
I am so unbelievably lucky. This may have been one of my hardest blogs to write but it one of my top favorites now. If you read anything in this post, read this one.

February

Just as I hit my stride with Rylie she gets sick and I feel like a bad puppy mom again.
We find out we are moving to Camp LeJeune North Carolina when Ryan graduates.
I spend Valentine's Day with a porker pup at the vet... she was a good date! Just a check up!
Ryan catches up to me and turns 24. I fly out to Vegas for the long weekend and to see him around his birthday time. Roulette, gucci and cirque du soleil make a great weekend!
I hit the one year mark post surgery of my breast reduction.
I discuss buying our house and the crazy way we did it, sight unseen.

March

Carrie and I attend the Alexandria Saint Patrick's Day Parade.
My Uncle Dave comes to visit and takes Rylie and I on a photo tour of the monuments.
My second article is published on SpouseBUZZ.
I get my first of what will be many cases of writer's block.
Rylie hurts her leg, once again hitting the little puppy mom confidence I have.

April

My mom and I go to New Jersey with Rylie for Easter. Too busy to blog now but I get to it a month later!
I travel to 29 Palms to be a guest speaker at SpouseBUZZ Live! And I get to see Ryan!
We begin our PCS so I have guest bloggers including, My Mom, Handling with Grace, and Mommy Musings.

Ryan and Rylie and I are all reunited and we PCS! And it takes lots of blogging as we super speed fix up our new house.

May

We continue to settle in to our new house with lots of yard work, decorating, and picture hanging.
We celebrate our second wedding anniversary at the beach! A perk to this new duty station!
Rylie goes to the beach for the first time.
I do the Milspouse Blog Hop of 2012
My Coca Cola Bathroom comes together after lots of work and waiting
For the first time we spend Mother's Day with BOTH of our mom's at Ryan's family's house in SC.

I get "homesick" for Alexandria, my job and DC.
We start working out and eating right which leads me to an I Love Lucy -esque expidetion to find a fish.
I talk about Memorial Day

June

Ryan goes into the field for a week so I drive out to Western NC to see my family for a mini vacation.
The last of our new furniture finally arrives.
I do my first book review on a book I normally wouldn't pick out myself but loved it.
The Dup gets VERY destructive.
I Bug Out a little... and a snake.
I write my last SpouseBUZZ article for some time, writers block indeed.

July

Our family goes through a rough time for a bit.
We spend the 4th of July weekend in Charleston, SC.
I get a little pissy about an article on jobs for milspouses.
And I get pretty down for a bit. July was a roller coaster for me for sure. My blog started taking it's hit around this time.

August

My grandparents have their 65th wedding anniversary and my Poppy turns 90. So we took a huge trip up to NJ at the end of July/beginning of August and I blog a lot about it. Part 1 - Coney Island. Part 2 - Poppy's 90th Birthday. Part 3 - Babci and Poppy's Anniversary with a quick trip to Alexandria on the way home!

We go to the beach, collect shark teeth, and hit up the Shrimp Festival with Nicole and Danny. We do stuff!
My routine changes. I start ballet with Breanna and I get cast as Mollie in The Mousetrap at the community theatre!!!!
I start rehearsals and meet new people and get to act again. Hooray! And I donate blood and nearly pass out at one of said rehearsals. Oops!

September

We go to New Bern for the first time and our first wedding since our own!
I turn 25 and hit my quarter century mark. And my birthday party rocks.
I hit another rut of sorts.

October

I try to prompt myself to blog with Wishful Wednesdays. Doesn't last long.
We visit Ryan's family over Columbas Day weekend.
We go to the Mum Fest in New Bern. Amazing.

The Mousetrap has opening night!

 And one or two SNAFUs along the way.

My mom comes for the show and stays a week... we go to the beach and hang out and Rylie turns one!

Hurricane Sandy barely touches here, just wind, but hits my home state of Jersey really hard. Ryan is in Louisiana visiting a friend.

We spend Halloween at home with sadly not many trick or treaters.

November

Ryan and I have a blast at the St. Stan's Polish Festival.
I wait in line a LONG time to vote.
We spend a weekend in the mountains visiting my parents.

The 237th USMC Birthday Ball... great time!

December

I blog about November! Thanksgiving 2012 in SC with Ryan's family.
A Day in the Life of a TV Extra also happened in November, oops.

I get my first job interview since moving... fingers crossed!!!
We spend Christmas 2012 with my family in the mountains.

And obviously we all survived the Mayans! Well, I hope we did, because this is a pre-published post and I will feel silly writing this if we didn't.

2012 had its ups and sadly a few downs, but I have the highest of hopes for 2013. Happy New Year!

Our Christmas Decorations

Before we undecorated I took some pictures of our Christmas decorations. I defintitely wanted to share them with you all before it got too late!

We got a ton of Christmas cards this year and I tried to display them like I did last year... but we got so many! I made our door into a present and then hung all the cards up... and then just kept adding and adding.

I have had this advent calendar since I was a kid. You add all the Christmas-y characters in the days leading up until Christmas and the last one is Santa.

 Our mantle is one of my favorites... we have all our stockings including one for Rylie this year. On top is parts of the Christmas village I got from my grandparents. The had this village under their tree for years and I was so happy that they let me have some of it for my own family.

 A close up on some of my favorite parts of the village.

 Our tree.... during the daytime.

And a shot from when we decorated it. Our star didn't light up this year but we'll get a new one next year.

 Our nativity set. It was a wedding gift to us and a big tradition in our family.

 Outside we put a poinsetta for a little color but we had to make sure the Dup couldn't get near it.

And our wreath. I made this last year in Alexandria and it is a little rough looking. Maybe next year I will get better at the crafty thing and make a better one.

And of course our lights at night. My husband did an amazing job putting these up for us. I will be sad when they aren't up and on anymore!

Christmas 2012

Every year Ryan and I rotate holidays with our families, we do one family for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas. As we spent Thanksgiving in South Carolina we went out to western North Carolina to visit my family for Christmas. For the first time we hit some traffic on I-40 driving west but it was rush hour near Raleigh and Durham so we should have known better! Even this rush hour was nothing compared to traffic in DC so we didn't mind too much.

When we got up to the mountains on Friday night it was cold! We left the coast and it was in the 60s, by that night it got down to 19 degrees and there was some leftover snow dusting the ground. Brrrrrrr. We unpacked our huge bag of presents and suitcases and settled down for a nice dinner with my family.

The next few days were relaxing and exciting as we waited for Christmas to hit. Ryan went running with my brother Stefan almost every day trying to build up his endurance with the altitude and Mom and I kept going into town for last minute Christmas surprises and stocking stuffers!

Lake Junaluska looked gorgeous with wreaths and candles. It was actually warmer this day, but still cold.

 In downtown Waynesville! Gateway to the Smokies.

 We had dinner at JRs one night and they had a gorgeous 40 foot tall Christmas tree.

 We also had some wonderful rainbows during the weekend. This is the view from my parents' deck.

 Driving back up the mountain later we saw this at the bottom.

We had some nice relaxing down time too. Ryan and the Dup had some fun....

 And Stefan stole my phone and took about thirty pictures...

 Rylie of course went running in the backyard and swimming in the stream regardless of the cold. The first time she jumped in was hysterical because she was not expecting the cold! But she gave up that worry quick enough and was digging up rocks and sticks to play fetch with us.

And then it was finally Christmas! Be ready for more of a massive photo bomb... sorry!

 Dad and Ramon staking their spots for the snacks!

 Chips, hummus, dip, crackers, olives, peppers and smoked trout with sour creme onions and capers! YUM

 Fettucini galore! There were six of us and we still had left overs. Crazy.

 Its an Italian tradition to burn a noodle in rememberance of those family members no longer with us.

 Our Christmas Even dinner set up. My mom wanted to start a new tradition and got us British crackers.

 The pups! Rylie was such an instigator and kept bugging Dippy.

 We all wore our paper crowns for the meal. We also got jokes, shoe horns, zipper pulls and large paper clips!

 My mom got a lobster bake on groupon for all the adults! YUM. Lobster tail, corn, scallops, shrimp, mussels and crab claws. The boys wouldn't touch it so they had calzones. Italian and Polish tradition calls for a meatless Christmas Eve so with the bake and the pasta with my dad's mushroom sauce we had a darn good meatless dinner!

 We wore our finest for Christmas Eve mass. Sad this was blurry but Ryan does not have the patience for multiple pictures on a camera.

 The love of my life... he looks so dashing in his suit!

 Siblings! I cannot believe he is taller than me. Sigh.

 Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

 The Dup in her Christmas Collar.

 Family picture!

 Christmas morning means watching A Christmas Story over and over again.

 Look at all those presents!

 And stockings are a big thing in our family!

 My mom knows me too well, this was my wrapping paper this year.

I got an Eli Manning jersey, Uggs, a gorgeous signed Biltmore drawing (with our wedding date, names and song), a Kate Spade giraffe bag and a gorgeous crystal giraffe. I love giraffes!!!!

 Ryan said he purposely wrapped this ugly. 550 cord included. Oh boy....

 Mom got a shotgun... you put a Jersey girl in the South and she sure does acclimate!

 Daddy opening Rylie's stocking with her.

 Post breakfast casserole coma with presents. Ryan got a fishing pole too.

 The Dup couldn't handle the excitement and passed out.

 Our yummy dinner.... beef wellington with mushrooms or horseradish, caeser salad, and stuffed baked potatoes. Oh yum.

 We wore the crowns again.

 Dessert was a ton of cookies and summer berry trifle.

Rylie loves to cuddle with Uncle Stefan.

Aaaaand that's it! We left early the day after Christmas and unpacked everything. Now we have to undecorate. I do love this time of year, it is a bit of a let down when it is over! I hope you had a Happy Holidays and enjoyed time with family and friends.