Que sera, Sarah

You know how some years are absolutely fantastic, others are flat-out wretched, and in between are the years that are just… “meh”? 2013 was like that for me, for the most part. Neither good nor bad, but also not especially memorable.

I was glad, then, to see that Carole’s prompt for this week was to share 10 favorite moments from the past year, which I did by going through my (highly disorganized) 2013 picture files. It turns out I had more fun than I’d remembered. Last year was, actually, pretty good once I gave it a bit of thought — I could easily have pulled out twice as many moments!

In no particular order, except number one, here are 10 of my favorite moments from 2013:

1. I found out I was going to be an aunt again. (Yay!) And then the rest of the family found out this way:

2. My friends and I spent a week in a beach house that looked like this:

And had sunrises so nice even I got up to see them:

3. I took the best silly selfie with my nephew G:

4. And captured Carly and Harper mid-catfight… As Carly jumped out of a Popeyes bag for a sneak attack.

(This still cracks me up every time I look at it, so while it may not have been the biggest moment of 2013, it is one of the funniest.)

5. In the same week, I had two amazing work events, one where I got to shake the First Lady’s hand and another where meet Gloria Estefan:

6. As part of a tweet-up run by my friend Liz, I got to help restore a grave at Congressional Cemetery:

7. The siblings were with their in-law families this year, so Mom and I had a low-key spa Christmas at the Hotel Hershey:

8. In August, Eileen, Shannon, and I had a great trip to the races at Saratoga — and Brooks’ House of Bar-B-Q on the way home. (Even though Oneonta is, in fact, 60 miles in the wrong direction for Shannon.)

9. Joanne and I (and Joanne’s kids) got to introduce Shannon’s daughter Maggie to DC, though the government shutdown made things a little harder than they needed to be:

(The shutdown did, however, provide an ongoing theme for our photos — sad children at closed places.)

10. John and Nicole joined sprite, Rudi, and I on our annual apple-picking odyssey:

And now it’s your turn! Share your favorite moments of 2013 in the comments.