2014 Retrospect

I try and do a retrospect of my year (at least via my blog) every year. Here is 2014. This was a rough year for me and for my family. We had a lot of things go wrong, dear family members passed away, relationships faltered and regained footing, accidents happened, illnesses... definitely not one of my better years. I am severely depending on 2015 to be better than this!

Past retrospects:
2013
2012
2011
2010

January

We spent our New Year's Eve in Morehead City at the Crystal Coast Countdown. New Year's Day was spent watching the Capital One Bowl.

I started working out again, this time weightlifting. Also didn't last.

Then we booked our AMAZING trip around the Mediterranean. I spent many later entries blogging about it afterwards, but the trip itself was in January. It was fantastic but...

The week we returned my beautiful Aunt Joan lost her battle with cancer. Our family was devastated.

 

February

I was still reeling from my Aunt's passing and as soon as I returned to North Carolina I started rehearsals for a show at the community theatre. I honestly didn't blog the entire month save for one give away. Probably the least amount of blogging I did since I began this thing five years ago.

 

March

I spent most of March blogging about our Trip from January.

Getting There and Pisa, Italy, Florence, Italy, Monaco, Toulon France, Barcelona, Spain, Valencia, Spain, Mallorca, Spain, At Sea and Tunisia, Africa, Palermo, Sicily Italy, Naples and Pompei Italy

I was cast in a production of A Doll's House that performed in March and April.

April

I blogged about acting and the show again.
I realized how badly I was slacking on my blog and talked about it. Plus I made Pisanki.
And I worked Easter Sunday. Which kind of stunk.

May

Ryan and I celebrated our Fourth Wedding Anniversary.
We had tickets to see Lady Antebellum in Raleigh, our first country concert!
I acknowledged how awesome all the mothers in my life are, especially my mom, for Mother's Day.
Ryan and I took a trip to Duplin Winery to celebrate our anniversary.
I attended the Paraprofessional Library Conference
And my BEST FRIEND in the whole world GOT MARRIED and I got to be a bridesmaid for the first time! Plus Ryan and I had a day to play in NYC and see a Broadway show together for the first time.

 

 

 

June

 

I blogged about being frustrated.

Then, a first for me, I angrily posted about a current event... I never do that!

Hurry up and wait strikes again. The Career Planner didn't submit my husband's SDA package (it sat on his desk for two weeks) so my husband had to come up with a Plan B.
 I had my first major sickness of the year and ended up in the ER... they thought I had meningitis but luckily that was not the case.
Plus we went fishing. And had lots of Stormy Weather days.
And Josh Groban answered me on Facebook, completing my life.


July

We had my sister in law Hannah here and spent the 4th of July with friends.
Ryan asked me out for a special Date Night.
I made some Observations stemming from my job.

August

 I mention my lack of blogging again, a theme for this year.
I was shattered when my childhood icon and favorite actor Robin Williams passed away.
I QUIT SMOKING. Finally.
Then Ryan and I got into a serious accident in our truck. We were lucky to walk away with cuts and bruises but our truck was totalled. We went to the ER to get checked out to be sure we were ok, my second trip this year.


September

I turned 27.
 Ryan and I had a "redo" of our Labor Day Weekend, what we would have done originally had the accident not happened. First he had a goodbye dinner with his shop since his SDA was finally approved and then we started our time together at Battleship North Carolina.
Then we did Hungry Town Bike Tours and Fort Macon.


October

I officially mention Ryan starting his SDA and we attend Oktoberfest.
 Then I got really sick. Sick enough I was out of work and rehearsals for about a week. ER trip number three as well as Urgent Care and my regular doctor.
The Dup turned 3!
I was in another show, Dracula, over Halloween weekend playing Lady Van Helsing.


November

The Marine Corps turns 239.
I finally got some answers as to why I was so sick. My gallbladder basically stopped working.
Ryan and I spent some much needed time together.
We attend the Birthday Ball for SOI in Wilmington.
I blog about being Thankful, regardless of the rough year.
We spend Thanksgiving in South Carolina with both of our families.




December

My childhood dog Dippy crossed the Rainbow Bridge at 13 and a half years old.
I shared our Christmas Decorations.
Ryan graduates SOI Instructor School.
My surgery gets scheduled for January 28th, 2015... adios gallbladder and nausea!
We spend a cozy Christmas at home together.
And for New Year's we plan on visiting my family in the mountains. I will probably blog about that in the New Year.

I hope you all had a fabulous 2014. Our was a little rough, one of our roughest, but there were still some great high points. I don't blog about everything, most of the good and bad made it here, but some things do not need to be shared with the internet. I know many bloggers braver than I who do share everything, but I am not able to do that. Know things are getting better and I am optimistic for the year ahead. I hope 2015 strengthens my relationships, my faith and gives us more ups than downs. I know Ryan's work schedule will be absolutely INSANE but I hope I use that time constructively too. I hope I am happy. I hope when I do my 2015 retrospective I make you all positively nauseous with how amazing the year is.

 

Happy New Year everyone. Once again, thanks for sticking with me through another year.

 

Europe - At Sea and Tunisia, Africa

Day 9 - A Day at Sea

 

Our day at sea was rather uneventful for the most part. Honestly, we slept through most of it. When you have an interior room on a ship it is pitch black so it feels like the middle of the night even during the middle of the day. So after going to bed at about 5 am (for me, Ryan made it until almost 7am) it was no surprise that we slept until 3pm! We were even lazier after that and proceeded to order room service and stay in our room watching movies on the English movie channel until we had to get ready for the evening. The day at sea on Norwegian cruise lines is traditionally a formal night, but it isn't mandatory. They even call it "Dress Up (Or Not) Night" but how often does a girl get to wear a formal cocktail dress? Not often enough! So we showered and I tried to put my hair up in a simple sort of french twist (it kind of worked?) and put on a LBD I've had in my closet for forever!

 

We did decide to get some formal pictuers done and a lot of them turned out really nice, but the prints were expensive so we just got the one above. Yes that is a picture of our picture. Our friend Kristii took the one below on my iphone in the cigar bar and I like that one as well!

We all ate some dinner at Alizar where I had some delicious marscapone stuffed shells and managed not to get any on my dress! Then we all went up to the Spinnaker Lounge where they had the Ultimate Dance Party. We weren't out too late since the next day it was back to business and to be honest, we were still partied out from the night before!

 

Day 10 - La Goulette, Tunisia

 

I had mixed feelings about our stop in Tunisia. I was super excited because I would be able to check Africa off my visited continents list, I was nervous because it was not the best country for us to be in, they just had a revolution of sorts in the fall and being near Libya and Egypt it isn't the best part of the world at the moment. Ryan was briefed very carefully on this part of our trip and thusly I was too. Ryan grew out his hair and beard the entire trip for this stop alone. We wore no jewelry, not even wedding rings, and dressed in jeans, sneakers and sweaters. We carried no cash whatsoever, no camera except a disposable (*NOTE: Develop that thing!) and tried our best not to stand out.

 

Ultimate highlight, we rode a camel for five Euros near the ship, you can watch it here: Camel Ride Video

 

We did the buffet for breakfast before getting off the ship. It was super windy but not too cold. At the port the had a fake village set up that was supposedly very safe and secure so a lot of people (that didn't do shore excursions elsewhere) just decided to go there and look around. Ryan and I wanted to get on the bus and go to the actual city of La Goulette. Taking the bus it was about half an hour to the marketplace where we were supposed to go. A lot of people through the main city were shooting dirty looks at our bus for even being there and Ryan eventually told me to put my hood up and stop looking out the window. I did.

 

Eventually we got to the marketplace stop and got off the bus. We were near a large square and the market was down off to the side. The market place really was something else. Small, dark and cramped with shops lining the street in both directions. If I reached my arms out I could probably reach the stalls on either side. I held Ryan's hand pretty tightly and I could tell he was in super observant Marine mode. There were kids running around and shopkeepers yelling, incense burning as some men skinned a sheep in the middle of the street (literally blood running down the cobblestones to the sewer drain) and tons of people. The shops were neat to look at, scarves and spices and oil and artwork. Sensory overload.

 

As we strolled I suddenly felt someone grab my wrist and yank me backwards. Like I said, I was holding Ryan's hand pretty tightly, so he naturally came with me. The guy started talking about perfumed oils and having me try them and I politely tried to decline while tried to pull my hand back. He ended up pouring oil on my hand (and it did smell lovely) but we repeated "No Euro" until he let me go. Needless to say I was a little freaked out. But we walked through the market place some more before turning around to head back. Perfumed oil man spotted us again and stepped in between my husband and I and tried to pull us apart so we weren't holding hands anymore. Ryan swiftly reached his hand up under the guy's arm and triggered a pressure point until the man let us both go. Thank you Marine Corps for such handy tricks. After that I was done with the market place.

 

We wandered the plaza a bit after and I took some pictures carefully with my phone, but to be honest most of them I took from the bus. I will one day take my disposable camera in to get developed but you get the idea of La Goulette from the pictures below.

 

This was the plaza our bus parked near and we walked around for a bit. We were high up so we had some interesting views of the surrounding city as well.

Ryan said to be honest it reminded him a lot of Iraq in many ways. There was garbage piled everywhere with goats and sheep grazing wherever they could.

We took the bus back to the fake village and decided to eat lunch there. Kristii and Debbie met up with us and the first thing we did was ride the camel! The video is linked above.

I was super excited to ride the camel (mean hissing thing it was!) and it was such an incredible, unique experience. What a weird feeling too! Lots of swaying, especially getting up and down!

My husband hissing back at the camel. I am serious. You can also see our ship in the background.

After the camel ride we went in to the one restaurant in the fake village to eat lunch and it was pretty good. We had black tea with orange that was so sweet and delicious plus chicken, sauces, salad, fries and bread. Very good!

Once we ate we decided to go shopping in the market place. We got some of the black tea we had at lunch for 97 euro cents (since it was all the change we had even though it cost 1 euro she sold it to us), two scarves (one was for me and one for our friend Kristii who paid us back) that were 5 euros each for 7.50 total, and a 40 euro painting for 12 euros... they love to haggle and my husband does as well. He was really good at it as you can see!

After that we fought our way back to the ship... literally. The wind was blowing so hard by this point we had to severely lean in! We laid around in our room for a bit and watched the Smurfs 2 and just relaxed until dinner. That night was the "White Hot Party" where the lounge becomes black light lit and you're supposed to wear white and dance all night long. I had white pants and a black and white tunic and Ryan just wore his white tshirt. After the alcohol was flowing a bunch of the guys just took tablecloths off the tables (it was a lot emptier at this point!) and made togas. And yes, I am serious.

My husband and I went to a toga party back when we first met and started dating about six years ago... I never imagined the next time I'd see him in a toga would be on a cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean sea as my husband! It was a fun night.

Next up - Palermo, Sicily - Italy



You can follow along with all of the entries from our trip here!