1. Warrior Dash.

Over the summer of this year I lost ten pounds, weaseled my way into the best shape of my life and then, as a capstone exercise in bad-assery, I rocked a Warrior Dash, running three and a half miles through mud, over obstacles and hills and even through a bit of the James River.  The rush of adrenaline and glee reminded me of racing through obstacles in basic training way back in the Before Times and then, at the end, I jumped over a pit of fire and flopped into a mud pit and felt more alive than I have in a long, long time. I left addicted, craving another race, craving more physical challenges to use as prompts to push myself further and harder. Never had I wanted to run a half marathon or an 8 or 10 mile obstacle race, but then, in the blissful, farm-smelling glee of my Warrior Dash success, I wanted more. More finish lines to cross, more adventures to have, more mud to splash through, MORE, MORE, MORE.

2. Bloggers in Sin City.

Before going to Vegas for #BiSC, I’d rolled my eyes approximately 489 times over all the mushy love stuff bloggers waxed in previous years about the “life-changing” wonder they’d experienced in Vegas. And then I went to #BiSC and my life and I suddenly got it. It was a scary, crazy experience to jump into, but I’ll forever be glad I did it. The friendships I made over those few days in Vegas have evolved into real life relationships that I couldn’t be more thankful for and that couldn’t have come at a better time in my life. I had hoped to come away with a working knowledge of  and a friendly relationship with a handful of the bloggers I read on a regular basis and instead I left the place with a wealth of amazing friendships that continue to evolve and play major roles in my everyday life.

3. Joss Van Dyke.

On our anniversary cruise back in January we went to this beautiful beach, called Joss Van Dyke, in the Virgin Islands. It was the most beautiful place I’d ever been – turquoise waters, perfect palm trees, and water so perfectly warm I wanted to spend forever in it. It was the perfect place to celebrate our relationship, to marvel at how far we’d come, literally and figuratively, as a couple in the three years since getting married in Vegas. There was a magic there, a free-spirited awe that doused us in that perfect vacation feeling.

4. Chicago [1.2.3].

We almost always love the cities we travel too, but it’s rare that we fall in love with one so much that we actually discuss the possibility of moving there someday. But Chicago was that city, that city that made us think, for more than a few minutes, what it would be like to uproot ourselves and move to a big city. And not only that, but so much happened there, from a mini-#BiSC reunion, to days packed with adventure to a bridesmaid request from Caryn, a ladywho’s quickly becoming one of my very best friends. There was a point, on a cruise-tour in the Chicago River, where my eyes filled with tears because I was overcome with happiness, overcome with spending an amazing day with Caryn and Andrew, two people who mean the absolute world to me. Chicago was an epic adventure and a perfect look at what could someday be a place we call home.

5. Self & Society. I took this class back in the Spring and it was the most life-changing and eye-opening class of my college career. I’m real close to the end of my undergraduate adventure, close enough to have my stomach do flips and flops on a near daily basis, and this class, which I still think about all the time, was the class I spent the bulk of my time as an undergraduate waiting for. It was the Big One. It was the class that I can and will look to in the future as a point of enlightenment in my college career, as the point where my educational experience finally shook me awake and asked me to think harder, better and more often, asked me to question everything and even inspired me to generate a manifesto to decide, once and for all, how I want this life of mine to work out.