What is up party people!
I am currently on a plane in Premium Economy flying back from Amsterdam. Greg and I and our friend Kristie have been traveling for the past three weeks on the ultimate Christmas Market vacation.
We started in Hamburg where we visited the Miniatur Wunderland museum (one of Greg’s bucket list places to see in person) and saw the new German production of Hercules! Hamburg Christmas markets were plentiful and each oozed with charm and delicious food; specifically the wood plank pitfire grilled salmon and the pasta tossed in a wheel of cheese. From Hamburg, we did a day trip out to Lubeck to visit their charming Christmas market and then set out for Berlin. It was nice to see Berlin again with its diversity and big city vibes. The Christmas markets were less charming, but had a different kind of excitement. Our next stop was Dresden which is known for their markets and they did not disappoint. At this point, it was right before Christmas so the small town was packed. Their main market turned out to be the best one on our trip. We rounded out our European adventure with a stop in Prague (which was very busy on Christmas and Christmas Eve) and the Netherlands (where we stayed in Amsterdam but did day trips to Alkmaar, Haarlem, Delft, and The Hague).
But aside from my current location thousands of feet in the air, you might be asking why I’ve come out from hibernation to blog today. After all, my last blog post was three years ago.
I’m basically only updating this thing when I have some sort of life event and in 2024 Greg and I finally bought a house! We started our search before the COVID-19 pandemic and had to weather some crazy low interest rate markets where we basically had no shot. And after getting very serious about our search earlier this year and spending every weekend looking at open houses, we finally had an offer accepted and closed this year! It was a stressful move and we had a lot of upfront fixes (mainly the roof), but we did it! And we are very happy with our neighborhood and our friendly neighbors.
Not all good news this year though. Aside from a depressing as hell election, we lost our Grandpa K this year. He had succumbed to COVID pneumonia so it was particularly difficult to be with him in the hospital as he left us, but the whole family was around him either bedside, in waiting room, or virtually. We will miss him dearly.
Some other brief updates. I was a people manager for a couple months before a reorg took my team away. London turned eight years old. We went to Disney World and Universal Florida with the nieces and had an incredible time riding Velocicoaster, Hagrid’s Motor Bike Adventure, and Cosmic Rewind. We went on a short Princess cruise to Mexico with mom, dad, Tim, and Greg’s mom. We celebrated our good friend Jason’s 50th birthday in Puerto Vallarta. And I saw S Club live in concert in DTLA which had been a dream of mine since college.
So overall a year of ups and downs and getting ready for an upcoming shitstorm four years. But I plan on tuning out the garbage, excising the trash people from my life, and focusing on me and my family and friends.
Joining the mile high club (which means blogging from an airplane, right??),
Ricky
