2009 in Pictures...What a Wonderful Year!

Where did this year go?!  2009 seems to have come and gone in the blink of an eye!  As the year comes to an end, I have been thinking about the things that has happened this year…

After months of searching, I began my career as a Market Analyst in Investor Relations at an incredible managed care organization that provides health insurance to low-income families/persons.  I work with some of the smartest people and have a ton of responsibility, especially for someone just out of college (I graduated in 2008).

I celebrated my Grammie’s 90th birthday on the Queen Mary in Feb, and she is still going strong and approaching her 91st!

Went to Texas for the first time ever with our best friends!  I rode a bull!

My bf and I celebrated two years together in March!

My big brother got married in April!

My cousin had a baby boy in May!

I got a new car!  2010 Honda Insight!  Bye bye red bug.

I turned 23 and celebrated with my family and friends in June :)

The Lakers became the 2009 NBA Champs!

I met Dexter!

Went to see my boys play some baseball with my Dad, bro, and bf several times!

Then in Dec, my boyfriend and I had the most incredible trip visiting my old college roommates in New York.  NY at Christmas time is my favorite...the Tree at Rockefeller, the decorations all over the city, Central Park, the window displays down 5th...everything is magical, especially when you get to see the first snowfall of the year (which we did!) :)  Here's us in Central Park:

Meeting up with my old roomies in NY.  I lived with ALL these girls (plus Liz who is not in the picture) for ALL 4 years of college!  They are family <3

And Sean and I took my good friend Kelly to her first hockey game!  GO DUCKS!  (Thank you Sean for my fabulous pink and white Ducks jersey too!)

I also was asked to sit on a Board of Trustees for an independent school as the first alumnus to serve on the Board.  I am also Co-Chair of a fabulous Gala that will be held in May of 2010 for Nordstrom of Cerritos’s grand opening (they are closing the current store and re-building a new store with 20K more square feet!).  Nordstrom has partnered with the Long Beach Museum of Art, and the art director asked me to co-chair this event!  Proceeds from this event will go to LBMA which is fantastic because with all the budget cuts of California, the arts and education are getting hit the hardest.

Working 50-60 hours a week, serving as a Board member, co-chairing an 800-person Gala…wow, putting that in writing is shocking even for me to see!  This has to take a lot of time right?!  Yet I never feel overwhelmed (at least not usually haha).  I really enjoy everything I do and I am so blessed for this. I worked my bum off in school and I’m now doing exactly what I wanted regarding work, while serving my community as I have done my whole life growing up in Long Beach.  I have to hand it to my mother though…she is probably the most involved person I have ever met to this community.  She is an incredible mentor, in all aspects of my life – work, volunteering, personal, everything.

Anyways, in addition to my career and volunteering, I started to run this year!  In high school I played soccer but never wanted to run cross-country.  Anything over distances of 2-3 miles was daunting, painful, and just not fun for me. The past few years, however, I’ve always thought about what it would be like to be a runner.  Reading “Runner’s World” magazine I always thought to myself, “I want to do this.  I want to run a half-marathon!”  This thought was in my mind for a very long time until this year.  Thank you 2009 for being the year I decide to actually become a runner!  At the end of summer I went online and found a very simple 10 week Walk-to-Run training plan.  Now, months later, I am training for my first half-marathon which is only six weeks away!  Six months ago I couldn’t run outside on the pavement/asphalt for longer than 5 minutes without feeling exhausted.  Now I’m going to run 13.1 miles!  In the words of Bruce Springsteen “baby we were born to run.”

To sum up the year on the running front, in 2009 I ran my first 5K with my bro and cousins (baby bro won a pie):

my second 5K (in a velvet Santa outfit no less):

signed up for a 10K (January 2010), and signed up for a half-marathon (February 2010)!

I am so thankful for my ability to run.
I also saw some pretty sweet concerts including Ace Enders at the Troubadour in March:

saw The Get Up Kids in Las Vegas for their reunion tour in September:

saw Imogen Heap in November at the Music Box, and....

CHRIS CARRABBA (Dashboard Confessional) acoustic at the Glass House in Nov!!!

This year has given me so many blessings.  I did lose my doggie, Amanda, at the beginning of the year, which was so sad.  I know it’s not a person, but she was in our family for a long and healthy 16 and a half years!  She was a basset hound, and bassets live to be between 9 and 11 years…Amanda was 16!!!!!  The oldest basset hound on record was from England and was 16 years and 6 months old.  Amanda was the second oldest at 16 years and 4 months, just two months shy of being the oldest basset hound ever!  She was a goofball and a sweetheart, and I miss her all the time.

I’m so thankful that I’m alive to experience all that I have.  I’m thankful for my wonderful family, my fantastic boyfriend (who really is part of the family), my friends, my kitties, my career, my health, my ability to run, laughter, my house and the beautiful city I have grown up in and still live in, and so much more.  I am blessed.  Life is great and I couldn’t be happier.

2009 was an incredible year for me.  I can’t wait to see what 2010 has in store!!!!