I always say I am going to start this blog post in January and add to it as the year goes, so all the memories and details are fresh... and then; of course, I don't do that! However, so much of this year still feels really vivid in my mind and so that shouldn't be a problem for this year!
Without further ado - let's look back at 2024 and all it held - because it has been a doozy of a year for sure - and I don't mean that in a bad way, ha-ha!
January - I know the woman in that picture looks happy go lucky and just fine and dandy, but January was a struggle for me! I have never experienced true anxiety but the end of 2023 and the start of 2024 really threw me for a loop - the pressures of the job I was in overflowed to the point that my anxiety was causing physical illness and I ended up at the emergency room not once, but three times! It's never ideal to ring in the New Year sitting in the ER - but that's how 2024 started for Ryan and I. The anxiety I was dealing with caused me to have severe chest pains, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack - and that is not fun.
My last day at the job I had held for almost nine year; a place I saw a future, was on January 10th. The Lord always takes care of His children and I had interviews lined up and ended up with a job offer that I accepted on January 12th - with a start date of February 5th. I spent the rest of January trying to get my anxiety in check and heal myself... that included reading lots of books, doing puzzles with my parents and even taking up Legos! My Mom and I went to see Frozen at the Kennedy Center and Ryan and I went snow tubing at Bryce Resort. It was a good month - but not an easy month!
February - I started a new job! That's definitely not something I thought I'd be saying in the same year I turned forty, but life usually doesn't go the way you think it will! I started my new job with the City of Winchester on February 5th and entered a literal whole new world... the world of social services! Most of my day to day was once again taking up with being a member of the work force and it was nice to have that routine again.
Ryan and I were able to spend a weekend in Gordonsville, Virginia for Valentine's Day and had a great time just poking around the area. We got some more snow (I even got a snow day from work) and celebrated my new job, a new path in life and looking toward the future without anxiety. I also attended a homesteaders group with my Mom and learned all about living clean and healthy - something I'd love to do more of in the future!
March - Spring slowly but surely started arriving in March and it was so welcome! Those warmer temperatures are always welcome after Winter, aren't they? We are creatures who want our warm weather when it's cold and want our cooler weather when it's hot... ha-ha! With the weather changing, we were able to get outside again more to do things like hiking - which we both love!
We also made a trip into DC and visited the US Army Museum, which was new to us all and a fascinating place to peruse! We popped over to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossom on a very blustery day; they were beautiful in spite of the gray skies and whipping winds! We celebrated Easter at the end of March and enjoyed wonderful time at the Arboretum in the Spring sunshine!
April - This month was full of wonderful things; time spent with friends, warmer weather, starting to feel more at home in my new job. It was a great month! Ryan joined the church softball team and we had a unique date night when we tried out Hot Pot for the first time, complete with delicious Boba Tea!
We both experienced the solar eclipse and enjoyed the gorgeous Spring sunshine and warming weather! I managed to lock myself out of my parent's house and discovered that I was never meant for a life of crime because I couldn't get in to save my life! I became a regular singing with the praise team at church and enjoyed attending a women's conference with my dear friend Meridith.
May - A month filled with life changes! Ryan and I bought a home and got to enjoy the process of watching it being built from the ground up; it was such a blessing in a year filled with blessings and we began counting down the days until we moved into our home! Our weekends were filled with a weekly visit to check on our house progress!
We celebrated Mother's Day, attended a Nationals game and also went to see an exhibit about Ancient Egypt and King Tut's tomb, which I was absolutely fascinated by! Our kittens were born at the end of April and we decided to adopt them in May; we chose the two we wanted and loved getting pictures of them as they grew and we enjoyed our Memorial Day holiday at the end of the month!
June - Oh my goodness what a wonderful month! Ryan and I were able to start the month with a weekend in the Shenandoah National Park because Ryan won a raffle at his office! How exciting! We got in almost six miles of hiking, saw some incredible sunsets and had some really wonderful meals - it was an excellent way to start the month!
We also had our first dinner in our house - walls were up, and so we sat in the living room and had a pizza, ha-ha! We got to meet our kittens, visited Great Falls Park, celebrated Father's Day and all in all, just had a wonderful month!
July - Another wonderful month! We celebrated the Fourth of July and made a trip to Fredericksburg to celebrate sweet Millie's first birthday; she & Ryan became best friends! We also spent a weekend in Hershey, PA - Ryan's office took everyone to Hershey Park and we were also able to visit with Lapp family while we were there!
I got even more involved in work and Ryan's mom visited for a couple days; we spent one day tubing down the Shenandoah River and just visiting with her. Our house got closer and closer to being completed and we were able to plan the weekend we were going to move in!
August - The month that we moved into our new home! Yahoo! We did some stuff before then, ha-ha - but honestly, that was the biggest part of the month of August! We went to DC and we were blessed to see Brandon Lake and Phil Wickham in concert - the most wonderful and worshipful concert!
We moved into our house the second weekend of August and spent the rest of the month getting our house organized, and getting to know our kittens Loki and Spook! We got our house pretty much organized, learned that Cat TV is a huge deal and rounded out the month packing our bags and heading across the ocean to Norway!
September - Oh my goodness, September started in Norway - what's not to love about that? We saw Geiranger, Bergen, Oslo, and more and we managed to cram quite a lot into a week. Norway was easily one of the most stunning places I have ever been and even though the return home was a nightmare, I'd happily go again in a heartbeat!
The rest of the month was filled with playing with our precious kittens, getting even more settled into our new homes and attending the Lavish Women's Conference at church. It was a month full to the brim with goodness!
October - Oh October; the month I turned forty! Yikes! Ryan and I spent a wonderful weekend in the Lancaster area to celebrate my birthday; we went to the Green Dragon Market, went outlet shopping, took in the show Hairspray at the Dutch Apple Dinner Theater and got to catch up with friends and family in the area.
We got family pictures made later in the month, continued to get to know our kittens and get settled in our home and we carved some pumpkins for our front stoop! We started attending a new church in Martinsburg and began to find our footing within the church family. When Halloween came around, we even got quite the little group of trick or treaters!
November - What a month it was; filled with sadness and joy together... as life tends to be. We unfortunately found out that our Loki had a heart defect that caused his life to be terribly short; we said good-bye to him on November 19th and it was a much harder goodbye than I'd anticipated! The little guy took up so much of my heart in the short time we had him!
The joy(s) of the month were Ryan and I getting baptized together on November 17th at our new church, hosting Thanksgiving at our new home and adopting a new friend for Spook - Maverick came home with us on Saturday the 23rd of November, and while they weren't immediate friends, within forty-eight hours, they were thick as thieves!
December - The final month of the year! I feel like it got here with breakneck speed... time flies faster every year! I attended a wonderful Lavish Tea with my Mom early in the month and Ryan and I enjoyed his office party mid-month, while also enjoying our silly kittens and their antics with the Christmas tree, wrapping paper and all the other things that come along with Christmas!
We attended the DC Holiday Market and a wonderful performance at the Bible Museum and then the week of Christmas arrived! My sister and her BF James were in town and between Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and numerous activities that followed, we crammed in quite a bit of time together. Ryan turned 39 on December 26th - a bit closer to forty but still younger than me, ha-ha!
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Another year in the books - I cannot believe I am already trying to remember to write "2025" on everything as this new year kicks off. 2024 was a good year for the Lapp Family and we are looking forward to what 2025 will hold.
