2014 has been LOONG!! Gruelingly long. Many days have been lovely, and many days have been hard. Pat and I have had long work days, long travel, long workouts, long fights – with each other and everyone else. We’ve pushed each other to the brink, hoping we’d be better for it. We’ve pushed our friends and family, and we’ve been pushed in return.

We can’t count how many people have told us “no,” and we’ve attempted to turn every “no” into a “yes” with mixed results. 2014 was a fight, and we ended the year tired. But we’ve also had a ton of fun, plenty of personal growth in addition to family and career surprises and success. We know that 2015 is only going to take more out of us and give us even more in return. We are so thankful.

This Christmas/New Year break, we were all set to go to Florida to visit our family when the dreaded H1-N1 flu or whatever it’s called knocked Pat out. Thank goodness I didn’t catch it!! With a 103.5 degree fever at its worst, Pat didn’t leave the bed, let alone the house for 5.5 days. If you know Pat, you know he was horribly sick. Christmas and Dec 26, our 12th anniversary (yes, 12yrs of bliss) were ruined. We spent both days drinking tea and soup and soup and tea.

But on Sunday, Pat ventured out of bed and the house and next thing you know, we were in Cancun, Mexico for a few days. We welcomed the opportunity to feel the warm sun on our skin and spent days lazily.

The view from our hotel was something like a seaside Spanish/Moorish villa if that makes sense. (The food was disgusting though. We can’t co-sign on the food at GR Caribe Deluxe by Solaris. But the place was bucolic.)

I didn’t check a single email or even say the word “Internet,” and Pat, himself, did next to nothing. We walked and talked. We took the bus a lot. This particular bus was anointed by Jesus Christ and Che.

Visited Tulum because a girl loves a ruin and made our own TreatTrek slambook. (Note, we could each make a separate slambook for places we’ve seen individually.)

(Give you a dollar if you can find the two women on the building giving birth)

Name all the ancient ruins visited – Acropolis; Coliseum/Roman Forum and all the ancient Roman stuff; Ostia Antica; Ayuthaya, Thailand; Tulum; and then it got sticky because we’ve seen a lot of really old places that are probably not ancient.

Fave tour – I voted for Elvis’ estate

Hottest place visited – Bahamas, and I have the burns to prove it

Worst food – a hole-in-the-wall cafeteria in Puerto Rico. We will not name it.

Best food – GHANA – red red!! And Rome and Lisbon, the entire two cities

Best ice cream – Santini’s in Lisbon

Best road trip – our first road trip to Montpelier, VT; our drive from Philly to Ohio for the Canty’s wedding. We fell in love with Jeni’s ice cream; our crazy drive to see a UCONN vs Gtown game that ended in Quebec City, and I was blindfolded the whole way.

NYE, Pat chose a restaurant called La Habichuela Sunset.

The food was quite delicious, by far better than the trash we’d eaten most of the trip. We just may not have gotten lucky, but Cancun did not present us with delicious food. I actually begged for McD’s at one point. (We did not eat there.) Back to Habichuela.

We did not have a reservation, but Pat was able to talk us into a table as long as we left within 90mins – more than enough time! Score!! I had a chicken mole and Pat had a fish and lobster dish. There were people dressed in Mayan warrior-looking clothes. It was way too kitch. But then, the host pulled a little charm around my neck and said it was the Mayan god of love. He wished us love for the new year, and we thought the gesture was sweet.

Then we brought in 2015 twice. Once for EST and then an hour later with the rest of Cancun. I think this might be the last time I ask to go dancing for NYE … quite possibly. I’ve done it, and now it’s done. Happy 2015 and beyond! We woke up as the sun rose on Jan 1 and felt pretty good.