The first day of my 29th year was amazing. Sherah and I went to Washington DC and spent the day at the zoo, shopping, chasing these giant walking gingerbread men for a pic (my idea of course), and then ice skating at the National Gallery. It was SO much fun!

I started working at Whitetail. and LOVED it. PA is so cold in the winter that everyone hibernates, but Whitetail is always full of energy and it made the winter so much better! I loved learning to snowboard and had so much fun meeting new people. It took awhile to get the hang of snowboarding especially getting off the lift. I would tend to grab onto whoever was close by and even took my friend Nic all the way to the ground with me one day! In December one of our friends died when she lost control on a snowy road. It was nice to have Whitetail to keep up my positive energy and work through the fear after her accident.

Brenda had been asking me for years to come to India with her and experience the work she has been doing there with a few orphanages and a business she is starting to support the group homes there. She had told me 3 years ago a story about her recent trip to India and how she had become friends with a begger lady who lived on a street nearby. She would bring food to her and this ladies 3 kids. They were able to bring her daughter to the home, but the next day when she went to bring the woman & the remaining 2 kids food, the woman was dead on the road and when she asked around, she found out that the father had sold the 2 boys for about $200 US dollars. After hearing this story, I knew I had to go! I settled on a date in June and started preparing to go. I flew into New Dehli first and spent a few days with Brenda, Jordan, & Leslie there. It was AMAZING to travel with Jordan and Brenda again after 10 years because we had all grown up so much plus they love to have fun as much as I do so we had a blast! One day we drove to the Taj Mahal and picked up a hare krishnian priest and picked his brain about his beliefs and then he invited us into his ashram. It was like literally 115 degrees at the Taj, but we had so much fun and Brenda even planked in front of it while all the Indian men owwed and awwed and one even exclaimed, "Oh beauty!" Then our tour guide said, "Can I tell you something? I have never seen anything like that. I am SO happy!" It was amazing!! After a few days there, we traveled to Pune where the main orphange Brenda works at is. I feel in LOVE with the kids there! They were amazing. One day I wasn't hungry, but was sitting with the kids as they ate their dinner. I was sitting next to my favorite girl Sarah and she wasn't really eatting. I kept asking her if she wasn't hungry and she kept begging me to eat. I finally realized that she wasn't eatting because she was afraid I was going to go hungry. I went and got some rice then so she would eat, but there wasn't any more eggs and she insisted on giving me half her egg. Never have I been so touched by a gift than I was by this sweet little girl with no food. The thing that struck me most was that though they had little, they had no poverty mentality. I cried the whole walk home that night! Brenda told me that night that Sarah had been the daughter of the begger woman. Brenda had tried to find the little brothers, but they were never seen again. Unfortunately this is so common and a deep passion of mine to find a way to stop this from happening to others.

In September my family all decided to go up to New Hampshire to celebrate Dan & Nova's recent marriage. I drove to Jill's and picked up Martha & Maren. We drove to Boston stopping in CT to visit our old house. We stayed the night in Boston and went into the city the next day, but it was raining like crazy so we headed to the lake. Then we spent the week with the whole family and it was an amazing time! On the way home I stopped in Boston again so I could see the sights then spent the night in New Haven to catch up with friends. The next day I spent time in NY and headed home. When I said goodbye to my fam I cried and cried and decided that if I still cry at 29 when I say goodbye to family, I probably always will and that's ok!

Over Thanksgiving, I flew to Texas to see Mammy & Pappy and meet Jessica's family. It was such a relaxing and wonderful trip and it was funny to see how little Van had changed in the 6 years since I had been there except for the huge Vandal stadium!

An Incredible 28th Year!

The day I turned 28 was a great day. I was packing and cleaning to leave for my trip and got to talk to all the people I love the most who were calling with their birthday and trip well wishes. Then Sherah came to pick me up to drive me to meet up with Ben. I was not done packing and I was still wearing my bathrobe and a winter hat as the hat was the only thing I could decide on to wear. She got me finished with my packing, picked me out an outfit and headed to DC.and we then w picked up Ben and headed to Annapolis for dinner. I LOVE Annapolis and it was such a fun night walking along the water, cat calling sailors (I can be shameless sometimes) and remembering old times. We spent the night at Ben's since he lived just about 10 minutes from the airport and early the next morning Ben drove me to the airport. It was a LONG journey to Thailand. I knew a few of my fellow travelers would already be there, but the bulk of the group wasn't coming for several more hours. Since I was flying in, the people already there came to the airport early to meet me. Luckily we had Facebook so we knew who to look for. Nick, Andrea, Megs and I spent the next few hours talking and getting to know each other. Then the rest of the group arrived and we headed for our flight to Phuket. Phuket was a dream land- every morning I would wake up, put a bikini on and a dress over it and we would head out to explore the amazing sights. The food in Thailand was incredible, the beaches were to die for and the company was incredible. Then we traveled to Kanchanaburi where we stayed in a floating hotel and played with elephants, pet tigers, relaxed on the balcony overlooking the river, and got trapped on a giant log with a crazy monkey who was trying to steal Amy's food at the most dream like waterfalls ever! Then we took a train to Siem Rep, Cambodia. It was a super long, crazy train ride and the thing I remember most was waking up and being surrounded by a bunch of sweet old ladies who were asking me if they could touch the light skin on my arms. In Cambodia we visited multiple ruins of Ankor Wat, hiked, shopped, drank amazing margarita's (Viva Forever!), got massages, visited an orphange, and took a boat ride out to a floating village and then found ourselves in the middle of a wedding where everyone was so excited that we had come. Even the bride and groom who had never met us. Also because of Facebook, I realized that my old flatmate Desirea and her husband Jonny were in the city and we met up for dinner. When it was time to come home I was so sad for the adventure to be over and I was at the airport waiting for my ride and between saddness & exhaustian, I started to bawl. This lady came up so concerned and I assured her that nothing was wrong.

While I was gone on my trip, PA had had some crazy snow storms and I was feeling alittle paniced that after several days of road plows and refreeze, I would never be able to get my car dug out of it's onstreet parking spot. To my amazement, when I arrived home, I discovered that Crissy, Ben, and Denver had come to dig it out for me (it had been in snow up to the middle of the windows) and Crissy had also put food in my fridge so that I wouldn't have to go to the store. I seriously have the best friends ever!

While I was at Jill's for Christmas the next week, Bobby contacted us about traveling to China together in April. He and Lindsay had worked at an orphange in Beijing and he thought it would be fun to take us there. Of course I signed right up. It had always been my dream to go to China to visit the Great Wall of China. I booked my tickets and then realized that Amy, Cherish, & Hank were on the same flights over. China started off with an adventurous car ride that included our cab drivers getting out of the cabs and yelling at people. We had such a fun time in China exploring the city, eatting amazing food, climbing the Great Wall and then I zip lined down from it, beer cheering, exploring remote villages, and hanging out at the orphanage.

That summer Sherah got married. She made a beautiful bride, the wedding was incredible, we danced the night away and I had tons of fun leading up to the wedding hanging out with Jacob. That summer I also had super fun visits from Megan and Jessica. Kris had also moved home so we got to see lots of him and we had not 1, but 2 pumpkin carving parties and a Christmas cookie decorating party.

The year before while watching the Macy's Day Parade, I had thought, "Someday I would like to see this live." Well Hank & Amy contacted me that fall and let me know they were staying in NYC over Thanksgiving if I wanted to come join them. I was SO exicted to see them AND to see the parade live AND to hang out in NYC again. I bought train tickets, but somehow missed the train out of Harrisburg so I waited for the next 1 feeling alittle sad that I was losing time, but decided to make the most of it. I arrived at Penn Station an hour later than planned, took the Subway to Brooklyn and at my first switch, I looked over and saw Brooke who had been on the ship with me at 14 who I had explored Chicago with by myself. I couldn't believe I was running into someone I knew after all these years in a train station in NYC when I wasn't even scheduled to be there. It was a good confirmation to relax. We talked all the way to our stops and I headed to the apartment. The next morning we got super lost when trying to get to the parade, but ended up finding an incredible station along the way with amazing mosaic artwork and we caught the last hour and a half of the parade which was amazing. We went out to pizza for Thanksgiving dinner, and went shopping. It was a great visit!

That fall I started taking a personal development class lead by the One and Only Mike Schall. I realized that though I had been working on so much personally, I still had a long ways to go with dreaming, confidence, and leading the life that I wanted. One of the things I really decided I wanted to do was learn to Snowboard so I applied at the closest ski resort. The week before my birthday I got an interview and got a job in Guest Services.